Because She Looks Like A Child Summary

In certain communities in South Asia, the low status of girls has to be compensated for by the payment of a dowry by the parents of the girl to the husband at the time of marriage. This has resulted in a number of dowry crimes, including mental and physical torture, starvation, rape, and even the burning alive of women by their husbands and/or in-laws in cases where dowry payments are not met.

The sex trade is not a choice; there many situational factors contributing as to how these women and children got into the sex trade. Most of the women and children who are bought and trafficked into this industry are vulnerable or have a background of abuse and neglect (4425 Hossain). Exploiters use the vulnerability to their advantage by making promises of stability and love to lure their victims in. Many

In addition to the poor job outlook, the lack of a stable economy affects other social institutions and traditions as well. This can be seen in the ineffective police force when they are unable to find Bela when she is sold in Bihar. Instead, they blame Aulchand and the fact that “poor Bela had this written on her forehead.” They seem to have little power to keep the prostitution trade

Women and children who are being sexually exploited are often found in the urban areas of Thailand, but even rural areas have a share of commercial sex workers (Lau, June 2008). The Thai society is extremely male dominated as men are considered superior to women and hold the government and societal power (Vejar & Quach, May 2013). Foreign investors have a great deal of power in Thailand as the country has become more dependent tourism and manufacturing rather than the traditional small farm economy (Geary & Meyer, June 1993).

On the other hand, the author also says; “… early feminist saw a degrading parallel between marriage and prostitution.” In some cultures of the world, marriage is a certain arrangement between families. This means that parents decide who their children will marry. They have no right to choose their partner. Many Middle Eastern countries carry out this type of arrangement. In most cases, the most affected are women. Her parents force her to marry the husband that they choose. Many weddings are among nine years old or more girls with older men who could be their fathers. Besides the cultural factor, there is also a monetary factor, men buying girls as wives. Even worse still is that their parents allow it. I recently read a story, “The Nuyud Case”, documented by Delphine Minoui, a writer and journalist. The story is about a ten years old Yemeni girl, named Nuyud, who filed for divorce from her husband who is forty years old. Nuyud went to court to apply for divorce claiming that her husband abused her sexually. Thanks to a judge who took pity on her, the divorce was granted. This was a historic event for women in Yemen since this is a country where women have few rights. With the divorce of Nuyud, it was shown that there is hope for women in that country. Nuyud explained that her parents forced

All of those disadvantages for women in modern society are affecting young girls, and it is hard to raise daughters in today’s culture. We as a country should not just let this inequality continue. Men and women should be treated equally and it is important for parents to raise their kids to make the future less

Every minute, 310 girls have been married against their will. Most for the reason because the parents needed money for whatever reason or they were trying to resolve conflicts with other families. 25% of these girls have stopped going to school because of their period. Having periods in these undeveloped countries makes these girls officially a women meaning that most of them will be taken out of school to help out at home. In Ethiopia there are 9 millions girls and if all these girls finish school and go into the working force then it would add $4 billion USD to the economy; more than what the country makes in a year. The author of Sold, Patricia McCormick, was successful in her purpose of explaining to American teenagers how and why the cycle of human slavery present in the brothels exist.

In a review by the New York Times, the author, Stephen Holder, highlights the context surrounding prostitution in each different country. From Thailand having a high end brothel ran by rich Asian men, to Bangladesh full of towering, run down apartments oversaw by madams,

Girls are expected to marry, look after children, and obey their husbands, none of which requires an education, according to both parents and daughters. Girls are expected to be celibate on their wedding night, but the value of being monogamous for young men is not equally important. While machismo is commonly understood to be part of Salvadoran culture, the female version is less obvious but still common. Machisma or matriarquia characterizes a woman who at home controls the family by angrily scolding its members, especially the husband. A mandona, or one who orders another person about, may bully a husband into doing household chores and going to the store. Men are not only the family’s wage earners, but they occupy most positions of authority and power in virtually every aspect of Salvadoran culture, although this is slowly changing. Sometimes men look down on women, and domestic abuse is not uncommon nor is sexual harassment at work or in public. Fathers and mothers alike are deceitful in fostering the values and behaviors of machismo in their sons. Boys are encouraged to attend school and to use their formal training to support their future families. They are allowed to be more independent than girls, the low-income population of rural El Salvador, which educates the majority of the country, experiences an inordinately large amount of disadvantages within their social structure. The gender gap within the culture itself

