Not For Sale

Often times we forget that there’s a positive way to inform people of negative things. 

About a month ago, I watched this episode of family guy with some of my friends.  When the clip above came on, everyone turned their heads and looked at me afraid to laugh.  My friends all knew I was very touchy when it came to issues of human trafficking or what not.  However, it had the opposite effect on me.  I did not find it funny, niether did I find it offensive.  It was kind of nice that they even recognized that the scene was reffering to human trafficking. 

Seems to me that the producers of shows such as Family Guy or South Park are making efforts in an ‘out of the universe’ type of way to bring these issues to the masses.

Seeing a bunch of Asian girls running out of a car trunk would not normally but funny, however, if you knew the connotations behind it and recognize that there is a bigger meaning behind the issue at hand… then it suddenly becomes funny, because you know it is true!

Wanting to help people should be motivating, not a spirit breaker!

-Mai

As many of you know, the ERASMUS students have made groups on the social network facebook for the NOT FOR SALE CAMPAIGN.  The following comments were made on my facebook “wall” the other day shortly after I invited a friend from high school to join.  This morning… that Mike Paz (Erasmus Student) has responded…  WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Friend From High School: 

“omg stop inviting me to that group

first
those people are thousands of miles away and their sphere of existence is totally independent of mine, yours, or any other young American “activist” whose only actual perception of slavery is as an extremely negative, unrealistic construct that’s been imprinted on us by elementary school teachers and popular culture

my point is that they really don’t matter to you. you don’t care. you want to care. stop thinking about it for like a week and look back and think of what awesome productive things you could’ve been doing instead of feeling guilty and futile about a situation you have nothing to do with

second
the type of slavery that that group claims to be against is totally different from the type of slavery that this country used two hundred years ago. slavery in many areas of the world continues to play integral, traditional roles like paying off debt (labor is used since there’s scarce reliable capital or goods)… it’s temporary, humanistic, and natural. these international liberal shithead groups know that you hear the world slavery and your mind (and wallet) explodes with how you’ve been taught to respond throughout your childhood Read the rest of this entry »

Last year during the 2006 world cup games there were large influxes of Asian women who were brought to Germany for sexual purposes.  As a country who receives approximately 200,000 human trafficking victims a year, the attention was quickly brought to the United States as well as Germany. 

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice addressed this issue with great eloquence, however, I cannot help but feel that our government will not take bigger strides to stop this issue.  She says that the government is well aware of the issue and there has been progress regarding human trafficking.  What type of progress?  She does not mention this.  She only mentions that $400 million dollars has been spent on trying to prevent this issue.  I am not being pessimistic, rather, I simply want to hear about the results.  The more government officials talk about how much money is being spent on an issue, the less serious people take it.  It suddenly becomes a story of resources.  “So much money has been put into this issue…”  This could be true or not true, but even if there has been 3 gazillion trillion dollars put into the project and used inefficiently and ineffectively, is there a point???  Additionally, it starts seeming like a hopeless problem… and it is NOT. 

The government and business are key factors to the end of modern slavery; let’s urge them to step up to the plate.

-Mai