What I want to address, however, is how our society defines victims and how it leaves far too many people behind. The article above is a great example. How many people, if asked about sex trafficking, picture little white girls or women abducted from Target? Probably a lot. For many, the only information they’ve ever gotten about trafficking are warnings about Target or shopping mall parking lots from their Facebook friends. They don’t know how many teenage boys from broken homes, living in poverty, are pulled into being trafficked. How many gay youths, rejected by their families, fall victim to it? How many immigrant children here, with no parental supervision, are sold off by the people who should be protecting them from sexual slavery?Â
Those stories, even if they’re told, are not going to grab national headlines. They are not going to evoke world-wide outrage and sympathy. Those are things that happen to “other people”. We might even be tempted to start looking for reason why it’s their own fault, or at least the parents fault, right?Â
From a media perspective, we also have to keep this in mind. An abduction of a young white girl from her home, is a rare event. It’s actually newsworthy because it happens so rarely. When it happens, it’s shocking. A trans, minority, teen being coerced into selling themselves, with no one to turn to for protection, isn’t any of those things. A gay male teen being kicked out of their parents house and trying to make it through homelessness, is also not something that happens so rarely that there would be major news coverage of it. These things happen all of the time. So often, that they aren’t really news.Â
So, which group should we have support and services for? I’d like to vote for ALL OF THEM. But that will take educating people about the reality of who gets abused, who gets trafficked, and for us all to accept that it happens everywhere. Until we get there, and are willing to see all different types of people as victims, we will continue to fail one group or another. That’s not acceptable.Â
Thank you for the beautiful mention. This whole subject brings tears to my eyes because all of you have helped me so much! Like you, I don’t comment as often as I should, but I am reading.
All my best,
Tamara
You are so right when you say that we are all there for each other, It’s great to know that people do care, and by helping each other, we help ourselves. Take care..Mary
I’m new to the blogging community on the topics of child abuse, incest, dissociation, DID, and more. I am also a survivor who began to remember in 1997 and had sufficiently healed by 2001 to enter a counseling program and earn my M.A. degree. I’ve been a therapist primarily to survivors of trauma for several years. I know DID from both sides. While substantially healed, I still struggle occasionally with new issues that surface, and the constant wafting of amnesia through my brain. Am happy to find so many supportive blogs. Blogs did not exist in 1997. Bless all of you.