WOMEN - PROSTITUTION (article) by uppalapati Lakshmi Prasanthi on AuthorsDen

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Reviewed by Maria D. Garcia

Reviewed on April 24, 2003

We know prostitution has been around for centuries since the time of Christ, but their is a difference in those who prostitute themselves and those who like many women fall victims to the organized crime of Trafficking of women. The lucrative business of Trafficking of women is ABHORENT and everyone should know that their is a difference between those who prostitute themselves by choice and those who are forced, lied and abducted by this evil organized crime of Human Traffickers.

Reviewed by J Michael Kearney

Reviewed on May 20, 2002

The reason that prostitution has been illegal in the West is the involuntary nature of much of it. Still the law arrests the prostitute, when it should focus on the pimp. In some places in Aemrica, the names of "johns" (customers) are published in the local paper so that the man is disgraced at work and at home in an attempt to reduce the demand for those services. /// In some regions, a culture that devalues women (fundamentalist Islam for one) renders the use of "shame" useless, because there is no shame in that kind of abuse. /// Fine writing.

Reviewed by Sridhar

Reviewed on May 6, 2002

No Comments from me on this pleeeeeease!!!

Reviewed by Cathy J. Montgomery

Reviewed on May 6, 2002

I DO apologize for saying that you are a man!! I meant woman!! Please forgive me!!

Reviewed by Elaine Masters

Reviewed on April 29, 2002

This article is an emotional appeal for the world to face the universality of prostitution and to realize that the prostitutes are not (usually) in the work by their own choice. I agree. I work in Thailand a few weeks every year, and I know that many girls have been sold into prostitution, sometimes knowingly by their own under fed parents, and sometimes because they think they are being recruited for more honorable work. Some girls do enter the "profession" willingly, but this is often the result of societal conditioning. For instance, in some Akha tribal villages, it is expected that girls will become prostitutes in Bangkok when they reach puberty. They are not conditioned to expect anything else. It used to be perfectly acceptable for Thai village girls to serve as prostitutes for a few years in order to amass a dowry, and then return to the village to marry well. Since the advent of AIDS, the last part of that pattern has been disrupted since most the prostitutes die young in Thailand.
It would be comfortable for Westerners to point their fingers at poorer countries and tsk tsk at prostitution, but we have it, too. In Waikiki, Hawaii, if tourists stroll the streets after 10pm they will see young women in short skirts and stiletto heels approaching men, particularly well-paying Japanese. Several organizations, mostly Christian, have documented some of their stories and tried to help them out of the trap. They have discovered that, in America and Canada, most the prostitutes were raped as young girls, usually by a male relative, and grew up with poor self-esteem. Rehabilitating them is sometimes easy once they escape from the pimps who take most their income and control their lives, but for others it is a slow process with many relapses. They think of the money--if they are not beaten, the life is not difficult, and there can be a good income, particularly for the ones who do not have pimps, and earning $10 an hour working hard does not favorably compare with earning $100 an hour as a "call girl" (a woman who is reached by telephone for "dates" in hotels.) I do know several women, however, who have lived in special safe houses maintained by a church, gone to school and acquired computer or musical skills, and successfully broken away from the life on the streets. In America, they can start fresh, get a decent job and even marry. We should never give up on the street walkers.