One of my past blogs was about the art show this past April in Shenyang. I am reminded of one of the works I saw:

The placard beside the artwork, “Ties That Bind” (2013) by Eva Preston and Joanna Fulginiti reads: “Physical, mental and emotional ties bind a woman to her trafficker and to commercial sexual exploitation.”

The physical ropes or plastic fasteners or implements of restraint that inhibit her body from movement and from escape are not always necessary to insure a prisoner’s cooperation. Fear will do. A woman or a girl may face several men who have the countenance of animals, savage beasts bent on tearing her body limb from limb and discarding when they are finished with her. Fear is physical and can make any move however slight impossible. Fear freezes. Fear is both mental and physical. And fear can continue after/if she is freed.

“How can she escape when she is bound by so many?”

For a girl who tries to imagine her future, a husband, a family, a life, being captured by armed men and sold into sexual slavery is a kind of living death. What torture awaits her? She might wish she’d never been born.“When a society ignores the interconnectedness, unspeakable acts, that have been contained in corners, overflow into our homes.”

The final question the artwork asks is directed to all of us. “Do you pull her ties tighter or embrace her beauty and strength?”

The Girls are kidnapped in Nigeria by Boko Haram. But we know that girls worldwide are kidnapped every year, 13% of 12.3 million people or over 1 million and a half girls according to the UN. No doubt those are conservative estimates. Human Trafficking is a $32 billion annual income industry. Traffickers can get $400,000 per victim.