If you want to get American women of “a certain age” mad at you, just suggest to them that the movie “Pretty Woman” is not appropriate, and that the prostitute-turned-wife fairy tale glamorizes a form of slavery.
But it does and the world is actually beginning to attend to the plight of those around it who are held in sexual slavery today.
According to a new Associated Press report, “tech giant Google announced Wednesday it is donating $11.5 million to several coalitions fighting to end the modern-day slavery of some 27 million people around the world.
“In what is believed to be the largest ever corporate grant devoted to the advocacy, intervention and rescue of people being held, forced to work or provide sex against their will, Google said it chose organizations with proven records in combating slavery.
“‘Many people are surprised to learn there are more people trapped in slavery today than any time in history,’ said Jacquelline Fuller, director of charitable giving and advocacy for Google. ‘The good news is that there are solutions.’”
And one of those solutions is to stop considering the sex trade as a legitimate occupational choice.
“The trafficking of women for the sex trade is common in big American cities. Some illegal immigrants find themselves forced to work in sweatshops, in private homes as domestic servants or on farms without pay under the threat of deportation.
“The new effort will launch new initiatives that ordinary Americans can take to help abolish modern-day slavery, such as understanding how their own clothing or smart phones might contain fabrics or components manufactured by forced labor.”
It’s not “pretty” and it’s not just about women in this day and age, but it IS about slavery and degradation of human beings, often of children, and it does need to be combatted.
A huge step in the right direction would be for Americans to face up to its presence in our own country and to demand that people be delivered out of it.
Good for Google for making this one step.
But it is just that. One step.
— Chuck Smith