Cover Letter

Haley Newsome

English 1200-060

Cover Letter

Mellisa Tetterton

            The project that I revised is project two.  The first major change that I made was that I organized my blogs in a different order.  The order that I originally had my blogs was backwards.  My very last blog introduces my topic and then my blogs go from there.  I switched it around to my last blog is now the first one you see.  This gives my blogs more organization and makes it easier to read. The second major change that I made was that I went through my blogs and read it line by line and made changes that I thought were necessary.  Since project two was online, there were no comment from you that I could look at to base my changes off of, I thought that reading through it line by line would be the most productive thing to do to revise my project.

            You have been my English teacher for both semesters this year, and I think that from last semester I grew tremendously with my writing.  Last semester I had a solid B on every paper, but this semester I have been making A’s.  I guess this semester I have grown in the way I write.  What I mean by this is how I use concrete details and not as many details that are just fillers in my paper.  I can now proudly say that I can successfully write a research paper and I know that I will do well on it.  In high school I always did terrible on my papers and I think it is because they didn’t really teach me how to write.  You used examples that related to the students, which was very helpful.  You made class interesting, which make students, want to come to class and is helpful with us learning.  This semester I have also grown on being able to combine research I have found from articles and incorporate them into my papers.  This is a skill I know I will have to use later in college, and is important to know how to do.

            

Europe and Human Trafficking (Revised)

You know how most people want to travel the world before they die?  Well that is what my mom has always dreamed of, except she wants to visit Europe specifically.  My mom decided that since she could not go to Europe herself that she would live through her children.  I have two brothers, Hunter and Evan, and all three of us were sent to Europe at three different times with three different groups.  My dad was all for sending Hunter and Evan to Europe but when it came to me he was skeptical and argued with my mom. My dad was worried about the dangers of me going to a foreign country by myself.

Now any parent would worry about their child going off to Europe for three weeks by themselves, but I went with a group called People to People where there were four chaperones for about forty children.  My mom tried to keep my dads fear from me so that I would not worry.  One day I walk by their room and heard them talking about how my dad didn't have a good feeling about me visiting Europe for so long.  I wondered what he could be worrying about, so I looked up the dangers of going to Europe.  The first link that popped up was about how sex trafficking is an issue in Europe.  At the time I didn't really know what human trafficking was.  Once I looked it up, I could not believe how people could do that; especially to children! Human trafficking is all around the world, even in the United States, which was astonishing to me.  You would think since I live in the United States I would hear about that on the news or from someone I know.  There are several movies out there like Hostel, Memoirs of a Geisha, and Slumdog Millionaire that show you different types of human trafficking and bring the issue to the public, but these movies are not in the United States, but foreign countries. 

Human trafficking is a serious issue especially when it comes to women.  Women are the number one victim when human trafficking is involved. Most times women are sold as sex slaves and their families never hear from them again.  The State and Federal Government have different rules and ways of operating.  Federal has more money supplied to them than the State Police.  If the State and Federal Police worked together, then human trafficking could become less of a problem than it is right now.  Sex slaves are all over the world from Mexico to Europe and then even the United States. If both the Federal and State police worked together then there would be more money to help catch those who are in charge of the human trafficking and also that would double and maybe triple the amount of force that can stop the process of women being shipped from Mexico to Europe.  Of course women are not only being shipped from Mexico to Europe but also all around the world.

   

Below is a link that will take you to the trailer of the movie Taken.  I got this video from Youtube and it shows how one man will do anything to get his daughter back from the human trafficking in Paris.  Though this trailer does not show all of what is in the actual movie, at the very beginning it gives you facts of human trafficking such as what percentage of children are trafficked and the percent of girls who are trafficked.  You can also see how when women are sold as sex slaves some are treated horribly and get sick from such conditions.  This is a very serious issue in the world whether it is selling women for sex, women to the highest bidder for marriage, or children being used as slaves.

"Youtube - Taken Trailer." Youtube - Broadcast Yourself. 28 Feb. 2009 Web. 9 Mar.                                    2011     <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCbDUREBwUg>.

