When kickoff comes at the 2012 Super Bowl, expectations will be high for a fun, competitive, fanatical contest between the two survivors of the NFL’s regular season. But even as Indianapolis appears on the national stage as the host of that game, expectations will be low for women who, at that same moment, find themselves caught in a world of sex slavery in our capital city, and perhaps in our fair city.
They’re caught in what is called human trafficking, and it may still be an unfamiliar term to you. Its definition includes forced labor of any kind, but the Super Bowl concern is sex slavery: forced sex and its attendant physical and emotional abuse, drug addiction, disease, denial of freedom, theft of income and loss of dignity.
It’s an ugly part of our world, and we’d all rather turn our heads and pretend it doesn’t exist. But exist it does.
In our oversexed society, websites and movies portray prostitutes and pimps, pornography and strip clubs as glitzy, desirable lifestyles. It’s as if everyone in the sex trade is as transformable as Julia Roberts in the movie “Pretty Woman,” and every customer is as gentlemanly as Richard Gere’s character in that film.
Not so. As Tribune-Star reporter Lisa Trigg made clear in two recent eye-opening Sunday stories, Hollywood’s portrayals of the sex underworld are far from a nasty reality that reaches even to Terre Haute.
A woman Trigg wrote about (on Jan. 15) lived the life of a sex slave. That woman was sold — yes, sold — repeatedly from one slave owner to another, beginning while she was in her early teens. She was regularly raped, tortured and kept in submission by her “owner” and made to work in strip clubs and to service customers sexually. Her owner took the money she earned. She was kept isolated from outsiders so she had no support. She was brainwashed into believing that if she escaped she would be tracked down and killed. That might not have been an idle threat.
A relative helped her get out of that life, and she now lives here in security and recovery.
Not all cases of human trafficking progress so well. Given today’s poverty, unemployment, meth labs, substance addiction and crime, it should not surprise any of us to find in our communities many more women — and perhaps men — who were or are sex slaves, the commodity of human sex trafficking.
Cynics may blame the women, the victims, as being deficient humans. But many are society’s throwaways — abandoned by parents, abused, brought up in households full of crime and drugs, and never taught the value of education. Some have been trapped in that world from birth.
Just as our society once rose up — after much, much too long — against racial slavery, we now need to find similar resolve against human trafficking.
Awareness and realization, as opposed to obliviousness and denial, are two first steps to confronting human trafficking.
And we can act. The good Sisters of Providence acted through an interfaith prayer service at the Church of Immaculate Conception earlier this month. And they have been acting by contacting local hotels — some of which will lodge Super Bowl visitors — and alerting the staffs about the possibility of sex trade taking place at their sites.
We can report suspicious activities to police, for police can’t investigate and prosecutors can’t file charges unless they know where and when human trafficking might be taking place.
We can support legislation, such as a bill that passed the Indiana Senate 48-0 and the House 93-0. That bill would, among other things, make it illegal for any adult, not just parents, to sell a minor. Gov. Daniels and legislative leaders want that bill signed before the Super Bowl, an event that brings to the host city an increased demand for sex by the hour.
And we can hope. We can hope that awareness, prayer, laws and action can help in the fight against human trafficking. After all, even the former sex slave Trigg wrote about now has hope. Which must be why that woman chose Hope as her pseudonym.
Editorials
EDITORIAL: Nothing sexy about human trafficking
Awareness, realization, action can combat an ugly lifestyle
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EDITORIAL: The politics of Primary 2012
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EDITORIAL: Hoosier Republicans should stick with Richard Lugar
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EDITORIAL: Matt Branam: 1954-2012
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EDITORIAL: A transplant from St. Ann’s
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EDITORIAL: Pragmatic approach to downtown development benefits community
Terre Haute has known for some time now that Indiana State University’s master plan includes creation of student residential centers off-campus in the nearby downtown area.
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TRIBUNE-STAR EDITORIAL: A salute to pride of ’55
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EDITORIAL: A match of Mitt and Mitch?
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EDITORIAL: Drilling for fairness
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news
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EDITORIAL: Be fair, consistent, but keep smokefree ordinance on track
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EDITORIAL: Inspired by tradition, celebration
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EDITORIAL: No need to sing the blues
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EDITORIAL: Primary reaches critical junction
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EDITORIAL: Don’t dismiss it, use it
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