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EYA commented on the article |Margaret -
I promise you these girls are raped, and that they suffer a tremendous amount of physical and psychological abuse. The fact is, they will not run away (most at least) - they are conditioned through intense abuse to be loyal, to identify with their captors, and to be brutal killing machines.
Be careful before making statements such as, "Only reason they would stay with the SLA is the food." That misses a lot of the complexity involved in the practice of child soldiers. Think about why any trafficking victim - or any victim in general - stays with their abuser. While basic survival is a concern, victims stay because they are broken down, abused, indoctrinated, manipulated, threatened, etc - things that go much deeper than the need for food.
The use of child soldiers is not simply a process of taking a child, giving them a gun, and telling them to shoot. There were reports out of Uganda that in some cases, the Lord's Resistance Army would force children to kill their own parents or siblings as part of the process of conditioning them. -
EYA commented on the article |
While the article might be lacking on the background of the conflict in Sri Lanka, I just want to point out that the basic point remains the same - that trafficking/modern day slavery happens in many different forms - not just for the sex industry. As Dennis G pointed out, the use of child soldiers is not new. I appreciate the fact that the post's author labeled the use of child soldiers as trafficking - in my experience those are two terms that are not often linked (and to the extent that they are, it seems to be a fairly recent thing, at least as far as common discussion labels).
As the posts from Mike indicate, BOTH sides in the conflict are using child soldiers. This is unacceptable. It is horrifying. And I don't care how many promises are made to UNICEF - I don't believe either side when it says it will stop. -
EYA commented on the article |I took a look and you're right - it is a little tricky to find the link to comment - but it does exist. From the main page, if you scroll to the bottom of the post (where all info on who posted and the labels is listed) and click on the word comment, it opens up a new window where you can leave your comment. (there is a number in front of the word comment indicating the number of comments thus far)
Also, if you click on the title of the post and then scroll down on that page, the option for posting comments is better indicated. -
EYA commented on the article |I wanted to chime in on where I think the potential conflict between abolitionists and feminism comes up. (Also: full disclosure, I'm the one who wrote the post at The Human Trafficking Project)
To begin, my answer is of course yes, you can simultaneously be an abolitionist and a feminist. That question, on the surface is quite easy to answer. In the world of trafficking then, the conflict arises when you dig deeper into the meaning of those words, and words intimately linked to them (words like slavery, prostitution, consent). Everyone is of course against slavery - but what is slavery? Is prostitution slavery? Can consensual prostitution exist? What does consent mean? What counts as coercion when considering whether someone is enslaved - physical? Psychological? Economic? Answers to these questions are highly subjective and thus tend to cause conflict between viewpoints, such that Feminist A (who believes that all prostitution involves an element of coercion and is thus slavery) suddenly disagrees with Feminist B (who believes that part of empowering a woman is giving her the ability to exchange sex for money if she so chooses, and that it is possible to freely consent/decide to do so). Now, if we are going to paint the world black and white, both Feminist A and B would see the other as wrong, and Feminist A would say that B is contributing to the problem of trafficking by condoning prostitution in any form, and the logical follow through of that is that Feminist A believes that B cannot be an abolitionist because she condones prostitution. LUCKILY we don't live in a black and white world, but I do think that these are sensitive issues that even the most passionate of feminists might struggle with (I know I do). (Also - please excuse that awful, 'high school math world problem'-esque attempt to explain my point.)
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