Born Into Brothels Reflection

         The documentary, Born into Brothels, deals with children in the Red Light District. The Red Light Ditrict is a place where buildings are close together, there are small dirt paths for the roads, children are chained up to posts, and women are lined up along the streets at night. In the first paragraph of the first chapter in Half the Sky, it describes what the Red Light District is like. It also talks about how mothers raise their children to be prostitutes like they are. In the documentarty, one of the mothers does not want her daughter to attend school, because she wants her to enter the line. Later on in the reading, it talks about how the more wealthy girls are more likely to stick to their virtues; whereas the women in poverty are more likely to compromise or overlook their morals. Also, people tend to ignore the needs of people in poverty more than they do with those who are wealthy. Another thing that is relevant to the documentary is that women are beaten down both physically as well as emotionally in the brothels.
               In the second reading, A Crime So Monstrous, it talks about slaves in Haiti. The story begins with a descrption of what it would be like to purchase a slave and what you would see as you go to Haiti. In class, we did group projects on various subjects, and one of them was child slavery. Although we don't see much of it around Michigan, but it still very much exists. We talked briefly about how we don't know much about it, because we are not around a place where it is well known. In the reading, it talks about how police rescued a twelve year old from a home in Miami. They took bought the girl, brought her to the United States, and forced her to clean their home, sleep on the floor, and eat garbage. The police found out that the son of the couple had raped her since he was 9 year old. We did not talk much about this in class, but it just brings the slavery closer to our world. In the documentary, a little boy was briefly shown chained to a pole, not wearing any pants. This little boy was chained up to be sold; whether it was for slavery or to be in the sex trade, the little boy was considered an object, not a person. When people are trafficked, abducted, sold into slavery, and forced to become prostitutes, they are not seen as people, but objects that people can use however they choose. In the documentary, viewers are able to see the Red Light District through the eyes of the children of prostitutes and drug users. They too, are beaten for not doing anything, their parents got upet at the children for not doing something they were not asked to do. Also, the children are in an environment we'd see as negative, but it is normal to them, because it is what they have grown up with. It is normal within their societal structure to see people do things that we may consider improper, illegal, and wrong. To the people in the brothels, it is all they know. Some people know that it is not good to participate in such behaviors, but some see it as good. Near the end of the second reading, it talks about how bad is good for people involved in slavery as well as prostitution.