   

 This video is a trailer from the movie Taken.  This movie is about how a eighteen year old girl gets kidnapped when she goes on a trip to Europe with one of her friends.  Kim's dad (Bryan) is a retired agent and does anything that it takes to get his daughter back.  In this clip when Kim wanted to go on this trip to Europe, Bryan had a bad feeling about it and did not want her to go.  He said that it was not safe for a girl her age to be going off alone on a trip to a different country.  Kim and her friend get kidnapped once in Europe and are sold as sex slaves.  While Bryan is on a search for his daughter, he threatens people, kills people, and at the same time is being followed by the police in Paris.  In this video, I wonder why the police do not help Bryan find his daughter.  Instead, the police are chasing after Bryan and trying to stop him.

Dangers of Wanting a Better Life? (Revised)

About two or three years ago I went to a concert in downtown Winston-Salem with my friends Mandy and Ben.  The band we went to go see was the Old Crow Medicine Show, and I must say I have never seen so many older people at a concert. I definitely felt out of place.  Even though the crowd was filled with older people, I still had a great time.  After we left the concert Mandy and I saw these two women on the side of the street.  They had far too much make-up on, their hair was a mess, and they were dressed in these skimpy dresses, tall heels, and tights with holes in them.  We were flabbergasted.  We had never seen prostitutes before and I did not expect to see them downtown.  After staring for far too long we see a cop car come around the corner and the women disappeared.

Prostitution is illegal in most states in the United States.  Most people don't think about it, but most women who are prostitutes do not choose to be, they are forced.  Many women who are apart of human trafficking are either kidnapped or lured to a different country (or somewhere else in the same country) and forced into sex trafficking.  Many women are never actually sold, but instead they are transported and exploited by a single crime network.  An example of this would be the Albanian mafia in Eastern Europe who transport their women to Western Europe and then they are put into brothels.

Women are lured into sex trafficking in many different ways.  The main way I'm going to focus on is how women are told that if they move to a different country they are promised a job, marriage, and a better living.  An example of this will be shown in the article called Mexican convicted of luring women into US sex slavery by BBC News.  In this article Cortez-Meza has promised women that if they moved to Georgia then they would be promised either a job or marriage.  The women are very vulnerable and an easy victim for Cortez-Meza because they are hoping for a better life.  Since the women were desperate for a better life for themselves and also their families, they believe Cortez-Meza.

"BBC News - Mexican Convicted of Luring Women into US Sex Slavery." BBC - Homepage. 23 Nov. 2010. Web. 16 Mar. 2011. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11826365>.

In this article a Mexican man named Cortez-Meza is convicted of life in prison in the United States for luring ten women to Georgia and forcing them into sex slavery.  Cortez promised the women jobs and romance but once they got to Atlanta, Georgia he forced them into sex slavery.  The women say that he threatened to kill their family, isolated them from their families and also beat them.  The women were forced to have sex with dozens of men a night.  This article shows how the government got involved to help prevent sex slavery.  With the help from the government and police,  Cortez was caught and the women were able to get away from the terrors of sex slavery.  This article made me think about how much sex trafficking goes on in the United States.  I thought that sex trafficking was in foreign countries and not the United States.

From Nigeria to Europe (Revised)

This semester as one of my classes I decided to take the Science of Nutrition.  She talks about 500 miles an hour and she has a very thick accent.  My teacher is from Nigeria and about a week ago she said something about when she lived in Nigeria.  Did you know that Nigeria is one of the most sex trafficked countries in Africa?  Nigeria is different than most places that have sex trafficking because in Nigeria, women are sold by their loved ones and friends. Now since it is sex trafficking and the women have to be transported across the ocean, how is it done?  It would cost more money than a sex trafficker would want to pay to transport a woman by plane or boat, so there must be other ways.

My main goal was to try and figure out how women are transported from place to place.  I have heard people tell me that women have been transported by crate, plane, boat, and none of the rides are comfortable for the woman.  But then an article caught my eye about women trafficked from Nigeria to Europe. I thought perfect!, but when I started to read it I was very disturbed.  Before I tell you what I found disturbing, I will tell you a little bit about how human trafficking works.  All sex trafficking starts off with a recruiter.  A recruiter is someone who can get close to the women and persuade them to go to a place like the United States to have a great job and a better living.  Now that you know that, their relatives and friends recruited the women from Nigeria most of the time. Their own family would trade them in for money.