Agreements such as this can lift the burden of paying for a girl’s education, thus making it easier for parents to choose to educate their children, instead of marrying them off. In rural areas of underdeveloped countries, the practice of child marriage is on the rise due to the fact that most of the girls being married off are not educated enough to know there are laws in place to protect them. Being oblivious of their rights, children are being married off before they are able to comprehend the harm brought upon them. Having knowledge of laws that protects them from being married before they are ready can assist them in taking steps to prevent the occurrence of early marriage. Educating young girls about their rights is one way of ensuring that one child may be kept safe from having to face the atrocities of marriage with mostly older men. We can accomplish this by setting up organizations that can go to different villages and provide information on how marriage at a young age can have negative effects on the health of young wives. These organizations could even work with the government to provide shelters for girls who are trying to escape the wickedness of early marriage.

The plague of male dominancy and female oppression has spread throughout time and cultures like a pandemic infection, targeting women. Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” and Janice Mirikitani’s “Suicide Note,” show the struggle and pain that oppressive forces perpetrated on women. Although, both speakers are oppressed the way they end the oppression and the cause of it are very different. Patriarchy has always existed, and it affects women all over the world. For example, banned bride abductions in Central Asia have continued to occur, and the women who resist abduction, risk death, or becoming ostracized from their country (Werner 2).

Given men are traditionally able to succeed at business, when a father is thinking about what to do with his own business his immediate thought for a son to take over. Mara Hvistendahl asks in her book Unnatural Selection, “what good is material wealth if you don’t have a son to inherit it?” (2011:20) If a business grew from a startup to a success, owners, who are predominately men, want to keep the success in the family. The fathers of the world begin to train their sons from a young age to follow in their footsteps. Whether those footsteps be the CEO of a fortune 500 corporation, or a family owned auto shop; sons are groomed to inherit the name that their father has made for himself. Rarely are daughters trained to take over control of their father’s business. They are groomed by the mother to be able to tend to their husband. The world is set up to have men as leaders and women as followers. Women being labeled as second place is one of the causes of so many missing women. Their lack of importance leads to a lack of motivation by parents to spend time and money raising a girl.

The state of social and economic disarray that plagues villages surrounding Thailand makes them easy prey for trafficking. According to Toward Freedom, and organization dedicated to advancement of human rights, peace, justice, enlightenment, and freedom from oppression, “Brothel owners have networks of agents combing the villages for troubled families with daughters, making tempting offers of good jobs in the big cities and resort areas” (“Toward”). The most common scenario for troubled families is that they are in debt and are without proper paying jobs. Families are offered up to an entire year’s salary and are also told their children will be going to a better life. Many families know they can’t support their children and see this as their only option. The economic issue prevalent is not unique to Thailand. According to Asia Times, an organization designed to report on Asian political, economic and business

Imagine a four year old girl growing up in contemporary Cambodia. Each morning she wakes up miles from home, homesick and scared. She is forced to beg for money for the brothel that she belongs to, and all of her earnings go straight to her master. Then, that night, about seven men come to the brothel. These men, some as old as fifty, often pay as little as two dollars to partake in sexual intercourse with these school-aged children. The toddlers enslaved in the horrific sex trade are forever stripped of their purity, making human trafficking a major issue in present day Cambodia. Over 30,000 children are sexually exploited annually (“Children for Sale”), and millions have been forced into human trafficking

Girls ages 14-17 were forced into work as domestic servants but it wasn’t uncommon to find many girls as young as 8 or 9 years of age (“Incidence and Nature of Child Labor” 2). Many of these children typically worked a 12-16 hour day and seven days a week (“Incidence and Nature of Child Trafficking” 2). This evidence shows this crisis is on the rise and as the years go by the children are getting younger and younger.