I learned something today that disturbed me. With all this researching on human trafficking, I'm going to get disturbed a lot, I think. In a 2004 report to the EU, they estimated that 4 million woman and children are trafficked within and between countries each year.

That's like half the city of LA being hauled off and exploited. Can you imagine? I think we'd really be upset if some crime organization suddenly decided to abduct LA. We'd be out there demanding action, retribution, punishment, revenge. We'd be completely enraged. We'd stand outside white, governmenty buildings chanting things like, "We demand our people back!" On the evening news questions and accusations would fly. An anchor woman would ask an expert, "So, why do you think they took half LA? What could anyone possibly want with 4 million people?"

Such a silly question.
The answer is always the same. Money.

If 4 million people were sold for one dollar each, that's 4 million dollars; but people are sold for much more. So much, in fact that the illegal sex industry turns over more money per year than the total of all military budgets in the world. That's around $5000-$7000 billion US.

My mind can't even comprehend. That's a heck of a lot of money. And that's per year, since the 4 million people can be sold and sold again. Governments want one of two things, to stop that sort of illegal money being tossed around or to get a piece of it. They do that by making the illegal things legal, like the legalization of prostitution in Germany and the Netherlands. Oh, they have all sorts of nice sounding arguments to make you think legalization is better, but don't believe it. All the data seems to be pointing to the fact that legalization actually increases human trafficking.

It's all very disturbing, so disturbing that it becomes incomprehensible and short circuits our brain. You can see it happening when someone gets that glazed look in their eye and starts saying vague things like, "Oh... that's nice. 4 million bananas... must be a lot of monkeys..." Serious problems. Numbers like these should motivate us into action, but instead they shock us into a perpetual state of numbness. For a moment our brains scream, "WHAT CAN I DO? SOMETHING MUST BE DONE" and in the face of 4 million we decide we can do nothing. Even if we helped one person, what's that compared to 4 million? It would be a failure, a waste of time.

But it's not.
And I think you know the argument.

If you don't, make one up and it'll probably be right. Try arguments along the lines of, It Could Be You, or, Something is Better than Nothing, or, Moral Obligation, or, If I stick my Head in the Sand Will the Problem Really Go Away?


(By the way, I got my numbers from the European Parliament's Committee on Woman's Rights and Equal Opportunity Draft Report January 9, 2004. If you doubt me, look it up).