The article Transporting Women Sex Workers From Nigeria to Europe, Nigerian women are tricked into believing that if they disobey the people in charge, then they will either kill the women or their family.  They do this by the process of a traditional voodoo called juju. They take either a piece of hair, nail, or blood from the women and then the women believe that the sorcerer has full control over them.  Also, the organization may also have lawyers who maintain legal documents.  These legal documents maintain the debt responsible for the women and their families.  The legal documents for the debt states that the woman and/or family will pay for the train ticket by a certain time.  If the ticket is not paid for, then either the woman of the woman's family will be killed.

Buker, Hasan. "Transporting Women Sex Workers From Nigeria to Europe." Crime and Justice International Magazine. Web. 17 Mar. 2011. <http://www.cjimagazine.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=194>.

The article above is called Transporting Women Sex Workers From Nigeria to Europe by Hasan Buker. In this article you learn what Nigerian women go through during the sex trafficking process.  The women are sold by their own family and friends, they are tricked by sorcerers into staying with the organization and they are also promised a job or marriage.  This article shows me how easy it is for an organization to capture a woman and force her into sex trafficking.  Women in Nigeria do not have a very strong social status, which makes them easy victims.  Because women do not have as strong of a social status as men, they are less likely to have education, which is another way for them to be easily targeted.  The women are told how they will have a better life in America, and how going there will also benefit their family.

Brothels and Cambodia (Revised)

Human trafficking is a continuous loop going from one end of the world to the other.  The loop primarily goes from Europe to North America and then Latin America.  There is not a specific route that any sex trafficker takes.  This is what makes it difficult to catch sex traffickers or find the women who are taken.  Most of the women who are taken either end up in the United States or pass through the United States.    The women end up in the United States because most poor countries believe that if they come to America, then the women and their families will be able to have a better life.  The country that is number one for the human trafficking of women is Cambodia.

Women from Cambodia who are forced into sex trafficking are more than often sent to brothels.  Brothels are basically a house of prostitution.  Women who work in brothels are forced to have sex from ten to twenty men each day/night.  If the women do not have sex with a certain amount of men, then they are beaten and are not given food.  Women who do not make the amount of money that the owner of the brothel requires, will also be beaten and not fed.  Certain women do receive more money than others.  The women who are sold for more are those who are virgins because they are less likely to have any sexual transmitted diseases such as AIDS and are seen are pure.  In Cambodia brothel owners pay traffickers from 350 to 450 dollars for virgins compared to only 150 to 170 dollars for those women who are not virgins.

When a woman is put into a brothel she is responsible for a "debt" that she pays off by sleeping with a certain number of customers.  A woman who is forced into sex trafficking is responsible for paying off a debt for something they do not even want to do.  Can you believe this?  The "debt" that the women owe can be compared to taxes that are paid.  I find this ridiculous and it shows how some people just walk all over others.  It isn't fair for a woman to feel like she owes the owner of the brothel anything! If anything, he should owe her for putting her through such a traumatic experience.  It takes a woman from six months to sometimes more than a year to pay off their "debt", and then after that, the woman may make around three dollars per customer.  The women only make three dollars per customer because the owner of the brothel takes most of the money a woman actually makes.  The women live in fear so they never protest, and therefore are paid unfairly.

Hughes, Donna M., Laura J. Sporcic, Nadine Z. Mendelsohn, and Vanessa Chirgwin. "Cambodia - Facts on Trafficking and Prostitution." Cambodia - Facts on Trafficking and Prostitution. Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation, Mar. 1995. Web. 18 Mar. 2011. <http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/cambodia.htm>.

