Karma

The youngest attendee was the nine-year old author, Emma, who is pictured here as I shook her hand.  Tomorrow night is another event at the Morson Collection in Boston. You can listen to the two radio interviews I gave last night and this morning here.

Image: Michal Marcol / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A PROCLAMATION

The United States was founded on the principle that all people are born with an unalienable right to freedom — an ideal that has driven the engine of American progress throughout our history. As a Nation, we have known moments of great darkness and greater light; and dim years of chattel slavery illuminated and brought to an end by President Lincoln’s actions and a painful Civil War. Yet even today, the darkness and inhumanity of enslavement exists. Millions of people worldwide are held in compelled service, as well as thousands within the United States. During National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, we acknowledge that forms of slavery still exist in the modern era, and we recommit ourselves to stopping the human traffickers who ply this horrific trade.

As we continue our fight to deliver on the promise of freedom, we commemorate the Emancipation Proclamation, which became effective on January 1, 1863, and the 13th Amendment, which was sent to the States for ratification on February 1, 1865. Throughout the month of January, we highlight the many fronts in the ongoing battle for civil rights — including the efforts of our Federal agencies; State, local, and tribal law enforcement partners; international partners; nonprofit social service providers; private industry and nongovernmental organizations around the world who are working to end human trafficking.

The victims of modern slavery have many faces. They are men and women, adults and children. Yet, all are denied basic human dignity and freedom. Victims can be abused in their own countries, or find themselves far from home and vulnerable. Whether they are trapped in forced sexual or labor exploitation, human trafficking victims cannot walk away, but are held in service through force, threats, and fear. All too often suffering from horrible physical and sexual abuse, it is hard for them to imagine that there might be a place of refuge.

We must join together as a Nation and global community to provide that safe haven by protecting victims and prosecuting traffickers. With improved victim identification, medical and social services, training for first responders, and increased public awareness, the men, women, and children who have suffered this scourge can overcome the bonds of modern slavery, receive protection and justice, and successfully reclaim their rightful independence.

Fighting modern slavery and human trafficking is a shared responsibility. This month, I urge all Americans to educate themselves about all forms of modern slavery and the signs and consequences of human trafficking. Together, we can and must end this most serious, ongoing criminal civil rights violation.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 2010 as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, culminating in the annual celebration of National Freedom Day on February 1. I call upon the people of the United States to recognize the vital role we can play in ending modern slavery, and to observe this month with appropriate programs and activities.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fourth day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand ten, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fourth.

BARACK OBAMA

It’s heartening that our government is acknowledging this problem and bringing attention to it. It’s a good start.

Now that I am out speaking about Karma and listening to readers, one question people ask me is, “How can I help?”

I believe the best way to help is to allow the agencies that are knowledgeable and equipped deal with the problems. They are connected politically and understand the boots on the ground tactics. Making donations to these organizations is crucial to their success. The following are three organizations that are making a difference.

• www.freetheslaves.net
• www.somaly.org
• prostitutionresearch.com
• unreasonableinstitute.org
• http://love146.org/

Check back for future blogs as I will continue to research and add to this list.

• Being beaten regularly
• Being raped by husband, or other family member
• Being raped by military person or stranger
• Being imprisoned and even put to death for being raped
• Sold into sexual slavery
• Having acid thrown in her face
• Being forced to incinerate herself on her husband’s funeral pyre
• Being forced to kill herself
• Being forced into marriage (even if she is a child)
• Being killed (“honor killings”)

The International Violence Against Women Act of 2008 was introduced in the 110th Congress, but never came to a vote before Congress adjourned. Amnesty International is continuing to work on advancing the I-VAWA in the 111th Congress. This Act would (mindbogglingly) amend the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. I suppose it’s better late than never.

You can read more about this Act on Amnesty International’s website.  And read what you can do to help stop the violence.

In many countries of the world today people believe that if a man, infected with HIV/AIDS has sex with a virgin then he will be cured.  You can read about domestic violence activist, Betty Makoni, who suffered rape at six years old. The Zimbabwean is quoted as saying, “The youngest girl I ever came across was a day-old baby who was raped.”

Betty Makoni’s organization, the Girl-Child Network has over 700 girl’s clubs in Zimbabwe to help “transform victims into leaders.”

In sex trafficking situations, little girls are sold to HIV/AIDS infected men who rape them hoping for a cure. Afterwards the girl’s vaginas are sewn up by their owners—not by a doctor and without anesthesia . . . and they are resold. The sewing up of freshly torn flesh insures that the next rapist will have the satisfaction and reassurance of hearing the girl’s screams and seeing blood.

There are more than a few problems with this choice as I see it from my vantage point of a 59-year old woman.

First, there is no such thing as anonymity today. If a young woman chooses prostitution she will never outlive the stigma. It might seem cool now and possible to lead a double life. But the word “secret” is obsolete with the Internet and the globalization of everyone’s private matters.

Eventually these voluntary prostitutes will have both emotional scars and societal judgments. In my circle of friends, which is pretty wide, I can’t think of one successful man who would marry a former prostitute.

I did a lot of research into the plight of prostitutes for my novel Karma. Even though Karma is about forced prostitution (sex trafficking), the stigma of being a prostitute is the same for both those who are forced and those who volunteer. The word “prostitution” denotes the lowest rung of societal vermin.

Self blame and low self esteem are endemic to all who are forced into prostitution. Self-blame is one of the hallmark manifestations of post traumatic stress disorder, which all trafficked women suffer from. By delving into the true meaning of karma, the main character of my novel comes to understand that karma isn’t cause and effect like we think in the West. When something bad happens to you it affords an opportunity to contribute to the good karma of the world with your actions to make the world a better place. My character’s epiphany represents what I would like to see happen for all rescued victims of sex trafficking: the self compassion to accept that what happened to them not their fault that they are victims and valuable human beings who deserves happiness.

