In Part 1 of Shirley Temple’s film role discussion, I concluded by bringing to light the heightened vulnerability of a child after having lost his or her parents. Miss Temple’s roles often portrayed her as an orphan. Due to a child’s delicate emotional state and lack of parental guidance once orphaned, they are more likely to fall into the traps of abusers.
It seems that sex has been taking over the entertainment industry on a greater scale year after year. We have all heard the term “sex sells”. How has this term become so commonplace and even accepted? How has society become so desensitized to the point that many believe that the concept of using sex as a way to pull in audiences is acceptable, stretching age boundaries more and more? Has it always been this way? This post will perhaps open your eyes to certain nuances in film that may not have crossed your mind previously.
We do not only feed ourselves with food, but also with what we read, watch, the activities we participate in, the social circles we gather in and how we channel our interests and energy. These aspects play a huge role in forming our identity and perception whether we are conscious of their effects or not. Based on the choices we make for ourselves and how we guide our children, we all become a certain way. Media and popular entertainment influence our daily lives and upbringing as well as certain decisions we make and have been entangled in our habits and choices for numerous decades.
The growing criminal market of human trafficking has greatly expanded into the cyber world as Internet usage, speed and general online access have soared. The cyberspace is being used by traffickers as a means of recruiting victims as well as for advertising trafficking “services and products”. Forms of cyber-trafficking include sex- and labour-trafficking, child pornography, selling of babies, trafficking of organs and mail order brides.
Especially in recent months, Jeffrey Epstein has become a common name in the fight against trafficking and child sexual exploitation and for good reason. If you have not yet heard of this man or watched any related documentaries or news stories, he is not someone to look up to, that’s for sure.
Through my encounters with teachers I have mostly been confronted with blank faces of disbelief that sexual exploitation in Canada (as local as Toronto) existed at all. All of them dumb founded at the idea that a 13 year old girl in the school system could be lured into sexual intercourse with strangers willingly.
It is not only crucial to spread awareness and communicate the risks of being trafficked among students; educating parents with children of all ages, whether those children are in their elementary years, high school or college, is also a key factor in decreasing the number of youth who are tricked into slavery, kidnapped or recruited off of the street.
Did you know that about 800,000 people are trafficked across borders each year and about 2.4 million people in total? Did you know that illicit trafficking of human beings grosses at over 150 billion dollars per annum worldwide? It is the second most profitable illegal industry on the planet. Why is human trafficking so profitable?
The night of April 14, 2014, was a terrifying one for 276 mostly female Christian students who were kidnapped from a secondary school located in the quiet town of Chibok in the northeastern state of Borno, Nigeria. Some of the girls managed to jump off the truck during transport, while others remained captive. Only 57 girls were able to escape in the first few months following the kidnapping.