This week, I was going to comment on how Toddlers and Tiara's is ruining young women worse than Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera did in the 90's. And I will eventually get to that topic. However, I came across an article about a New York woman that had been essentially enslaving an immigrant worker.
The entire situation is absurd. A person would expect to read this in an Agathie Christie novel, or see it an episode of CSI, or maybe even in a particularly outlandish episode of (insert choice of wealthy teen drama here). Yet the reality is a woman spent years of her life in a closet, being paid 69 cents an hour.
Human trafficking is a touchy subject in the media. Talking heads, politicians, and major magazines seldom touch the subject. After all, no wants to admit that human trafficking is rampant in their country. (Instead, they attack the hardworking immigrants, illegal or not, who pick up for America's slack.)
Part of me is grateful that Yahoo! was willing to publish an article that handles such a sensitive topic. However, I think its publication was due mostly to the incongruity of the situation. If the circumstances are scandalous enough, it will create intrigue. There's no telling how many other Indian, Latin American, African, Asian, or Chinese women who are in the same exact situation, whose stories will never be heard.
A blog that addresses how the media manipulates, portrays, and enforces female stereotypes.... and how they're probably right.
Sadly, this is more common that you'd imagine. It seems it often comes up with foreign diplomats giving girls a "break" by inviting them to the embassy to work as maids. There was an awful rash of that for while. Distressing!!!!
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