"Why are you doing this to me?"

The Face of Modern Day Slavery was a very inspirational article that I read on the New York Times website. Srey Pov 's family was struggling, and she was the solution. When she was only 6 years old her family sold her to a brothel. At the time she had never even heard of prostitution, but she soon discovered exactly what it really is. 

The first time anyone raped her, which was the first night she was there, all she could do was cry, and that is when she asked "why are you doing this to me?" Srey soon realized that the younger you are the more the people want you. At least twenty people raped her nightly. Srey refused to give in and continued to fight. She tried to escape the brothel, but every time she was caught, there was a punishment. The beatings were worse than I could've ever imagined. I knew the brothel owner's beat the girls, but I didn't know that they were tortured. 

In the brothel Srey was being held in, there was what the called a "punishment cell". Every time she rebelled she was locked in the darkness with no clothes on. If that's not bad enough she was put in a barrel half-full of sewage and scorpions that stung her repeatedly. Nicholas D. Kristof (the man who wrote the article) asked Srey how long she was held in the barrel. Guess how long it was? I bet you're thinking maybe an hour or so at most. Srey only wished it was that long. The longest she said she was held in there was a week. 

This Nicholas D. Kristof the author of the article.

When Srey was nine she was finally able to outrun the guard. She found her way to a shelter run by Somaly Mam. Somaly was prosecuted as well when she was a child, and now together they are fighting to end human trafficking, once and for all.

 

This is Somaly Mam (left) with Srey Pov (right).

As you can clearly tell my article deals with modern day slavery, a horrible case of one at that. It wasn't Srey's fault that she was trafficked, but it happened. 

This source was horrible to read, but I found it to be very educational, as to what we were learning in class. In the article Nicholas wrote "at least ten times as many girls are now trafficked into brothels annually as African slaves were transported to the New World  in the peak years of the trans-Atlantic slave trade". This statement really got my attention because I knew there is more slavery going on now than there were then, but I did not realize that it had gotten to this extreme. I hope this get's other people's attention and we can start to make a difference, and help the helpless. 

I don't think it should take being enslaved yourself to realize what a problem this is. I think we should start now. 

Bibliography:

Kristof, Nicholas D. "The face of Human Trafficking". The Opinion Pages. November 16th, 2011. 

       Supported by The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/opinion/kristof-the-face-

       of-modern-slavery.html Accessed December 9th, 2013.

Pictography:

Winter, Damon. "Author of the article". Photograph. November 16th, 2011. The New York Times.

       November 16th, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/opinion/kristof-the-face-of-modern-

       slavery.html Accessed December 9th, 2013.

Kristof, Nicholas D. "Somaly Mam and Srey Pov". Photograph. November 16th, 2011. The New York 

      Times. November 16th, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/opinion/kristof-the-face-of-modern-slavery.html Accessed December 9th, 2013.