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In the novel, A Long Way Gone, a young boy by the name of Ishmael is forced to become a soldier at a very young age. He becomes involved in drugs and violence, stripping him of his innocence. Towards the end of the story, he is turned over to UNICEF and put into a rehabilitation center to recover from the horrors he had experienced. This relates to human trafficking; both issues involve children’s innocence being taken from them at a young age. Both groups deal with violence, tragedy, and drug use when they are very young. Trafficking of children leads them to living a life as an adult due to the sexual and physical interactions they may have with customers and those living with them. Both groups of children experience events that most adults don’t even live through every day of their lives.
The 1400s marked the start of European slave trading in Africa. The Portuguese transported people from Africa to Portugal and used them as slaves. In 1562, the British joined the Portuguese in slave trading. Into the 1600s, other countries became involved in slave trade including; Spain, North America, Holland, France, Sweden, and Denmark. In 1927, the League of Nations had the goal maintaining world peace and also focusing on international issues such as human trafficking. The Suppression of White Slave Traffic was changed to "traffic in women and children" so that everyone was included with no discrimination to race. Children of both genders were also recognized as victims of trafficking. On February 14, 2002, the Polaris Project was founded by Katherine Chon and Derek Ellerman. After learning about the issue, they began to envision a society where modern day slavery is eliminated. The Polaris Project has become a leading non-profit organization, working to stop human trafficking. Today, President Obama declared January to be Human Trafficking Awareness month, and January 11, 2011 was named National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. On this day, various individual and group events took place in an attempt to increase awareness about human to the public. The Alliance to End Human Trafficking also began a campaign to ask the government to take serious measures against trafficking by renewing the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. In the novel A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, a young boy named Ishmael is forced to become a boy soldier. He was only twelve years old when his village was attacked. His friends and brother then are forced to survive on their own. They travel from village to village in search of food and shelter, and commit acts that are abnormal to their usual character. Ishmael is then drafted into the war, which leads him to using drugs and murdering in order to get his vengeance on the enemies who killed his family. The troops manipulate him into using drugs to make himself ignore the actions he is committing, and that it is acceptable to kill others because they killed his loved ones. This destroys him of the boy he once was into a destructive monster. Both Ishmael and children who are prostituted and trafficked are stripped of their childhood. They are forced to grow up quickly and learn to survive on their own. They are manipulated into doing damaging things, such as using drugs, at an early age. This effects the children’s personality and interferes with the life they had a potential of living. By putting trust into his nurse, Esther, and creating a close relationship with her, Ishmael is able to talk to her about his past. By doing so, he is able to rid himself of the tragedies he had dealt with in his past. With the compassion she gives him, it allows him to forgive himself for what he has done, and understand that it was not his fault that he committed the crimes he had. Ishmael is later given the opportunity to travel to New York City to inform the United Nations of the horrors he had encountered. He learns that he was not alone, and that there are others who have gone through similar experiences. This allows him to forget the past and accept the future due to having others to talk about the experiences with him. The victims of these acts, both human trafficking and child soldiers, are abused in many ways. They are unable to live the childhood that they deserve, and are mentally disturbed, which affects them for the rest of their lives. They are haunted by the memories of the experiences and acts they had committed as young children, and are never relieved of this baggage. Today, the United States, along with other countries, is fighting human trafficking, especially of children. Organizations have been created along with hotlines that are used to report trafficking. All of these efforts are making a large difference in the rate of trafficking and prostitution. Hopefully one day, all countries will be free of trafficking, specifically the prostitution of young children.

References

http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~yongpatr/425/final/timeline.htm

References: http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~yongpatr/425/final/timeline.htm