Sunitha Krishnan: The fight against sex slavery

[redqueen]

Strong trigger warning. She shows disturbing, graphic images during her speech, and she goes into graphic detail about rape and abuse.

I'm talking to you about the worst form of human rights violation, the third-largest organized crime, a $10 billion industry. I'm talking to you about modern-day slavery.

...

These people are deceived, forced. 99.9 percent of them resist being inducted into prostitution. Some pay the price for it. They're killed; we don't even hear about them. They are voiceless, (unclear), nameless people. But the rest, who succumb into it, go through everyday torture. Because the men who come to them are not men who want to make you your girlfriends, or who want to have a family with you. These are men who buy you for an hour, for a day, and use you, throw you.

Each of the girls that I have rescued -- I have rescued more than 3,200 girls -- each of them tell me one story in common ... one story about one man, at least, putting chili powder in her vagina, one man taking a cigarette and burning her, one man whipping her. We are living among those men: they're our brothers, fathers, uncles, cousins, all around us. And we are silent about them.

...

Many times when I talk to people, I keep telling them one thing: don't tell me hundred ways how you cannot respond to this problem. Can you ply your mind for that one way that you can respond to the problem? And that's what I'm here for, asking for your support, demanding for your support, requesting for your support. Can you break your culture of silence? Can you speak to at least two persons about this story? Tell them this story. Convince them to tell the story to another two persons.

I'm not asking you all to become Mahatma Gandhis or Martin Luther Kings, or Medha Patkars, or something like that. I'm asking you, in your limited world, can you open your minds? Can you open your hearts? Can you just encompass these people too? Because they are also a part of us. They are also part of this world. I'm asking you, for these children, whose faces you see, they're no more. They died of AIDS last year. I'm asking you to help them, accept as human beings -- not as philanthropy, not as charity, but as human beings who deserve all our support. I'm asking you this because no child, no human being, deserves what these children have gone through. Thank you.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. kick

did not watch the video. do I really need to?

[redqueen]

2. No, it's pretty hard to watch. If you already have some idea how bad it is, then you know.

Even just listening or reading is hard. She pulls no punches. She lays out the reality with no concern for protecting anyone's sensibilities or even just avoiding any triggering content. She forces the audience to face it head on.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

3. yes, I thought as much. My heart can only take so much due to my work and

some past trauma in my own life. I don't need to take chances with my own mental health. I shared the other video that BB posted on my FB page. !!MILLIONS!! of children ... it just boggles my mind. That number is astounding to me. How HUGE is this issue. Such a massive undertaking.

Sometimes I wonder - how does the world keep turning with so much evil among us. It is the love, ultimately that carries us on.

[seabeyond]

4. I'm asking you, in your limited world, can you open your minds?

thanks. i will listen to it later. this is so huge, so ugly and so ignored. i do not get it. since learning about this.... i could no longer cavalierly think that prostitution was a choice. just consenting adults. i do not get the mind that can be knowledgeable in this and yet still remain so pollyanna about "pretty woman" prostitution

[ismnotwasm]

5. And people will do that

"It's not in MY backyard" shit. ( while making infective noises of sympathy)

Umm yes it IS.