Posting: #2
Topic: Civil Rights
Title:"Held as Slaves, Now Free"
Publication Name:Held as Slaves, Now Free
Writers:Scott Bronstein, Amber Lyon, Alexandra Poolos
Date of Publication:Dec 2, 2010
Length:1603 words/3 pages
A. Main Ideas
This article, "Held as Slaves, Now Free" is about two girls Zena and Nicole, both from Africa. Zena is from Togo and Nicole is from Ghana. In the early 2000's, they were brought over from a family friend to "get a better education" but ended up becoming slaves that could do nothing but braid hair. The family friend, was a human trafficker, and had them slaving in salons for about five years. This occurred because there parents were fooled into thinking their children would get a better education abroad. This happened in Newark, NJ about 10 minutes from New York City. It happened from 2002 to 2007. The captors (three), of these girls were sentenced to 25, 24 and 4 years in prison.
B. Conclusion
In conclusion, two foreign girls' families were bamboozled about their education. They became modern slaves and were treated horribly. Although the article only covers two girls, they say more than 20 of them are included in this illegal operation. This is terrible, as in 2010, slavery across the country should have been abolished by now. Sadly, many other types of slaves exist today. Experts say human trafficking is done 100% for the money.
This is horrible. We are in the year 2010, and we are still finding away to take away peoples rights. Its unjust to tell some ones family that you are going to keep good care of them, and give them a better education. But it is at a whole other level when you make them slaves for braiding hair. The people that were involved with this deserve to be behind bars. We have gone threw the civil rights movement. We have been making progress with allowing same sex marriage. This is one huge step back.
ReplyDeleteIt saddens me to think that slavery still occurs to this day and is barely acknowledged. However, I am pleased to know that the women were punished for performing such crude actions. I don't understand how people have the audacity to go through so much effort to lie about a child's education just to enslave them and use them for money. I'm very glad these people were punished yet it frightens me to know that this is just one case of human trafficking and that it is happening more frequently than we know.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I wish I could say this is a rare occasion, I am pretty sure it is not. It really disappoints me to think that people are deceived into this sort of situation. For example, these poor girls never would have expected to be in this situation but there is nothing they can do about it, which makes it even worse. These people completely took advantage of their vulnerability and i think that is completely disgusting and unfair.
ReplyDeleteIt is so horrible that slavery continues to persist, even in this day and age. Human trafficking is a major problem in many parts of the world, but what makes me the saddest about this situation is that the unsuspecting parents sent their kids away thinking that they were giving them a better life. I was actually shocked to hear that this happened in America. I htought we had come a lot farther than that. I would have thought that something like this would have been able to have been prevented.
ReplyDelete