I have to comment on two things, despite my lack of time to develop the ideas. Look into them on your own for depth, because I’m obviously no Nick Kristof.
1) Speaking of Kristof, he returned to his oft-written about topic of sex slaves and human trafficking. He writes, the crucial point he brings up repeatedly though a little less explicitly in this piece, that there are more slaves now than in the height of the slave trade. However, slaves today are usually dead of AIDS by age 20 or so. This winter, he returned to profile trafficking in Cambodia. I likely will be aware of the presence of brothels in Phnom Penh this summer. I don’t know if I can imagine girls my age literally chained and enslaved in the city where I’ll be living…
But here, Kristof writes about a Pakistani woman who unwittingly married a brothel owner, giving her and her family a life of terror. I must quote the article here (“Sanctuary for Sex Slaves” NYT 4/3/07) where the woman says, “If I had money, this wouldn’t be happening,” said Ms. Parveen’s mother, Akbari Begum. “It’s all about money. In the police station, nobody listens to me. The police listen to those who sell narcotics.”
“God should never grant daughters to poor people,” she added. “God should not give sisters to poor brothers. Because we’re poor, we can’t fight for them. It’s very hard for poor people, because they take our daughters and dishonor them. There’s nothing we can do.”
What’s our response when women today wish away their families, not because of planning, but because of terror and poverty?
2) Five African Union soldiers were killed in Darfur today, the most ever at a time. The beleaguered force has no shot at quelling the violence, or stopping the genocide which is only getting worse. Simple fact: the situation in Darfur is getting worse. Honestly, how many times can the world make the same mistake? Holocaust. Khmer Rouge. Rwanda. Many many others. Guaranteed, we will look back in dismay at our present inaction. We can express penitence then. But thousands upon thousands of Darfurians can no longer express life. 400,000 to half a million dead now, 2 million displaced. Everyone knows it. Can we not do something?
Though President Omar al-Bashir won’t let international troops in, we can impose a strict no-fly zone on the country. We can certainly implement targeted divestment in Sudan corporations. We can impose smart sanctions to put economic pressure on without hurting the already-damaged humanitarian efforts. We can strongly make a statement, especially from repeated direct speeches by heads of state. None of those absolutely crucial interventions even involve military action.
They simply can not wait any longer.
No comments:
Post a Comment