Slavery

I started to watch Ken Burns' Civil War before I went to Thailand and finished it last week. I haven't seen it in a long time, and I forgot what a moving, and deeply interesting, documentary series it is. I'll never truly understand people who fought for the right to keep slaves (ok, I know that's a vastly over simplified version of the causes of the Civil War... but hey if you're interested to know the rest see here). How could anyone consider themselves masters over anyone else? But it's a sad fact people did think they could be masters of another group of people. It's a sobering fact that people still do.

When I used to think of slavery the only country I could name that still "allowed" was Niger (it's illegal but not frowned upon). I was naive enough to once believe Britain had been slave free (ish, let's ignore the British Empire for now) since 1834. HA! Obviously in the last few years I've become aware of sex trafficking. And it's becoming increasingly clear people, especially children, are being brought into this country as domestic slaves. DOMESTIC SLAVES IN BRITAIN. If you read the stories at the BBC I think you will be shocked. Slavery in some other country is awful. Slavery in Britain? It must be stopped NOW.

How can we help? Legalise brothels. Regulate them. Undermine the financial incentive to these bastard traffickers. I know some people are shocked by the idea... but some people choose to become sex workers. Letting them do what they want to do will help ensure innocents from abroad need not be tricked/forced into slavery.

Oh I know a lot of people hate the idea of brothels and will fight against it, but right now the situation is appalling. Drastic measures need to be taken.

Tough new sentences need to be introduced for human traffickers, and those who use the services of slaves.

None of that will solve the problem unless as many people as possible... take action

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