The section of this article that I used was from the Method and Techniques of Traffickers.  This certain section of the article talks about the different aspects of the brothel business.  Women who are virgins are sold for more money because they are less likely to have a disease such as AIDS, and also that they are seen as pure.  Women have a certain debt to pay to the owner of the brothel and they are held to that debt through a contract.  This article informs you of the behind scene information that is hidden from the public.  It is a sad but true fact that most people think that women are prostitutes because they chose to be and not because the women are forced to.  This article is specific in how women are sold into brothels in Cambodia.  There is a price for every woman, and those women must pay back what the owner paid for the women.  This includes the money, what women must do, and even certain contracts.  With women being sold into sex trafficking, I did not think about brothels.  I thought that brothels were a thing of the past and that there are not many brothels around anymore.  This article shows me how brothels are run like a business.

CFO-Task Force Against Human Trafficking. 2007. Web. 19 Mar. 2011. <http://www.cfo-antitrafficking.org.ph/route.htm>.

This website shows two different pictures of human trafficking routes in the world.  The first map shows how there are destination countries and transit countries.  The transit countries are the countries that traffickers move women through to get to the destination country.  In the second map, it shows that most of the women are trafficked to North American, Western Europe and Southeast Asia.  These two maps show how there is a system to human trafficking.  There are certain places that women are sent to and then there are also destinations for the women. These maps show how there are many different routes that traffickers take to transport women.  With this many routes, it is almost impossible for a woman to be found once she is taken into sex trafficking.

How to choose? (Revised)

Have you ever been afraid to go somewhere because of what you have heard?  For instance, right now you may not want to take a trip to Mexico because of all of the drug trafficking going on.  Do you think that if you heard about the large amount of women who are kidnapped and forced into prostitution in Hawaii you would still go?  Hawaii is seen as a paradise, and not seen as a place where women are sold into sex trafficking.  Being seen as a paradise, Hawaii is a main tourist attraction, which makes Hawaii a prime target for sex traffickers.

Sex traffickers are not specific t one country or state, trafficker’s travel from country to country where it is easiest to find a victim who can be forced into prostitution.  Sex trafficking is primarily known of in foreign countries like Europe and other countries that are main tourist attractions.  Most women who are forced into prostitution by sex traffickers are tourists.  The women are in a place that they are not familiar with and a sex trafficker knows this.  With this knowledge, the trafficker will take advantage of a woman's vulnerability and gullibility.  The average age of a girl to be forced into prostitution in foreign countries is twelve.  At the age of twelve, girls do not have a full comprehension of whom they should trust and whom they should not trust.  Most women between the ages of twelve and twenty-six when approached by a man who acts kind will trust them.  Not many women would think that a polite and kind man would be the one to force them into prostitution.

Have you ever seen a prostitute get arrested?  It is true that prostitution is illegal, but the sex traffickers should be the ones who are arrested and not the women.  The women are selling themselves on the street not by choice, but are being forced by their "pimp".  The Hawaiian government has now realized how the women should not be penalized and therefore the Hawaiian government is working to fix this problem.  Kathryn Xian helped create the Hawaii Senate bill 959 that would make sex trafficking a felony and include a large time in jail.  There have been safe houses created for the women to go to for a safe place to stay, warm bed, meals and people to take care of them.  Sex traffickers have raided some safe houses and the women have been taken back.  Along with safe houses being raided, the police have also raided the houses where the sex traffickers are holding the women captive.

Mendoza, Jim. "Sex Trafficking in Paradise - Hawaii News Now - KGMB and KHNL Home."Hawaii News Now - KGMB and KHNL Home - Hawaii News Now - Home. 11 Feb. 2011. Web. 19 Mar. 2011. <http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=14011020>.

In this article you learn that sex traffickers focus on money, greed, and power.  One prostitute can make between $2,000 and $3,000 a night for her pimp, and each pimp has up to about twenty girls.  Hawaii is one of the few states that do not have a law that is directed towards sex or human trafficking.    With the help from the police and "Danielle" there could be fewer women who are forced into prostitution in Hawaii.  They are going to create a law that is directed specifically towards sex trafficking.  Also, this article shows how the government is getting involved and trying to help with sex trafficking.  This article is a way for people to see that sex trafficking is happening in places you would not expect.  This article also shows how sex trafficking is being seen as a serious issue and needs to be taken care of.