Speaking Out & Night

     After someplace has experienced natural disasters or is currently under a government that employs human rights abuse, the media is on hand in an instant to provide coverage and influence people into taking action. As a result, there are hundreds if not thousands of organizations taking part in preventing abuse, helping the needy, stopping hunger, and collecting money to fund the creation of basic necessities a human needs. In regards to child trafficking, it is a different story. Yes, there are hundreds focused on preventing human trafficking, but there are only a few organizations that truly focus children and even fewer in all aspects; the focus should not only on child sex trade, but also child labor. Based on past incidents, it can be assumed that the media plays a big role in determining who or what receives aid, but as human beings living free from slavery, it is not fair that innocent children are taken to become slaves. It is up to the everyone to step up and take action to end this plague. There are many examples where human involvement has ended human rights abuse. For example, here in the US, just a few decades earlier, black Americans were persecuted in the South and nobody outside the South cared or had the power to stop it. If not for people like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., it is possible human rights abuse would still be continuing today. However, both Rosa Parks and MLK were able to do something people in the past had not been able to. They had raised awareness through actions. Unlike the others, they were not bystanders nor cowards who feared to tread upon new territory, no, they decided action was the only remedy, and it worked. Segregation and racism in the South ended during their lifetime. This example can be applied to trafficking as a whole. Like segregation, trafficking too can be ended this generation, but the need for vocal participants is a must. In Night, before Elie Wiesel was forced into the local ghetto, everyone in Sighet, the small town where Elie lived, knew of the rumored ill treatments of Jews in Hungary, but no one paid attention. Even after Moshe came back to Sighet with warnings, no one heeded him. The population of Sighet was blinded by their hope that nothing bad was happened and no one had the courage to stand up to what was happening out in the real world. Their inaction led to their own demise as a result. If Sighet had risen up, who knows what would have happened. Maybe, their actions would have led them to freedom. Even if nothing happened, at least the people of Sighet could say they had taken a stand and raised awareness. Past the stage of ignorance, people must use their new found knowledge to lead the world towards a positive direction. This idea is the same with child trafficking.  If no one will speak out about this issue, who will? Do not wait for others to act, do it yourself.
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Works Cited

1.  Wiesel, Elie, and Marion Wiesel. Night. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, a Division of  Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006. Print.