Our Nasty Secret

By Dina Bachelor Evan - Dr. Dina Bachelor Evan is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in California and a life/soul coach in Arizona working with individuals, couples and corporations. For more information call 602-997-1200 or email her at Drbe@attglobal.net or visit www.DrDinaEvan.com

A moment ago, we heard a whisper about a swine flu and within a couple of days it was taking up 43% of all media airtime. That flu pandemic, at the time of this writing, has killed 53 people worldwide, in addition to accomplishing what it was perhaps, meant to do, which is take our minds off the economy for a bit.

No one seems to be talking about the other pandemic; the bigger one, the one that kills the body, mind and spirit. This one effects 27.44 million people around the world—500 thousand times as many people as the swine flu. Still, we are nearly silent about it, and it gets little to no airtime. The real numbers are impossible to collect, as this scourge is underground. It hides in alleys and dark rooms. It muffles the screams, steals the voice of it’s victims and leaches like cancer into every city and every country, more than 800,000 right here in the U.S. and 80 percent of it’s victims are women and girls. We hate to think about it. It’s too frightening. We look the other way. We can’t contain the sadness so we numb out, overwhelmed and in disbelief.

PBS, Frontline says, "When it comes to statistics, trafficking of girls and women is one of several highly emotive issues which seem to overwhelm critical faculties. We can’t wrap our heads around the issue because this level of inhumanity seems so inconceivable." The U.S. is among top 3 destinations for sex and labor traffickers in this $37B, yes, that means BILLION, trade industry and California, N.Y., Texas and Vegas are favored areas.

Nameless and Forgotten

To us, the victims of this horror are nameless and often forgotten in the massive numbers of the lost—an estimated 50,000 right here in Arizona. This pandemic is the human trade, slave markets, the buying and selling of people. As Amnesty International says, "These are words and phrases that, to many people, echo a brutal and distant time in our past. However, to the countless women, men, and children trafficked every year, these words coldly define the horror of their lives. Trafficking is a global phenomenon where victims are sexually exploited, forced into labor and subjected to abuse. Trafficking is a crime under international law that requires international cooperation to address." However, not too loudly and apparently not right now.

According to the Arizona Daily Star Newspaper," Poverty is not the primary causing of trafficking. It is a criminal activity driven by the ability to make huge profits due to high demand, and negligible-to-low risk of prosecution.

Sex slaves are often locked in their holding pens and places of business by double security doors, monitored by surveillance cameras and only let outside under the guard of crooked taxi drivers who ferry them to their next sex appointment.

Women report being beaten, raped and starved by their keepers. Sex-trafficking rings are often run by criminal organizations that aren’t afraid to use violence to protect the billions they generate. 150,000 children are sold in brothels and on the open market to as many as 20 or 30 men a day. The sale of porn is a $97 billion dollar business and 55% of it comes from the U.S. 100,000 websites offer illegal child pornography.

Child pornography generates $3 billion annually.

Pornography Time Statistics

Every second - $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography

Every second - 28,258 Internet users are viewing pornography

Every second - 372 Internet users are typing adult search terms into search engines

Every 39 minutes: a new pornographic video is being created in the United States.

Personal virtues are those characteristics valued as promoting individual and collective well-being while personal values are those things that really matter to us. So, I wonder, what does matter to us any more? How do we know when we have lost our morals? What has happened to us that we no longer care about these issues and no longer have a sense of right and wrong? How is it possible that these things happening right in front of us are not being addressed? The loss of our stock and even our job is doable, but what happens to us when we lose our ethics and personal morality?

I believe the loss of morality is a slippery slope. The first few times we act in contradiction to our personal ethics and find there is a payoff, it becomes easier the next time. We deaden the part of ourselves that feels discomfort and shame. Before long, just as with any other addiction, the loss of morality becomes comfortable and finally it’s where we live and from where we make most decisions.

It’s way past time for each of us to create our own personal and professional code of ethics and challenge ourselves to stay in alignment with it…no matter what the payoff. We need to care for that ethical, moral part of our selves as if our lives and the quality of our community’s life depended upon it. We need to watch out for our children as if their lives depend upon it.

And if these facts made you uncomfortable, here are few places to get more information and more involved.

www.traffickingaz.org  www.hrw.org/about/projects/traffcamp/intro.html  www.castla.org

What ever you do, never be a silent by-stander to the abuse of anyone.