liberty and justice for all?

so i just finished this book called SOLD by patricia mccormick. and besides les miserables, i have to admit it's the only book i'll ever thank a teacher for making me read. (for those of you who haven't read les mis, please do before you die.) i guess i was prone to liking it before i started reading it, but that's besides the point. basically, it's a group of vignette-like writings (similar to house on mango street) that detail the life of a young nepali girl named lakshmi who at the age of 12 or 13 is sold by her stepfather into sexual slavery.

tears came to my eyes as i felt the confusion she must have been experiencing. this poor young girl had not even the slightest notion of what she was getting into - up until this point, the least of her worries had been her cucumber garden. and now here she is being lugged across india, crossing borders illegally, and is finally landed in a brothel. in the beginning you can almost hear her innocence and naivete screaming out. but by the end, you start to get a sense of the effects this abuse has on her. you begin to understand her pain and why she and the other girls have become numb to their work. at one point, she admits to simply bearing it and wholeheartedly trusting in the (false) hope that one day, she will pay off the debt she owes. it's horrific.

what's crazy is that stopping human trafficking is my passion. it's what i feel god is showing me i'm here on this earth for. so i've read several books about this issue. i'm even in the process of researching sex slavery for my "senior project". but i have to admit, that nothing has hit me so hard as this. people always say that meeting these girls face-to-face brings the statistics to life. but here i am - having never even left the continent of north america nor experienced or witnessed true human suffering - completely humbled after reading this novel, which for all purposes is fictional (though it's based on factual evidence and real experiences that girls across the world continue to undergo).

i'm in shock. i'm in disbelief.

it boggles my mind that human beings can be so sick and so cruel.

it makes me want to stop it even more.

it makes me wonder why more people aren't as enraged about this as i am. all throughout my involvement with this in the last year, people have essentially asked me: to what extent does slavery exist in the world? teenagers and adults alike seem to doubt the presence of this basic violation of human rights. and now, all i want to do is buy copies of this book for all of those doubters. i wish so badly that they will come to see that this thing is real: people are suffering. people are being held against their will. literally. it's not made up. it's not a joke.

so i guess my hope is that more people will be thankful for the freedom we have. and maybe, just maybe, a few might go as far as actually using that freedom to bring freedom, to rescue, to deliver, to restore hope.

whatever happened to "liberty and justice for all"?