11:33 p.m. - 2004-01-25
Karma
The high temperature for tomorrow is supposed to get up to -27 C/F, from a low of somewhere in the middle -30s C/F. That's without accounting for the wind chill factor. When even the meteorologists tell an audience to stay inside if at all possible you know it's going to be darn cold. Am I going to do that? Nope. I need groceries. I think I'll likely have the store to myself.
My computer started crashing just over a day ago. Now, I have all sorts of "protections" that are supposed to block the problems I was finding showing up. I did all the checks, scans, and retweaking I could on my own without success. I decided to turn the problem over to the service I subscribe to for internet security. After about an hours' search I finally found the tech support contact information. Autoresponder - we work 9 to 5, week days. The process was very user unfriendly, but I finally sent off the test results I had run earlier and a description of the several breakdowns in their systems. We'll see what happens next.
No time is convenient for a computer breakdown, but the problems meant that doing the research I had promised my brother yesterday was very difficult and time-consuming, when it should have been only a few clicks of the mouse. I spent some of the afternoon talking with him about what I had learned by phoning yesterday and finally managed to send him the internet links he needed later in the day. Apparently, his partner's grandmother passed away yesterday in Vancouver, British Columbia, complicating things even more. He is feeling very overwhelmed, since it appears it is expected he will look after all the details after asking for approval on every decision. I know death is a hard thing to deal with - I've had my own share of experiences - but both his partner and her sister are in their mid 30's, neither works fulltime, and both have their own vehicles. They should both be able to get bereavement time per Canadian labour law. My brother is responsible for computer service for all of western Canada for the company he works for and is often away for days at a time on business. He isn't allowed to take more than a few days off in a block because of that. One of my sisters called today to say she'd spoken with his partner and she was very calm about everything. What's wrong with this picture? I've told my brother that I'll help him if he tells me what he wants done, as has my sister, but wouldn't one think that the family would make some effort on their own account? Martyr syndrome again, I guess, but my brother deserves some support from somewhere.
Once I got my PC at least operational, I caught up on my e-zines. A pretty riveting article by Peter Landesman in the New York Times about the sex slave trade operating in the US. I mentioned, not long ago, the major bust here in this city of one of the Asian rings carrying out the same activities. What surprised me was how little was understood about the pervasiveness of the crime or the way that it intertwines with the existing sex trade in North America. Mr Landesman spoken eloquently about some of the issues, but his access to accurate data seemed to be very limited in others.
When I volunteered with the family support services in this province, part of my work was with finding resources for young girls and boys who had been coerced into that life in this city. Although the belief is that sex trade workers choose their lifestyle willingly, that is rarely the case. A study of Canadian prostitutes found that 80% of the girls had first been sexually abused by someone in a position of trust in their own life starting at an average age of 5. For 100% of the boys there was at least one first asssault usually by a stranger and the average age of the first incident for them was 8. The police reported picking up little girls as young as 5 on the "baby stroll" here, turned out by an older sibling. Apparently the johns like to pretend their victim - excuse me their vendor - is one of their own children. The police say they ask the babies - prostitutes - to call them "daddy" as part of the "transaction". The average age that these children start working the streets is 12.5 years old. The older girls report that men will often stop to try to pick them up with babyseats in their vehicle - with their own children in them. For those men who think the children/sex workers "like it" or "want it", they should probably read what the researchers recorded as those childrens' fantasies of what they'd do to their "customers" if there were no restraints. Maybe those fantasies should serve as part of the sentencing of the johns. "Victimless" crimes? My Aunt Fanny.
The description of how girls and boys are lured into the sex slave trade doesn't vary much from what happens to children lured into prostitution either. As Mr. Landesman noted very briefly, "junior" pimps are trained to go into places where young girls and boys hang out - schools, malls - and approach those who appear to be feeling left out or in someway distressed, whether about personal or school based issues. The junior pimp pretends to be their friend. Showers them with gifts and even more-so attention. They become their targets' "best friend", and then their only friend/family, as they isolate them from all their "old" family, friends, and interests. No different from the techniques used by cults really. The enurement to the "life" is very graphically and accurately described in Mr Landesman's article. I checked to see if he had written any other material. Sure enough I found that he had written several investigative reports on some of the most dangerous people in our society. Arms and drug traders. Money launderers. Very brave man, I think.
Anyway my family wants my attention, so I'd better go make certain they know that they don't need to go elsewhere for the emotional nurture that is the basis of the technique used by the scum of the earth described above. Me angry - not half, good thing I ascribe to the principle of non-violence. I also ascribe to the principles of accountability and responsibility though and that is a lot more painful for some of the cretins limned in the article.
�
�
