Human Trafficking

Ok, so I know I post about this issue quite a lot but it really is one of those things that makes my blood boil. Did anyone watch this weeks Silent Witness? It was a 2-parter with the storyline based on a group of lads grooming girls for sex and then imprisoning them and forcing them to service clients. As any Slient Witness fan will know it’s usually pretty grim and gory and this one was no exception, but in this case I really think it showed the true horror of this awful crime. The main protagonist was shown being incredibly hateful of teenage white girls, classing them all as sluts and whores and this was clearly born out in his treatment of them.
 
Watching things on TV we can become desensitized to the issues involved. We see human bodies almost daily on the news, TV dramas use such realistic make up and special effects that we have got used to it, and politicians and presenters bandy around statistics without even considering what they mean. But this is a very real crime for girls all over the world, and even under our own noses. We live within 15 miles of Gatwick which means it is something our local police force are more than well aware of.
 
This Silent Witness was just awful. I guess for me because I have read a lot about human trafficking and understand to some small extent the scale of it, it just was so real. And also as a mother of a 16 year old daughter the very real threat of this kind of grooming is also a concern.
 
The A21 campaign estimates that there are around 27 million slaves in the world today, but as they say, we can start by helping the one. To one girl who is rescued from this horror the difference is immeasurable. In their newsletter this month you can read about Anika, one girl who was rescued and rehabilitated with the help of A21. Please give it a read. We cannot ignore this issue. Slavery was abolished worldwide in the 19th century and yet still this goes on, and is one of the biggest organised crimes across the globe. We cannot ignore it.