Cheaper than a piece of metal

The city of Winona hosts the Frozen River Film Festival every year. It's four or five days full of speakers and independent films, mostly centered around a common topic. I think this year's theme was food, but I am never in Winona, much less attending festivals, so I couldn't tell you for sure.

What I can tell you was that on Saturday at 1:00 they showed a film about human trafficking. I was there. I was there with a row of friends in tow. A doctor from Mayo Clinic came to speak about the trip he took to India that opened his eyes to the horrors of the buying and selling of human beings - no, of children. James Levine told us about the commercial district of Mumbai (formerly Bombay) where streets upon streets are lined with booths selling metal, food, fabric, and women. Apparently one girl in particular caught this doctor's attention. She was wearing a sari with rainbow trim and writing in a blue notebook. Maybe this caught his attention because, as a doctor, James Levine had always believed that education was always the answer. Education is always seen as the step up to the ladder of success. And here was this little girl, being sold behind a booth on a dirty street, reading and writing, and still trapped in sexual slavery. She was thirteen.

Thirteen.

Dr Levine continued that it was often cheaper to buy a young girl for the night than to purchase a piece of metal on the next block. He went home from that trip but could never get this little girl out of his mind. He went on to write a book, called The Blue Notebook. It's a novel he wrote, inspired by the little girl in the rainbow-trimmed sari. This book is now available in 22 languages and being sold all over the world. He's never seen the little girl with the blue notebook again, but he can only hope that his words are speaking up for her and the 27 million others still in slavery today. Her message can be carried across the world without even knowing what it was she was saying.

I haven't read the book yet but it's on my list. Dr Levine was a fantastic speaker with a passion behind his message. I hope you'll check it out on your next rainy reading Saturday.

_________________________________________________
Quick facts:
Traffickers made $31 billion in 2008 just by selling other people.
An estimated 8000-12,000 people are prostituted in Minnesota alone. - mcbw.org
731 women have been reported as sex trafficking victims in the last three years.
Minneapolis is in the top 13 cities for sexual exploitation.

Be informed.
Then become engaged.