As a child whose parents are both immigrants, my mother from Cuba and my father from Morocco, I have always been immersed into two separate cultures other than the American one I was primarily brought up in. As a study abroad student, I traveled to new cities every weekend, and one weekend my best friend and I decided to travel to Amsterdam. Amsterdam was full of life and light, and I felt a sense of genuine happiness when I visited. One night, however, my friend and I decided to walk through the infamous Red Light district.
As we walked down the district, I remember the strong smell of smoke and alcohol and the women in skimpy outfits attempting to lure both women and men into their booths. I vividly remember observing how men would gawk at the women in the booths and look at them as if they were objects.
A specific instance that I remember most from that night was when a women left a booth and a second later a man entered. I felt as though these women were instantly being degraded and used. I was shocked as I had never been exposed to anything like this. I immediately thought to myself these women may be mothers with children, and they most definitely have mothers and fathers themselves. I almost wanted to tell these women that they did not have to do any of this.
As I returned back from this trip, I began to think about the role of sexuality in America and how, although, perhaps not as blatant as it was in Amsterdam, situations like these occur in the United States every day. Sex trafficking is an enormous industry and a major problem in America and women are being taken advantage of every day. Sex trafficking is a contemporary term created during the feminist movement in the late s.
During this time, many began marching for the cause of the abuse and forced prostitution of women. In the year of , the United States invented the Trafficking Victims Protection Act protecting women who were kidnapped and forced into sex trafficking [2]. These women who are frightened for their lives are being held in inhumane conditions while constantly being abused.
