At times The University of Mississippi may seem like a hotbed of racial tension, which is sharply felt and regretted by many. I encourage the redirection of this outrage from the history of slavery to modern slavery, which is on the rise in every state in America, is preventable and is made up of 27 million people who are forced into sexual and manual servitude globally.
In today’s world we are no longer simply Ole Miss students, Oxford residents, or Americans, but rather we are global citizens. We are responsible for what we see on the nightly news, what we read in the paper daily or for what is trending on twitter. Every time we look the other way from human rights violations using distance and differing cultures as an excuse, we are failing those oppressed today in the exact same manner slaves of past generations were failed.
Just a week ago last Monday 129 young girls were abducted from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Nigeria as it and surrounding buildings were burned and raided by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram. Some of the girls have been reunited with their families, however 77 are still missing and nothing substantial is being done. The society knows that the girls will likely all be kept alive, as Boko Haram’s leader had previously announced female kidnap victims would be kept as “slaves”.
In an earlier case where kidnapped girls were rescued from Haram, they were found on farms doing manual labor while being used as sex slaves, with many of those doing intense farm labor pregnant. In a country with fractured religious groups, soluble borders, and a weak federal government, terrorist groups like Boko Haram terrorize and enslave citizens with little regional or international opposition.
At no point in human history have there been more slaves than there is today and yet University students, the rising voice of a generation, those who will mold the shape of tomorrow’s world in their hands, are squabbling over costume parties and mascots?
For all those who exude a holier-than-thou politically correct aura on history, what do you have to say about the 98-99% percent of human trafficking victims who will never escape their servitude? How do you think your campaign to condemn a flag feels to the sex slaves who, on average, are forced to have sex 20 to 48 times a day? You say a better world for your younger siblings; however what world are you working to create for the average victim of human trafficking, who is only 12 years old?
While analyzing the past and the influence it exerts on the present is a valid pursuit, it has limits. Sayings like ‘never again’ cannot be repeated in the midst of atrocities ‘happening again’ such as human trafficking which, make no mistake is slavery, is currently the second largest international organized crime.
A head in the past can be the equivalent of a head in the sand, and for the sake of the 77 little girls kidnapped by terrorists in the Nigerian jungle, for the 12 year old sex slave, for those who serve their masters as drug mules in the narcotics trade: widen your horizons Oxford, Ole Miss, south eastern United States. It’s happening again.
Whitney Greer is a sophomore English major from Medford, Ore.
