Setimaya was a victim of human trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation. She was taken from her home in Nepal and sold to a brothel, who sold her to another brothel, who sold her to another brothel. She was repeatedly forced to have sex with men day after day after day, and if she didn’t make her ‘owners’ enough money she was viciously beaten. She carries a scar on her forehead from being slashed with a broken bottle one of those nights when she didn’t make enough money.

Setimaya is one of the lucky ones as she managed to get free of the slavery she was in. She now lives with the shame of that time and is rebuilding her life back in a village in Nepal. Her recovery will take years.

Setimaya’s story is one that I tell in a basic talk that I do for groups, to educate them on the issues of human trafficking and slavery. It’s part of my work with TEAR Fund, one of New Zealand’s leading aid and development agencies, to help increase awareness and understanding around this global problem.

With the increase in awareness and understanding of the problem, human trafficking and slavery have become one of the issues du jour right now – it’s a popular fight to be involved in. From where I’m sitting it’s great to watch the wave of public sentiment growing in that fight. The more the better. A global problem of this magnitude needs a global response.

Through supporting organisations like TEAR Fund and the work of its partner organisations, people are supporting an end-to-end response that involves prevention (stopping the vulnerable from getting trapped in the trafficking trap), rescue (freeing people from slavery), rehabilitation of victims, and prosecution of perpetrators. It’s good work and I’d encourage you to do things like Live Below the Line to help support that work, but in our culture there are some more dots to be connected.

You see, it’s easy to feel like we’re doing our bit on this issue, helping vulnerable women and girls, while being blind to how our culture is feeding the problem of sex trafficking and exploitation (slavery). There’s an uncomfortable truth we’re struggling to see or failing to stop because of the values of ‘freedom’ that lead to a liberalism we wish to uphold.

Human trafficking and slavery are about people being turned into objectified commodities; to be purchased, sold, used and abused to gratify the desires of another. The problem doesn’t actually start when a person is literally purchased or sold, it starts when we willingly dehumanise another by objectifying them and turning them into a commodity that exists only to satiate some sort of desire we have.

In our culture, have a look around you. How often are women reduced to being only the sum of their body and what they have to offer sexually? How often are women critiqued based on what they look like? How often are jokes made about women relating to their sexual being? How often are products sold or promoted using the bodies of women as they way to entice people to the product? Look at how often we’re still having discussions about the status of women in various places within society.

For an example of what I’m talking about check out this article at Sacraparental, offering a complaint (that I support) to the Advertising Standards Authority over a billboard that the ASA has already ruled is ok because it fits within an understanding about humour. What message does that send? That it’s ok to objectify female sexuality as long as it’s done as a laugh?

Human trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation is estimated to generate $99 billion (USD) in annual profit. Incidentally it was estimated that in 2006 the porn industry generated around $100 billion in revenue. tell us that the average age of first contact is 12 years old and the results on adolescent understandings around sex and sexuality are devastating.

Sex tourism is a booming industry so, in turn, human trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation is a booming industry. It’s able to happen because of an insatiable demand for commercial sex caused by the normalisation of an oversexualised global culture. That problem doesn’t start when someone goes overseas to purchase sex with someone who has been trafficked, it starts when we blindly allow and feed the objectification that goes on around us whether it be via billboards, clothing, advertising, jokes, or even just how we talk about each other.

If you truly want to join me in the fight against human trafficking and slavery so that stories like Setimaya’s become less common, let’s be more vigilant about the problem that feeds the demand right here in our own culture. Let’s be those who work against the dehumanisation of others and instead, set about making sure that the way we live demonstrates that we believe everybody has an intrinsic value that can never be objectified or commodified.