 |
|||
|
|
The Unitarian Church of All Souls • 1157 Lexington Avenue • New York, NY 10021 email: peacetaskforcenyc@yahoo.com
|
To view archived materials, please click on one of the links below: |
|
HUMAN TRAFFICKING
Talk by Beatrice Fernando November 11, 2007 Human trafficking is the crime of coercing people, via physical force or false promises of jobs or marriage, to work as slaves – either at labor or for sexual purposes – within a country or across international borders. Today human trafficking enslaves some 27 million people around the world; moreover, by depriving them of their human rights, it may subject them to rape, injury, even death. Despite the enormity and vast scale of this crime, it gets little recognition. Those who survive it come often from poor societies which tend to stigmatize victimhood, and thus fear speaking out. A courageous exception to such silence is Beatrice Fernando, who recounted her experience as a victim of human trafficking at All Souls Church on November 11, 2007. Her appearance was co-sponsored by the Peace Task Force and the Women's Alliance Born into a poor family in Sri Lanka (once Ceylon), the youngest of five children, Ms Fernando married young, got pregnant, and then, at the age of twenty-three, found herself with a child and still living at home. Owing to her father's stature in the community as a homeopathic doctor, Ms Fernando did not want to shame her family by taking a lower-class job. Still, she wanted to educate her son and so, when she met an agent who promised her a good income if she would sign up to be a housemaid in Lebanon, she couldn't refuse. In Lebanon, however, the agent, after taking her passport -- and thus her freedom -- sent her off to work for a woman who abused her not only verbally but physically, beating and starving her. In desperation Ms Fernando escaped by dropping off the fourth-floor balcony of her employer's apartment. Despite a fractured spine and not having been paid, she managed to return home. There, though she recovered physically, everyone, including her family was against her, suspecting her of having been a prostitute and thus deserving her fate. She, too, then accepted that what had happened to her was somehow her fault, that she was to blame. Nonetheless, she is a gutsy woman. She didn't lie down under the stigma but worked to get herself to the United States. At first, she wanted to forget the past but gradually began to speak out about her experience in order to make people aware of the evil and pervasiveness of human trafficking. She also wrote a moving book about her experience, copies of which were for sale after her talk. Anyone who wishes to buy her book -- In Contempt of Fate -- can order it through www.bearopublishing.com. Many of the victims of human trafficking are, as was Beatrice Fernando, lured into it by the hope of earning money to give their children a better life. To help these children, Ms Fernando founded and now directs the Nivasa Foundation, which funds the education and care of many victims' children and also provides educational resources and grassroots advocacy campaigns on human trafficking in Sri Lanka and around the world. The donations she received at this event will go toward the foundation's work. Human trafficking is, as Ms Fernando says, a "disease," one spreading in many forms. It constitutes a global health risk and fuels organized crime. Finally, it is highly profitable, the global value of trafficked labor being $9.5 billion. For all these reasons, it is now an urgent concern of the United Nations as well as of the United States and Congress. In 2003, Congress strengthened the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, while on November 1 of this year a New York State law against it came into effect. Ms Fernando opened her talk by saying that the whole world is "asleep." Her goal was to wake us up to the fact that human trafficking occurs all around us – the nanny in the park, a gardener, a waiter. It behooves us all to learn about it and do what we can both to prevent it and to help its victims reinstate themselves in society. |