A day in the life of a sex slave is interesting, and when you have children living with you it becomes a worry, in Born into Brothels the children that have been raised in the Red Light District have fear in their lives. Everyday the young children watch their mothers give sex for pay and they see their fathers beating their wives and drinking and doing drugs. These children have fear in their lives because they know they do not want to be like their parents but they have no option because there is no way to escape. Sex slavery is a way to earn quick cash and families in the Red Light District are poor and they usually force their daughters into sex slavery. In Sold by Patricia McCormick, Lakshmi’s family is poor and they need money, so Lakshmi …show more content…
While to step father was bartering a price for Lakshmi, it became more obvious that she wasn’t going to be a maid, “‘She has no hips,’ I hear her say. ‘And she’s plain as porridge. I’ll give you five hundred’” (McCormick 53). This shows how it is implied that Lakshmi is about to be sold into sex slavery because to be honest hips have nothing to do with house services. In the book McCormick makes it seem like she is going to be a housemaid then something goes wrong and she becomes a prostitute. While analyzing the text, McCormick makes a sneaky inference to imply that her step father sold her. This can show that you can’t always trust family because they can be full of greed and eventually sell you. This is an example of what happened in Born into Brothels, the 2005 documentary of children that were born into brothels. As most of the girls are coming into age, their families expect them to become a prostitute, and this one girl is actually really close to becoming one because they consider it “a family tradition”. It is a big shame and to be honest this girl has no chance of survival unless she goes to a boarding school. This can show how parents as human beings can intentionally sell their children into sex
Her stepdad, who cannot work due to having only one functioning arm, agrees to sell her off to a wealthy family in India so that she can make an income as a maid. The Sudanese phrase, “use a slave to catch slaves”, is often said by human traffickers who send “broken-in girls” to recruit younger girls into the sex trade. Oftentimes, sex traffickers train their own girls themselves by raping them and teaching them sexual acts. Lakshmi learns that she has been sold for the purpose of sleeping with men, when she exclaims, “but Auntie Bimla said-”
Further on, when Lakshmi reaches the train station there is an occurrence of public shaming in which a woman tries to run away from her home and the pimp explains to Lakshmi what happens, “‘One look at that head of hers and anyone can tell she’s a disgraced woman.’ He says. ‘Even if she does run off again, no one will help her’” (McCormick 86). This shows how the pimp is again instilling fear into Lakshmi, making sure she does not try to leave his side if she becomes suspicious as she would be shamed and thought of as a disgrace by society if she disobeys her ‘husband’.
In the book Sold by Patricia McCormick, Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl who is sold into slavery by the people she trusts. While slavery has been around for thousands of years, the slavery in this book is human trafficking. McCormick illustrates the contrast between living and pretending in Lakshmi's hometown wth her childhood love, her educational status, and the meaning of the tv. Lakshmi's childhood love presents the life that she imagines she would have in the future in her home village in the Himalayas. Lakshmi believes that her childhood love, Krishna, will wait for her to come back so that they can be happy: "I want to tell him where I'm going, to tell him that I will return as soon as I am able to with a cash dowry for our wedding.
Even as Auntie wasn’t very kind to her kicking rocks at her feet and saying she has no hips; Lakshmi looked up to her and thought she would always be there to protect her. She still feels sympathy as she walks through the city seeing the begging poor unknowing her future. Lakshmi stays strong when she is locked in the room and starved as McCormick writes, “But i do not cry” (McCormick 108). Then she quickly must give in and subside to being forced to have sex through the drugs. Through the pain Lakshmi grasps and holds onto the hope to pay off her debt and return
They are compelled to lose their worth. Sex is bought from these girls which is why Lakshmi questions whether she is pretty or not. She thinks that because she has cruelly been sold to prostitution, that no other person will want her in the future. Lakshmi went from a young innocent girl who was saving herself for her marriage with Krishna, a boy from the village in where Lakshmi lives, to believing that she will not have anyone.
Walking into Happiness House the girls are sad and depressed on how they are being treated. Mumtaz, a cruel brothel owner tells Lakshmi, “You are mine now.”(pg 106). According to Equalitynow.org, 20.9 million adults and children are bought and sold worldwide commercial sexual servitude, forced labor and bonded labor. In CNN Human trafficking survivor, Karla Jacinto has estimate 43,200 is the number of times she was raped, and she says up to 30 men a day, seven days a week for the best part four years. In Patricia McCormick’s book Sold Lakshmi is a sex slave and the description of Lakshmi while she was a sex slave.
She made friends with one of the other girls at the house and trusted her and told her everything she was thinking. One night an American came into Lakshmi’s room and gave her a card with words that she couldn’t understand. He asked her if she wanted to go with him but she was to scared to say anything. Eventually another American
In regards to trauma young girls and women who were black suffered through the fact that their first sexual encounter would be an act of rape or sexual abuse. One of the many struggles for several of the women characters with in the text is being a women and a slave at the same time. Their wants and desires has no place under the domination of slavery within the confinement over
This is not the only time prostitution is mentioned in this book. Prostitution is mentioned several times throughout the book. “”() In this quote the author is talking about prostitution again. Furthermore the
She knew her family was waiting patiently for her to finish her work in the city and come back home. Lakshmi thought she was doing the right thing by going to the city to help her family’s financial situation, but she did not know that she was going to have to “give herself up” in the way she was forced to. It was Lakshmi’s idea to go work in the city to help her family, so it was a big surprise to her when she found out she wasn’t actually going there to be a maid. The thought of her family at home was the one thing that motivated her to get her work over with so she could come back home: “Each night, I dream that Ama and I are sitting outside our hut...and she is twining my hair into long dark braids” (109). Lakshmi was describing how she dreams about her and her mother sitting back at home together.
However, in a way, she is telling the reader to think rationally and that there is no need for a case to be made - the factories are intrinsically evil. To support her article, Liebelson often cites statistics and uses numbers to aptly describe the nature of the situation. Most notably she cites the ages of the sumangali workers and statistics regarding money. She states that the girls can begin working as young as 13 and this number is repeated in different contexts multiple times to nail home the point of child labor. Making a child work all day long at such a young age, in an extremely dangerous environment to boot, paints a picture that Liebelson uses to her advantage.
As a result, just as the aunt was used as a way to make money, the youngest niece was also used as a pawn to satisfy her husband’s
To further explain, in the Girl Rising documentary, viewers are taken through the life of a young girl, Suma, in Nepal. She was only six-years-old when her parents exchanged her obedient working hand for money. She was then sent to a home where she would do chores such as washing the dishes, cut firewood and maintain the farm. At her next working home, Suma’s employer’s forced her to eat their scraps, and called her “unlucky girl”. At this home, she was sexually abused, but she did not let that define her.
The women who had been taken mainly from Africa to be slaves worked in different circumstances and regions. They experience a diversity of enslavement in their territories while slave sex was also on the increase. The women were at constant risk of being molested. The women could not form a union to fight for their rights due to the existence of the discriminatory laws.
Human trafficking was a major problem in this book. Researching human trafficking can further all evidence and information on the topic which the books had multiple points to emphasize on . Patricia Mccormick writes sold to inform people about the experiences of others lives and the way they are living with this happening to them or have happened . Her personal trials have taken an emotional route to connect with Lakshmi or some of the young girls she has visited previously. This essay is important because it talks and highlights very key points on Human trafficking and how it affects women and the society as a