If you aren’t part of the solution, are you part of the problem? In other words, if you don’t stand up and do what is right, are you encouraging the predicament to continue? Though a problem is always started as just a simple dilemma of some sort, it does not truly become a problem until people do not fight it and begin to become its victums. A solution is only possible once people start to take a stand against the problem and if one is not willing to do so then he or she is falling subject thus allowing it to continue to be a problem.
In Sold, by Patricia McCormick, Lakshmi, along with many others, continues to be mistreated and abused at the Happiness House while working for Mumtez. Lakshmi cannot get herself out of the house by working off her debt because her debt keeps getting larger by the day. She cannot run away and report Mumtez to the police either because the police are being bribed to be on Mumtez’s side. Because the problem at hand is so grand and just keeps getting worse due to no one taking a stand for fear of Mumtez, even when Lakshmi is given the opportunity to be free, the other girls have trouble accepting. Anita, another woman at the Happiness House, has freedom right at her fingertips but is too afraid to accept it and instead locks herself away. Because Anita doesn’t fight for herself she stays part of the problem. Though it is not her fault that she is stuck in sexual slavery in the first place, her fear causes it to be far harder for anything to change, therefore she allows the problem to continue on in its cycle.
Why is it her problem that she was forced into the sex trade? Even if she can't leave, you can't really say that she's allowing the problem to continue on its cycle. I don't think the cycle is to let people free from the sex trade and then hope that they continue being a prostitute.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you should have elaborated more on Mumtez's bribe and why the police officers shouldn't have accepted it.