"Human Trafficking" the polite term for slavery!

Day 40: today I'm in "fix the world" mode!  I know that it is not possible for me to fix the world by myself; it would take the combined efforts of every one of us.  However, once in a while (actually it seems to be happening more frequently these days) I am confronted by something that really punches at the core of my being.  That causes me to have a sensation of immense pressure behind my eyes as if my head is about to explode and I know that I'm in "fix the world" mode.

My present “fix the world” mode was caused by watching the film Taken, with Liam Neeson; A particularly violent and brutal film about a man who has to rescue his daughter from Human Traffickers.  By the way: Why is it that so-called “Human Traffickers” have been given a politically correct name these days?  Once upon a time people, who kidnapped other people, imprisoned them, beat them, and then sold them like cattle to other individuals were called "slave traders"; a perfectly despicable term for a despicable action.  

A trafficker is defined in the dictionary as someone who promotes goods or exchanges goods and services for money; so a "Human Trafficker" would promote humans for money and note the use of the term "human" too.  The overwhelming majority of the so-called "humans" being promoted and exchanged for money are women.  Guess what service women are normally promoted and exchanged for money for?  SEX.  So simply by using the term "Human Trafficking" we lose both the horror and the fact that it is women being used for sex a.k.a. global pimping a.k.a. slavery. 

I wonder who decided that we would be better off with a polite parlour term for slavery and why?  In the film despite the fact that it was the Armenian Mafia who were the kidnappers and the ones shown drugging and beating the women; the ultimate big boss was a highly influential "respectable" millionaire -big business, big money with huge political clout.

Now I know it's only a film, but my guess is that if the idea that big-money was behind an international slave trade was complete fiction, it probably wouldn't have made it to the big screen.  I'm sure the producers would have said something like "big business behind an international slave trade in women – completely unbelievable no one's going to buy that, you better rework it".  But they didn't because not only is it perfectly plausible, it possibly not a huge leap to imagine that they probably recognised or even knew the real-life person the character was based on!

Slavery has always been driven by greed and the desire to have the lowest cost to production margin possible; i.e. slaves are practically free.  You just have to go and take someone.  Indeed one of the premises behind the film was that the slave gangs had worked out it was cheaper to kidnapped women already at the point-of-sale, i.e. in the West, rather than having to transport them from Eastern Europe.

I can't help thinking that, as long as we continue to promote the idea that individual efforts deployed for the individual’s gain, is the most effective and efficient mechanism that the citizens of planet Earth have for progressing a.k.a. capitalism; it will be okay to run a slave trade and re brand it as “Human Trafficking”.  Just as it will be also "okay" to sell arms to both sides of warring nations; or fund subsistence farmers to grow opium and cannabis instead of food; or test drugs on African people without their knowledge or anything else that is currently done in the name of “profit” at the expense of other human beings.

If this sounds harsh, then ask yourself why have our governments done nothing about it?  Either the governments of the world are indeed powerless to stop these things, , which begs the question, if they have no power or control over anything that really matters why do the rest of us put up with them at all?  Or perhaps they are complicit in what is going on.  Perhaps this is why so many people took to the streets recently.  Maybe a lot more of them than we think were having a need to “fix the world” day.  

I refuse to believe that "capitalism" as practised today is the only system of "distribution and progress" that is effective.  No I don't have an alternative yet, but that's not a reason to believe there is not one. So what is my strategy to fix the world?  I believe it starts with a conversation, a discussion; fixing the world means changing the world and the world changes one thought at a time.  If we aren't even thinking about change, we won’t talk about it and if we don't talk about it, the status quo will never change because new ideas won't blossom and grow.  If you want to change the world, find a way to add your voice to the dialogue.