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The Unforgiven Worm and the Healing Apple

An Awareness Towards Human Trafficking

By Mary McMichaelPublished 5 years ago 5 min read
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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.

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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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