This week I checked out what Transitions Global is doing to fight sex trafficking, and came across an interesting point on their website: two key elements to eradicating human trafficking are raising the status of girls and women and eliminating the entitlement of men.
Transitions Global, along with other great organizations, is working hard to address the first of these by rescuing, restoring, and equipping young girls to overcome their trauma and build lives of purpose and success. But how are we to eliminate the entitlement of men?
In every country I have travelled, I have encountered men who have entitlement issues when it comes to women, through which they justify emotional manipulation, cat-calling, whistling, watching porn, and even rape. In Latin America it is machismo. In Africa men often say, “we are African men, we like sex more than other men.” These excuses reveal that many men feel entitled to women’s bodies, and girls and women are the ones who suffer as a result.
This entitlement fuels human trafficking. A friend name Adrian, who I met recently, suggested that maybe this entitlement comes from a lack of identity. Some guys have experienced abuse themselves and want to exert power over others to compensate for what they lost themselves. Others never had a good example of what as respectable man looks like. If this is the case, we need honourable guys to stand up and teach those who are younger how to respect women.
What are other ways we can eliminate the entitlement of men? I would love to hear your thoughts.
Michelle Brock
Great information! I’ve been looking for something like this for a while now. Thanks!
Parents are an important resource in raising the self esteem of daughters…and also respect for girls in their sons!And this has to be modelled in the home to really impact our youth. Can we start there? Teachers, pastors, media – all of us in the adult world of young people need to give them the same message: respect yourself and others.
It may be too late for our generation, but we can save the next from damaged egos and an “entitled” value system!
I agree Barb, much of the responsibility is on parents. Sadly much of trafficking is a generational crime…boys get recruited from a young age to buy and sell women. Dealing with trafficking circles is indeed difficult, but I believe that parents can deal with the demand side of things by setting a good example to their children about respect and fighting for the rights of others.