21st Century Slave Trade

505 Words3 Pages
Many themes and big ideas from our studies of American slavery are present in this narrative of human trafficking. Some example of themes and big ideas include separation of families, dehumanization, sexual exploitation, profit motive, and denial of access to social institutions. Meena was only about 11 years old, she was kidnapped from her village in north India by a human trafficker. She was then locked away in a brothel for many years before she escaped into freedom. This shows the theme separation of families because Meena was taken from her village when she was a little girl and put away inside a building. The owners of the brothel locked her in and kept a close eye on her. Without warning, Meena was taken away from her family’s arms and put into a strange and overwhelming environment. Another theme that is prevalent in this narrative is dehumanization. This happened a lot in American slavery when the slaves were treated as less than human and more like objects by their masters and overseers. After Meena was brought into the brothel, a white-haired customer bought her virginity. The owners and customers did not care about her opinions and treated her as a sex object. They dehumanized her by treating her poorly. The owners of the brothel beat her with belts and iron rods for disobeying them. The third theme in this article is sexual exploitation. Not only was Meena beaten for crying and fighting back, they also drugged her and made it easier for the customers to take advantage of her. Because she resisted a lot, the owners forced her to drink alcohol until she was drunk. After she passed out, she was given to the customer. Each night, she was forced to have sex with 10 to 25 customers, this is a solid example of sexual exploitation on the owners’ part. Another the important big idea in this narrative is profit motive. The owners of the brothel looked
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