Piece 1 Progress and Completion

Rita Kim, “Taken”, 2016

Though I didn’t make a draft for this, I had an image of adult hands reaching out for a child prostitute whilst reading Lydia Cacho’s, Slavery Inc. With that idea in mind, I drew on 250gsm watercolor paper. I penciled the initial drawing, then inked it, coloured the now lined drawing with watercolours and then redefined the ink lines. I wanted really dark colours to symbolize the grimness of the child prostitute’s reality but at the same time, I made her “client’s” hands red. Why I had done so was for 1.to make them stand out against the bleak colours and 2.red represents blood; these clients are contributing to a multi-million dollar industry that traffics children for sexual gratification. The girl is branded with a bar code, to show that to these clients and pimps, that she is a product, an object to be used.
The colours for this first piece will set the tone for the rest of the series as it goes.

 

Book Research: Slavery Inc

Slavery Inc: The Untold Story of International Sex Trafficking by Lydia Cacho is a book of Cacho’s findings of Sex Trafficking around the world. Cacho is a Mexican journalist who risked her safety and life to uncover these stories, statistics and victims testimonies from Turkey, Israel, Colombia, Mexico, Thailand, Argentina and more. This book shows the sex trafficking industries links to Tourism, arms and drugs industry, the corruption of government and law enforcement and the constant battles fought by NGO’s like AFESIP (Acting for Women in Distressful Situations) and ECPAT (End Child Prostitution) to rescue women and children from the hands of traffickers.

For this assignment I will reference this book as Cacho’s findings of the Child Sex Tourism industry is extensive. To me, it puts a human face to the problem and is more relatable as the book is written by someone who made it their mission to uncover sex trafficking and its intricate network rather than just listing out statistics by numbers. One part of the book that really got to me was:
“The psychologists explain that, once the girls understand their captors rules, they learn how to be seductive so the traffickers mistreat them less. They are perfectly aware they are trained to be prostitutes. They do not understand why, but at nine or ten years old, with their sweet, childish voices, they believe this is what they were born to do.” (Cacho, 63)

Resources:
Cacho, Lydia, and Elizabeth Boburg. “Cambodia: Europe’s Hideout.” Slavery Inc.: The Untold Story of International Sex Trafficking. London: Portobello, 2012. 63. Print.