human trafficking

Over the last few weeks there has been an image that's really been bothering me. The image wrenches at my gut and makes me so angry. But I also feel immensely helpless and impotent so I end up trying to blank it out because I feel too much about it but cannot do anything about it - at least a part of me believes that I cannot do anything.

The image that disturbs me so deeply is seeing these men, mostly older and mostly white, pawing at these very young vulnerable east asian girls. 

Last week I saw a man, maybe 60 or more, leaning into this woman in a food court. Holding her hand and caressing it. His face was flushed with excitement. The girls body language and face were tense and I felt that any moment she would burst into tears. She looked younger than my daughter. 

The following day I saw a large man walking with this little young woman. He had crushed her against him and his huge arm encircled her tiny waist. She was looking at the floor as she walked. 

The first thought that came to mind was sexual trafficking and exploitation. I saw images of forced sexual labour, confiscated passport and threats to family back home.  But immediately I said to myself, no not here, not in Singapore. It's clean and safe. Such things don't happen here. So, I pushed the thought out of my mind as something in my imagination but of course it still lingered within and found a way into my subconscious and few days later I dreamt - of a powerful man holding a woman captive. She had found a way to escape and I was helping her but he had found out and was playing a 'cat and mouse' game with her and me, smiling all the time as we made a dash to freedom.

Of course I worked on the dream as parts of myself. Of my psyche and found the different energies of predator, prey, power, victim, fear, within myself but I could not leave it at that. Some dreams are about the collective too. I googled human trafficking in Singapore and read that Singapore is indeed a destination country for girls trafficked for work and commercial sexual exploitation. On the ONE Singapore website I read -

At any given moment, 2.5 MILLION PEOPLE are victims of trafficking working as forced labour. Most are between the ages of 18 – 24. Almost all experience physical or sexual violence. More than 40% are forced to work in the sex industry. Estimated annual profits made from trafficking in Asia are US$10 billion.  Human Trafficking occurs in Singapore every day. 

(at http://www.onesingapore.org/stop-human-trafficking/)

Yes, Singapore. It happens here too and it is fairly visible, though most of us turn a blind eye to it?

I am going to stop writing here and let this brew in me as I explore the websites of organisations working with this issue in Singapore and see if I can make a difference even in a tiny way about this problem in our world. It still for the most part feels like this immense problem, involving large crushing organisations that have escaped the reach of the most powerful law enforcing bodies - so how can little insignificant me do anything? And maybe by myself I cannot but along with others even seemingly impossible change can be brought into our world.