The Unforgiven Worm and the Healing Apple
An Awareness Towards Human Trafficking
Society watches porn
Though it promotes human trafficking
The very thing parents against have sworn
A different subject of slavery; isn't it sickening
Parents have sworn against since before their children were born
Without the knowledge; society is blind to the risks
Human trafficking can happen in places so small
So small as dorm rooms
As fading as small towns
Is your teenager hanging out in malls
Does your child cling to you as they would a stuffed animal
If humans were meant to be sold
We would be in grocery stores
With production tags in bold
If we were meant to be violated to our cores
We would be apples
Where only worms could invade our sores
But we're not groceries
We're not even fruits
As dark as any sorceries
Bruises as dark as boots
With men who lie
Words so enticing
Yet a curse
One profit as innocence dies
The branding is the worst
Like a witch the broomstick she flies
Poisoning yet a lure coerces
As the child cries
The unknown man, the money he forces
As the adolescent with blood shot eyes
Against the act she pleads, he demands
Her eyes are undefinable
Against her pleads, against her will
The color is empty, the color is lost
He starts, she freezes like a window sill
Her innocence came with way too high a cost
When she's rescued, it'll take time, she'll slowly learn how to feel
With knots as tight as they come
So, her feelings she'll have to unravel
The flashbacks and nightmares will flood like a deranged hum
It's no wonder the boy doesn't like to travel
He can't even look at the teddy bear the same
He was the one they broke on gravel
While she believed she was to blame
Where do the nightgowns go
Once leaving their body
They learn nakedness is their way to sew
Learning for the rest of their lives the definition of vulnerability
With time they'll heal
Never deceive the murder as being erased
Childhoods he steals
Pornography she makes
While a boy deals
While she somehow finds peace in her pain
There is change in healing
There is courage in removing the stain
Human trafficking is an epidemic.
I wrote this poem one night while listening to "Song to the Siren" by This Mortal Coil. It touched me to the core and drove a hunger within me to do a little more research about human trafficking. I soon came to the conclusion with the thought, "You want to end child abuse; stop human trafficking." Which in turn just like it would to any other average person on my level; made me to want to research more. The more I researched the more I found that not only is child abuse linked to human trafficking but so is pornography. I then thought, "You want to end human trafficking; stop pornography and child abuse."
How Pornography Is Linked to Human Trafficking
Before I continue... may I say I received a balance of criticism and hate as well as love and support when I posted this on the Survivors For Justice Twitter page? On the inside it tore me up to see comments saying that it was consensual if adults were doing it (This isn't true at all). It broke my heart to see these people being deceived by lies. Pornography isn't consensual; (ever heard the term don't let looks deceive you)? There are many factors in which make this true; we will look at two main factors. I had the privilege to talk with a professor at the university I am enrolled in. Here's what the professor said, "Absolutely, human trafficking is involved within the porn industry - think of the many victims in which started out as children and are now adults." (This professor is well versed in her professional facts because she's the on-call responder for when human trafficking victims appear in this vicinity).
Fellow readers we're not only in an epidemic; we're in a crisis. Through some research I had done; there was more and more adding up. I found through professional studies that behind the scenes before being exposed in front of the camera; the victim was either coerced, threatened, drugged, used to the environment because of being placed there since childhood, or all of the above. Nothing about this is consensual and through a training I recently went to stated human trafficking is starting to occur more often in smaller towns than bigger cities. The crisis has reached smaller towns because we've reached the mindset in which denies that human trafficking will ever happen in such a small town. These individuals providing for human trafficking rings have shown this isn't an accident; this is a crime.
Children are to be seen and heard.
Be cautious of people who want to be closer to your child than you. Because the odds are the best intentions towards that child are not in the minds of these adults. If your child or someone's child you know fairly well (even if a child in which you don't know); comes up to you saying and/or showing that an adult has tried to physically/sexually harm them; you should listen to what they have to say. Children if not heard and shunned are more likely to not only feel uncared for and unsafe; they also will internalize the trauma in which was instilled upon them and it will take a long time for them to come to terms with telling their story once they finally do.
The good news is that not all people are bad.
There are ways to prevent human trafficking such as ending both the porn industry and child abuse. However, there are also other ways to advocate for victims/survivors of human trafficking. Such ways look like this: Starting an awareness group, becoming an advocate for young youth-adolescents, volunteer to work in a non-profit agency, and if you see something say something. If you see something that doesn't feel normal or is discouraged by your "gut" then there are phone numbers in which you can call to lend a helping hand. The National Human Trafficking Hotline is: 1.888.373.7888. The Child Protective Services Hotline is: 858.560.2191. The Department for Children and Families phone number (If in Kansas) is: 1.800.922.5330.
About the Creator
Mary McMichael
Hello, I'm Mary McMichael and I'm the founder of Survivors For Justice. I am in the process of writing my own book, getting my bachelor's in digital media, have a mind for creativity, and a big heart for people.
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