Is Slavery Illegal?

Photo by Ophelia

We have been lead to believe that slavery was abolished back with the Civil War.  The truth is that far from abolishing it, it went underground.  Whether it’s the comfort women of World War II or maybe in a far African Country we don’t know.  We do not expect this:

An estimated 4,000 trafficked women are thought to be working in the British sex trade at any one time, having arrived from across the world.

The majority willingly travel here from eastern Europe, west Africa and south-east Asia with the promise of jobs, more money and a better way of life.

What they end up as are commodities. Coerced, often forced, to work as prostitutes, they are moved from address to address, city to city, by the gangs that control them.

They have little chance of escape, let alone the life they were promised, and live in constant fear of being “sold” on to another gang.

But according to those on the frontline trying to help these women, it is not a threat confined to foreign nationals – some believe it is a two way street.

In short: British women are being threatened with being sold abroad.

This is taken from the BBC News’ article on UK women ‘threatened with sale’.   Many women today are not willing participants in the prostitution industry.  Some have gotten into it because they believe that there is money to be made, only to find out that they have to do a lot of “work” in order to even pay off the interest in a place that is using her.

Let alone the moral problems with selling sex, these women are the epitome of those without rights– they have none.  And worse still, they are treated as property.  They can be bought, sold, or shipped out of the country without so much as a way of recourse.

Now, I’m not in favor of decriminalizing prostitution so that we can regulate it.  I want it gone.  What my intentions here are to let you know that this is happening so that you can be watchful, that you can be praying, and so that we can help those that are in need.