Summary: The Girl Effect, Emancipating Twenty-First-Century Slaves, Prohibition and Prostitution: Introduction, Chapters 1–2

Introduction: The Girl Effect

Srey Rath was age 15 when she decided to travel from Cambodia to Thailand to help her struggling family. She had been told she could earn money as a dishwasher in a Thai restaurant. Once in Thailand, Rath was captured by gangsters, who took her to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, and sold her to a brothel, where she was imprisoned. The man who ran the brothel told her that if she refused sex work, he “would beat [her] to death.” Rath and the other girls in the brothel were kept naked and repeatedly beaten.

Later, Rath managed to escape from the apartment the boss kept for them. She told the police of her suffering in the brothel but was arrested and imprisoned as an illegal immigrant. After one year in prison, the police officer who was supposedly driving Rath to the Cambodian border instead sold her to another sex trafficker. Eventually, Rath escaped from this brothel and managed to return to Cambodia. An organization that helps impoverished Cambodian girls gave Rath seed money to buy a cart from which she could sell food, drink, and other items to pedestrians and travelers. Rath’s business flourished, lifting her family out of poverty. Experience shows that if given an education, girls like Rath can prosper.

Kristof and WuDunn define the problem of involuntary sexual slavery as the “paramount human rights problem of this century.” They describe how girls are devalued in many parts of the world, such as South and East Asia and the Middle East. If this widespread problem got more press coverage, the authors suggest, perhaps sexual trafficking and exploitation would be reduced, if not eliminated. International outrage might lessen the number of female infants who die of neglect and of girls and women worldwide who are “disappeared” (about 107 million), killed, or sold into sex trafficking. 

The authors also show how girls and women can be raised from poverty. In China, rural women and girls from poor families thrive as factory workers. Research has shown that educating girls has an enormous and positive effect on women’s standard of living. When educated girls start businesses or enter the workforce, it boosts a nation’s economy and improves the lives of women, their children, and their community. Kristof and WuDunn suggest that “a modest amount” of international scolding might impel governments to act against commercial sexual exploitation and other abuses.

Chapter 1: Emancipating Twenty-First-Century Slaves

Chapter 1 introduces Meena Hasina, an Indian Muslim, who was kidnapped when she was about 8 years old and sold to a brothel. Young Meena fought fiercely against her captors, but they beat and raped her and forced her into sex trafficking. Kristof notes that India has about three million coerced sexually exploited women, more than any other country. When Meena became pregnant and had a baby girl, her captors took the infant away and held it as a hostage to keep Meena in the brothel. Meena later gives birth to a son, also held hostage.

Meena, however, was not cowed by her captors, and eventually she escaped—without her children. The police did nothing to help, as they either patronized the brothel or accepted bribes from it. Hearing that the brothel owners were looking to murder her, Meena fled to the distant city of Forbesgunge, where she became a “freelance” sex worker, though she had to pay some money to her former brothel. Meena sometimes returned to beg for her children, to no avail. Her children were held hostage for years, and her daughter was forced into sex work.

When her son learned his mother’s name and location, he walked to the distant city to find her. When he met Meena for the first time, they were happy at being reunited. Meena also came into contact with Ruchira Gupta, the founder of a local anti–sex-trafficking organization, and asked her to help get her daughter back. Ruchira convinced the police to raid the brothel, freeing Meena’s daughter. Badly injured and addicted to morphine, Meena’s daughter was taken directly to a hospital. (As the authors note, many brothels use addictive drugs to keep their exploited workers from leaving.)

Meena and her children were shunned in Forbesgunge, but Meena, who is now married, maintained her self-respect. She got a job as a community organizer who explains to parents how to keep their daughters away from sex traffickers.

Kristof and WuDunn report that, worldwide, an estimated 24.9 million women and girls are trapped in sexual slavery. Many of them live in countries that have laws against commercial sexual exploitation, but the laws are never enforced. Sex trafficking, meanwhile, is growing for several reasons. Mainly, “female flesh” is a commodity that capitalist criminal gangs can profit from. Globalization also makes it relatively easy to move captured girls from one country to another. Finally, AIDS is rampant in many brothels, and, as victims of sex trafficking die of AIDS, new female bodies are needed to replace them.

Next, the authors introduce Overlake High School in Redmond, Washington, which is populated by well-to-do students. Overlake’s principal, Frank Grijalva, creates a program to get his privileged students involved in global public service. Grijalva has his students sponsor a school in Cambodia to educate girls and boys. The students raise money, and by 2003, the school is built.

The new school has internet service, so Cambodian and American students can communicate via email. One Cambodian student emails that he may have to drop out to earn money for his impoverished family. The Americans contact an organization that pays “bribes” to poor families that allow their children to stay in school. The extra money keeps the families afloat and ensures the children get an education.

Chapter 2: Prohibition and Prostitution

In Chapter 2, Kristof and WuDunn explore the devaluation of women in many developing countries. Girls, they note, are far less valued than boys and are often “perceived as discounted humans” or subhumans. These nations often lack the political will to crush sex trafficking, while policy disagreements hamstring Western nations from enacting effective laws to abolish commercial sexual exploitation. The authors argue that supporting crackdowns against brothels and then implementing education and social-services programs for girls is the best way to tackle sex trafficking. Policies that fight police corruption are also essential. Crackdowns that shutter the worst brothels often have a ripple effect that puts more brothels out of business. For example, crackdowns on brothels in Mumbai, India, reduced the number of sex workers in that city from 35,000 to 6,000 within a decade.

AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) is a serious problem in many brothels, especially as customers refuse to wear condoms during sex. An Indian sex workers’ union, the DMSC, is active in helping reduce the number of AIDS cases among sex workers. Geeta Ghosh was enslaved in Kolkata, India, after a female neighbor sold her to a brothel when Geeta was 12 years old. She was told she’d be murdered if she tried to escape. Geeta dismisses the efforts of the DMSC as useless because they had no effect on reducing commercial sexual exploitation or the horrific conditions in brothels.

In 2000, the US State Department began publishing a yearly Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, which revealed the widespread use of brothels and sex trafficking around the world. Some nations that were exposed as being indifferent to their commercial sexual exploitation problem were shamed into finally acting against it. Laws against sex trafficking and coerced sex work were more frequently enforced.

Kristof and WuDunn insist that “rescuing girls from brothels is the easy part” but that “keeping them from returning [to brothels]” is much more difficult. They illustrate this with the stories of two Cambodian girls sold into sex trafficking. Srey Neth was sold to a brothel by a relative and suffered the brutality often inflicted on sexually exploited girls. After interviewing her, Kristof paid for her release from the brothel. Srey Momm was enslaved in a different brothel, and she too cried that she wanted to go home. Kristof paid her way out of the brothel, then took both girls to their hometowns. Both Neth and Momm were warmly welcomed by their family and community. Neth opened a market stall with money Kristof gave her, and her business was highly successful. Momm got some money to open her own market stall to make money for her family. Business was booming, but one day she disappeared. The brothel had addicted Momm to methamphetamines, and she could not endure withdrawal from the drug, so she returned to the brothel where it was supplied to her.

When she got a bit older, Momm became a manager at her brothel. This lasted until a crackdown closed the establishment. Freed from the brothel and her addiction, Momm got married and settled down. Neth had less luck. Her male relatives thought so little of her that they stole as much as they liked of the goods in her market stall. Soon, Neth ran out of money to buy new goods, and she had to close her business.

Neth feared returning to sex work, so when Bernie Krisher of American Assistance to Cambodia offered her money to learn hairdressing, she jumped at the chance. She apprenticed at a beauty shop and hoped eventually to open her own shop. Soon, however, Neth fell ill and was told she had AIDS. She was married but was afraid to tell her husband she had this sexually transmitted disease (STD). When she got pregnant, Neth had another, more accurate blood test, which showed she did not have AIDS. Her baby boy was born healthy, and she eventually did open her own beauty parlor.

Analysis: The Girl Effect, Emancipating Twenty-First-Century Slaves, Prohibition and Prostitution: Introduction, Chapters 1–2

Commercial sexual exploitation is a severe form of oppression of girls and women, who experience this abuse because they aren’t valued as full human beings. Devaluation ensures that girls and women in some highly patriarchal cultures are considered disposable objects and, as such, find it almost impossible to assert themselves in order to achieve gender equity with males. Many oppressed women and girls come from impoverished families. Experts have shown that educating women and allowing them to participate in a country’s economy boosts that economy and greatly reduces poverty. Still, cultural norms that devalue women are hard to overcome, and desperate poverty persists.

This devaluation manifests in many ways; commercial sexual exploitation is one widespread form. In some countries, if a fetus is female, it is aborted. Where abortion is outlawed, countless female infants are deliberately neglected and left to die, and some are killed outright. In India, Kristof and WuDunn note, disobedient wives are sometimes doused with kerosene and burned to death, or they may have acid thrown on them, leaving them horribly disfigured. Women may also be burned or stoned to death in “honor killings” if their family perceives their behavior to be shameful. Worldwide, millions of women simply disappear in so-called gendercide, supposedly murdered by their relatives. In such an atmosphere, it’s extremely difficult for women to achieve gender equality or even basic human rights.

Yet, the authors say, it doesn’t take much to empower girls and women. If the will is there and the support is available, girls can be educated or trained to do useful work that raises their family’s standard of living and boosts their nation’s economy. Girls and women have an excellent record of success if they’re given a microloan that enables them to start their own business. Srey Neth’s story exemplifies this. China’s booming economy, likewise, is due largely to millions of women entering the workforce. One economist insists that investing in girls’ education has “the highest return available in the developing world.”

Not only does education improve the economy, but it also empowers women and helps alleviate poverty among countless families and communities. When Meena is a free woman, she asserts that she’ll never accept the commercial sexual exploitation of her daughter “as long as I breathe.” These are the words of a strong and empowered woman who suffered the worst kind of oppression but rose to overcome it.

When a country can’t or won’t provide the funds needed to improve the lives of girls, Kristof and WuDunn feel that developed nations should prevent female oppression by sponsoring schools or job training to empower them. The Cambodian school funded by high school students in Washington State attests to the empowering effect a relatively small amount of funding can have in fighting the oppression of girls. When the West exposes the corruption and prevalence of commercial sexual exploitation around the world, the worst national offenders are often shamed into shuttering brothels that enslave and exploit young girls. Global exposure acts as an impetus toward reducing the oppression of sexually exploited girls and women.