Log #3

Why Do We Lock Up Survivors of Sex Trafficking?

At the age of 17, Macy was sent to the foster care system. Soon after, she met an older man who gained her trust with promises of love and safety. However, it was not Heaven for her to live a better life but Hell filled with torture for her to suffer from. She was coerced into having sex with different men, or this old man would strangle her to death. One time, she was almost rescued, sitting in the police station and wanting to ask for help; however, she feared the police would arrest her and that her trafficker who tracked her phone would beat her, so she gave up the chance, and the police let her go without noticing the signs of sex trafficking. What’s worse, it wasn’t long that she was arrested again. The prosecutor didn’t provide a service or a safe place for her; instead, the prosecutor threatened Macy that if she didn’t testify her traffickers, she would be charged with prostitution. Fortunately, after she testified her trafficker, she stayed at FAIRGIRL, a non-profit organization that offers safe housing and emergency services to survivors of human trafficking.

As far as I am concerned, although the police were desperate to track the cases of sex trafficking, they shouldn’t threaten these victims. These victims were so poor that they were treated like a toy, forced to have sex with numerous men, and traumatized by cruel and inhuman behaviors. As a babysitter of citizens, instead of bringing more scars and fears for these victims, the police should have connected them with some nonprofit organization to help them. I think if these victims feel safe, they will be willing to testify their traffickers; after all, these traffickers were those who make them hurt physically and mentally, so these victims must desperately want to see these monsters put in jail.

I was perplexed how the foster care system functioned because a lot of victims had stayed here before. When they let a child adopted, they just let them go without inspecting people who wanted to adopt children. In my opinion, this system should not exist at all because it didn’t help these poor children who were abandoned. On the contrary, it put these homeless children in danger, and they experienced they lived in a world full of lies and betrayal.

https://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/why-do-we-lock-up-survivors-of-sex-trafficking/?_r=1