For those who voluntarily sell their most precious possession—their bodies—I also wish for self-forgiveness and self-compassion.

Moreover, I wish these girls would consider taking out a student loan, then working on developing a mission for their lives.

Way back when I first started the first draft there was virtually nothing written on the subject but now there are many organizations and numerous experts who have written non-fiction books on what’s happening to 2.5 million women and children across the globe. I would like nothing more than to be helpful to the cause, if nothing more than bringing awareness to this issue.

I had to make a lot of decisions during the writing of Karma. The first thing I decided early on was to make the protagonist American because even though Americans have firm convictions and heartfelt desires to help others in the world, for many reasons–which I’m getting into on my blog–trafficked women and children have fallen through the cracks and are virtually ignored. Making my protagonist American allows readers to ponder what it would be like to have something like that happen to themselves or to someone they know or care about.

Then I finally came across the book I was looking for. Kathleen Barry’s 1984 book Female Sexual Slavery was the first book I know of that actually addressed the disparity of the term “white slavery”. She writes, “The term ‘white slavery’ was formally used at the 1902 Paris conference where representatives of several governments met to draft an international instrument for the suppression of the white slave traffic (Les Traités des Blanches.) While the term was initially meant to distinguish the practice from nineteenth-century black slavery, it has immediate appeal to racists who could and did conclude that the efforts were against an international traffic in white women. So in addition to being sweet, innocent, and young, victims were also coming to b e seen only as white, despite the evidence that the traffic included black, brown, and yellow women. The term eventually embodied all the sexist, classist, and racist bigotry that was ultimately incorporated within the movement dominated by religious morality. Because of the confusion and misuse resulting from the term, the International Conference of 1921 recommended that the term white slavery b e dropped and replaced with “Traffic in Women and Children.” This was subsequently the language of the League of Nations and the United Nations studies and reports. Nevertheless, coming from the bigotry and originally brought it into common use, the term is still retained today.

It was Kathleen Barry who taught me that the term “white slavery” had been abandoned for the more encompassing terms “trafficking in women and children,” and “sexual slavery.”

I’m from California and I detest snow and cold, but our whippets, Charlotte Brontë and India hate it even more as they are bony, with little body fat and scant hair. Prior to moving to Boston two years ago I knitted them sweaters and made them fleece jammies and overcoats but as it turned out, these California-made items of clothing were not enough to spare them the shivers.

With winter on it’s way I had to act. I bought two down jackets at T.J. Max. I cut them up in my office and began the design process, figuring out the engineering of a garment that would fit their funny bodies. The first twelve-hour day was devoted to the easy part of the design, which I had already pretty much done from the last coats I made. This time I wanted the coats to have front legs and a hood. The second twelve-hour day was more challenging. It wasn’t just the design, but the working conditions. At first I was joking about my office being a chicken coop, but after a short period of time the feathers really started to bother me.

Fifteen years of my career were spent in various aspects of design from fashion, to working as a stylist/costumer in the film industry, and then having my own cottage industry to manufacture my line of felt appliquéd Christmas stockings. I am very familiar with production and not just from the sidelines. I’ve worked many grueling stints, including months of seven-day-a-week production and all-nighters under pressure to execute a project. And so working on my dog’s parkas took me right back to that period of my life. The thing is, as uncomfortable, tired, and miserable I got, it was voluntary.

After the second twelve-hour day I went to bed at 10. My back hurt a lot from hunching over my task all day. I had microscopic feathers in my lungs and sinuses and one eyeball felt like it had a feather stuck on it. It was an uncomfortable sleep and I woke up at 2 a.m. It was Friday and I wanted the project to end because I just didn’t have more time to devote to it. Plus as exciting and fun as it is to figure out a design, I couldn’t bear the thought of yet another day of those working conditions. I decided to get up.

My office was ankle-deep in feathers. I put a scarf over my face like a bandit and worked from 2:30 until 6. I finally cracked the nut of how to execute the chest and legs. I went downstairs to the kitchen to get something to eat. Kitchens are surreal at 6 a.m. when you’ve been up since 2:30. I stood there and all of a sudden started looking at the dog’s toys scattered over the floor, their little monkeys and sharks and “Ugly Dolls”. Some poor downtrodden person in some far away country had to make those toys!

Back upstairs I focused. It was a fourteen-hour day. As the hours churned on, the fact that there were slaves working harder than I was stuck in my head. It was tape, running over and over. At the end of the day I was exhausted, my hands were swollen and pin-stuck. My back hurt even more, my stomach stuck out from slouching, my sinuses, lungs, and eyeball throbbed. But my office got cleaned up, I took a soothing bath in Epsom salts, heated up some soup from Whole Foods and went to bed at 8 p.m. all proud of myself and feeling heroic for finishing the winter parkas for my doggies.

I still couldn’t stop thinking about the slaves working around the clock in sweltering factories for little or no money, who have no home to go to, who can’t take a nice hot bath and heat up soup, and flop into bed in a nice comfy room, who suffer health problems from breathing feathers and from exposure to innumerable toxic insults. All so we can have our stuff, and so our kids and dogs can be happy and indulged.

I’ve read many books on slavery and there are all kinds of proposed strategies to combat slavery. According to Dr. Kevin Bales, the leading authority on slavery, boycotting products is not the appropriate tactic as it penalizes legitimate third world businesses. In my opinion the most expeditious way to make a difference is to donate, even just a few dollars, to organizations that know the world of slavery, the politics, and the best strategies for penetrating government policies, like Dr. Bales’s FREE THE SLAVES.