Welcome back to the #Dressummer book club! I'm @definitelyra, and for our second discussion post about SOLD, by Patricia McCormick, we’re talking about conditions that help human trafficking persist: poverty, false debt, and corruption.
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? At the start of the story, we see how poor Lakshmi’s family is: food is sparse, and her stepfather is unable to work. How does the context of desperate poverty affect how you view victims like Lakshmi?
? With a false offer of work as a maid, Lakshmi is tricked into prostitution at a brothel, where she’s told that she has massive debt to pay off. How did you respond to her initial feeling of being “buried alive,” then her determination to earn her way back by doing “whatever it takes,” then despair at the revelation of the set-up?
? During her time at the brothel, Lakshmi has various encounters with the police. In one incident, she sees the brothel owner giving an officer a bribe so that he will ignore the crimes in the brothel. Lakshmi says, “I don’t understand this city. It is full of so many bad people. Even the people who are supposed to be good.” How did you feel when the police were shown to be unreliable, and how do you think you would react in Lakshmi’s place?
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Let’s chat in the comments below, and add any thoughts or reactions you had while reading!
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If you are interested in learning more about how poverty, false debt and corruption play a part in human trafficking, check out these resources below:
• http://www.dressember.org/blog/debtbondage
• https://www.unodc.org/documents/human-trafficking/2011/Issue_Paper_-_The_Role_of_Corruption_in_Trafficking_in_Persons.pdf
• https://www.ted.com/talks/noy_thrupkaew_human_trafficking_is_all_around_you_this_is_how_it_works/transcript?language=en