Week One Reflection

As an activist in the anti-human trafficking movement, I automatically contemplated the issue of HIV/AIDs, presented in the Wednesday lab, in the context of human trafficking. As I learned Wednesday at PEPFAR and from our student presenter, HIV/AIDS is transmitted through semen, vaginal fluid, breast milk and blood. This fact reveals the ease with which HIV/AIDS can enter the world of the sex trade and the magnitude of the horrors that ensue. I began to ponder how the spreading of the disease could be halted once entering the sex trade and how it could be prevented from penetrating the sex trade in the first place. The typical means of preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS during intercourse is the use of a condom. When discussing prevention, our group was informed to protect ourselves. How are women who are given no choice about their life situation, sex lives, and especially their sexual health supposed to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS and STIs? They have no say in protective measures and are given no access to condoms! On the other hand, preaching to johns about using condoms during intercourse, or rape as most humane persons call the grotesque act, would seem just as contradictory as needle exchange programs, which seem to promote an illegal and immoral act in a truce between safety during said practices and the effort to squelch the existence of said practices in the first place. Though needle exchange programs have been, in many cases, a successful means for slowing the spread of HIV/AIDS, the program is run through a defeated attitude that the drug users will do drugs despite the illegality and the other seemingly endless list of cons. I understand that the cause is noble from an HIV/AIDS prevention mindset, but it still promotes something immoral. I cannot even begin to approach the issue of HIV/AIDS in trafficking with that same mindset. In no way can condoning trafficking, even if just to distribute condoms, be positive or healthy. This presents a horrifying dilemma when thinking about the global impact an intricate trail of HIV/AIDS could have in hurling the nations of our planet into pandemic hell.

When contemplating the affects globalization has had on the trafficking scene, I shudder to think of the ease with which persons are transported between nations and the simplicity with which persons can gallivant on sex tourism escapades. Surely this newfound freedom betwixt the markets, governments and communications of the world has only created a stronger anti-freedom which allows for the enslaving of persons and the exploitation of those persons on a larger and more devastating scale.