Last year, I visited in Cambodia a place of healing and support, a shelter for survivors. I met with dozens of girls, most of them very young, who had been sexually exploited and abused. They had been given refuge at the shelter and they were learning valuable skills to help them reenter society. These girls wanted the same thing that every child wants – the opportunity to live, to learn, a safe place, people who cared about them. And not too long ago, a shelter like this would not have been available. The idea of trafficking in persons was as old as time. And it wasn’t particularly high on the list of important international issues. And certainly, speaking for my country until relatively recently, we were not investing the resources or raising the visibility of these issues, of these stories, of these young girls.
The producers of Dateline, in the episode Children for Sale (2005), went undercover to show that in Cambodia, children as young as 5 years old are being forced to work as prostitutes. The producers support their claims with video evidence that shows that these young girls are slaves. The author's purpose is to raise awareness around the world so that human trafficking can be exposed. The author's tone is formal for the audience that the program reaches. In Cambodia, tourists flock there for sex tourism as much as people flock to Disney World in America. Girls are plucked right off the street and forced into prostitution, sometimes as young as five years old. People will come from all over the world and pay high prices for the prostitutes. Some of the cops are even willing to bribe the pimps to keep them out of jail. This horrible ring of slavery must end.
