Ignorance & Oedipus

     Around every corner, throughout people's lives, ignorance is prevalent. It does not matter if someone was ignorant just from lack of education or from personal choice. Either way, both forms of ignorance will end up causing the death of someone, then a community, and finally, a nation. The biggest issue with ignorance is that this creates an environment where people do not stand up for their beliefs and try to stop what is wrong in the world. Consequently, ignorance is one of the primary reasons why trafficking has not stopped and this is detrimental to societal function. Ignorance plays an especially big role in child trafficking and it must stop. Usually, when people are ignorant over child trafficking, it is done by choice. Many times, the media will have news on trafficking, but people choose to not pay too much attention. To them, especially those with power, child trafficking is an affair that has nothing to do with their lives. They do not see it nor do they "hear" about it. If anything, the topic of trafficking is but a mere annoyance. These types of people  do not realize that, perhaps, it was child workers who made their clothing or harvested the food they ate. Maybe it was child workers who are creating the precious commodities the influential desire. However, this belief does not only occur in the rich, in many ways, the middle and lower class plays a much bigger role in child trafficking occurring. The biggest problem is that child labor is very cheap and as people on the lower end of the spectrum, it is a good way to earn money if child laborers were trafficked and "employed". ?Sadly, by doing promoting this, a child's life is ruined. On the bright side, if people were to change this ideology,  it is very possible child trafficking could end by this generation. Sadly, to end this horror requires massive amounts of group effort and participation. Nevertheless, there are signs of improvement. Agreed by many humanitarians, the very first objective must be the educating of people about trafficking. Best described by non-profit organization, Free the Slaves, people must "...take a stand too. Get educated, get activated. Donate. Participate. And spread the word..."(About Slavery). This form of "by choice" ignorance was also shown in Aristotle's play Oedipus. Oedipus too chose to be ignorant about who he was and who caused the misfortune in Thebes. The end result? Oedipus became a ruined man and almost ruined his city too. While Oedipus and child trafficking are different scenarios, people can still take from the play that being ignorant does not help anyone or themselves. It all depends on being educated because to not is the same thing as living in a darker world. 

Works Cited

1. Aristotle. Oedipus Rex. Word Document ed. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
2. "Free the Slaves." About Slavery. Free the Slaves, n.d. Web. 22 May 2013. <https://www.freetheslaves.net/SSLPage.aspx?pid=348>.