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Nine-year-old girls: $50 each
Filed under: Tweens, In The News, That's Entertainment
Fifty bucks will get you a nine-year-old girl. Not as a babysitter, not as a playmate for your kids, not even for an hour of twisted sex, but for keeps. Fifty bucks is what you'll pay for a nine-year-old female slave in Haiti, if you're willing to bargain a bit. If you don't like bargaining, the girl will cost you $100.That's what Benjamin Skinner discovered while researching his book, A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery. "When I come back to a nice loft in Brooklyn," he said, "and I have to think about writing this thing -- that drove me. I knew that I had to write as compelling a book as possible. This is a life-long commitment for me."
While difficult, Skinner forced himself never to pay for a human life, even if it meant not freeing someone. He broke that rule once, however, helping a mother get her daughter out of slavery. He still keeps in contact with the Haitian girl, who is now able to go to school.
NPR has an excerpt from Skinner's book on their website. Skinner did what he set out to do -- the excerpt is indeed compelling, even as it is sickening in where it is headed. Whatever might have been acceptable in the past, I'd like to think we're at the point of being civilized enough that we wouldn't think of another intelligent being as property. Unfortunately, not everyone is so civilized.
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
3-25-2008 @ 6:21PM
Sandyone said...Oh, I wouldn't say that we're all that far ahead of such ideas. This isn't just a Third World thing. It's alive and well in the good ole USofA.
Reply
3-25-2008 @ 11:22PM
queenoqueens said...Just imagine this happening to any of our 9 year old daughters. We are so fortunate to never see this horrible side of life. But I shudder for these people. I have seen other PBS programs about modern slavery, and it never leaves you.
Reply
3-26-2008 @ 12:17AM
isisaquaria said...For all the progress, it still exists. How sad for the lives touched by this--
Reply
3-28-2008 @ 10:45AM
Linda said...there is probably more of this that goes on here in the USA that we can even comprehend!
Reply