“When Sex Trafficking Goes Unnoticed in America”
Human trafficking is a horrible crime that is happening in the world today. Every year, millions of men, women, and children are trafficked worldwide. Traffickers use force, labor, or coercion to force them into doing things that they don’t want to do, especially sex, which is basically a modern-day form of slavery. This is a very controversial topic because there are well 20 million human trafficking victims worldwide, so there are a lot of men who believe this crime is okay. I plan to use the essay, “When Sex Trafficking Goes Unnoticed in America,” by Priscilla Alvarez. In this essay, Alvarez stresses that there is not enough awareness about human trafficking in the United States. Although many cases of human trafficking are reported, many are not. Alvarez writes that the victims of this disgusting crime are usually kept silenced, so the numbers are higher than what we actually know. What made this essay stand out from the rest was that Alvarez interviewed a past victim of sex trafficking. This allows people like us to spread awareness and to know what to look out for regarding pimps and prostitutes. I plan to connect this to Yo-Yo Ma and Jonah Lehrer’s essays by using data, considering data is a form of science. By reviewing data, drawing maps, and creating propaganda, we would be able to spread awareness all over the country and reduce the human trafficking numbers significantly. Another problem with advocating for human trafficking is not thinking empathetically, but thinking only critically. Truly, we don’t know how terrible human trafficking is until we talk to the victims, and that is where empathy comes into place. If members from the government and society all felt empathy for these victims and their families, they would do everything in their power to put a stop to this immediately. I plan to back this statement up by using Yo-Yo Ma’s essay, “Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education.” I will state that there needs to be a balance between empathetic and critical thinking. I also plan to use Jonah Lehrer’s essay, “The Future of Science…Is Art?” to back up the claim that art (empathetic thinking as Yo-Yo Ma puts it) will allow one to see new insights and perspectives, and it will allow humans to get a better grip on any situation. As a woman especially, I believe that the government isn’t doing everything in its power to stop human trafficking. They need a break from critical thinking, and they need to dive into empathetic thinking.
“When Sex Trafficking Goes Unnoticed in America” is a great essay for the problem defined above because it allows us to see the empathy of this terrible crime because Alvarez has a victim interviewee. This essay was published on The Atlantic on February 23, 2016, so this is a recent essay considering human trafficking is still a huge issue. Priscilla Alvarez solely writes about politics and immigration on The Atlantic, so she is really passionate about it. Alvarez is a graduate of Virginia Tech, where she majored in journalism and world politics and policy. Her work has appeared in several other publications, including National Journal and Washingtonian Magazine. She’s also appeared on The Lead with Jake Tapper, CBS This Morning, MSNBC, and NPR. Alvarez is still very young, and she has a bright and busy future ahead of her. She also cites many sources throughout her essay and she adds in many quotes about exact statistics. All of this information makes Alvarez a very credible author/journalist.
This sounds like a fascinating angle to take. Have you considered the impact storytelling can have on people’s ability to think empathetically? So many of these crimes seem to occur because of our ability to make objects out of people.