Half The Sky

This week we watched an eye opening documentary on the mistreatment of women across the world called "Half the Sky". It touched on two topics that I did not know much about going in, and was shocked to learn. The first women that was introduced to us was a Cambodian women who escaped sex-trafficking and opened up a program to debilitate girls like her who escaped brothels. Going in I had no idea sex-trafficking was a huge industry that would kidnap young girls and force them into prostituion, I thought it had to do more with adults. But the women had a school full of at least 70 girls all bellow or just beginning their teens. It is truly heartbreaking to see that there was a girl as young as three there who was already visibly traumatized by what she went through in the brothel. What surprised me the most is when those kidnap girls who escaped the brothel would try and return to their families, and families would turn them away saying they were no good anymore. A much as the women can rescue the children, there will still be so many families that turn away their daughters, so the women have made radio stations, and talk groups to spread knowledge. Meg Ryan commented on the situation saying "there's no solution, but she's still contributing", referring to the facts that the war- thorn country seems impossible to fix, but that is not an excuse for not creating change. I think what that women is doing is amazing, and more strong women like her need to take initiative to shut down sex-trafficking.
In the second section we watched we were introduced to a women named Eden who ran a hospital in Somalia saving women who have pregnancy issues due to their tradition of female mutilation. I again, had no idea you could possibly circumsize a women, and was horrified to find out that 200 million African women have to go through the painful ritual at a young age. Because of their mutilations, women would have complications from their pregnancies, and die from something that could have been prevented. Eden is trying to spread awareness throughout Africa that it is ok for a girl to be uncircumcised, but we saw her struggle to get rid of the deeply rooted tradition when she asked a women if she would let her son marry an uncircumcised girl and she said no.
Though Eden and the Cambodian lady lead two vary different paths, they share similar goals about spreading awareness, and also preparing other young ladies on how to spread awareness. Both women train the girls that work for them to be able and take their insight into the rest of the world. Eden sends her trained girls to regions in Somalia to help with births all over, while the Cambodian girls are sent off to find new girls to save, and to tell their Storie inspiring others. It is truly inspiring to see so many women taking a stand against years and years of terrible mistreatment. It is also very important that these issues be talked about more.
My friend once had a friend who's dad got arrested for sex trafficking involving the internet, and he was from Groveland Ma. It is so scary to think that these people are in our neighborhoods, and sex trafficking goes down right under our noses. Maybe by spreading more knowledge like the two powerful women from Cambodia and Somalia, we can uncover more truths to sex-trafficking in the US.