Pacific University’s Center for Gender Equity presents “Broken Promises,” a play based on true stories about girls who are lured into the system of sex trafficking.
“There is tons of slavery going on in the world right now so we don’t want to ignore that or to imply that the only kind of human trafficking that is taking place is sex trafficking, but that’s what we are focusing on,” Martha Rampton, director for the Center for Gender Equity said. “It’s all Latina and it’s a different look at human trafficking.”
“Broken Promises,” a play put together by Teatro Milagro, a Latino theatre group from Portland, focuses on the lives of four teen girls who become deeply involved with internet porn and prostitution in their search for money.
“The play is going to focus more on the way that women are drawn into sex trafficking from their own communities and then how they get sold out of their communities,” Rampton said. “An enormous pool of women who are trafficked are coming out of communities just like ours.”
According to Rampton, human trafficking is not just something that happens in poor, foreign countries; it happens right here in America, often in small towns and cities.
“Human trafficking has recently become the third most lucrative business exchange and trade in the world,” Rampton said.
The other two exchanges that top human trafficking are guns and drugs; the system of human trafficking is bigger than many people might think.
“This is something that everybody out there needs to be aware of, it’s relevant to everybody,” Rampton said regarding the importance of retaining knowledge about human trafficking. “None of us can see it very clearly, it’s so subtle.”
Even though many people know little or nothing about human trafficking, it is something that continues to happen all over the world.
“Broken Promises” will be shown Thursday, Oct. 20 at 7 p.m. in the Taylor-Meade Auditorium. The show will be free and open to the public and will be appropriate for young adults to attend.
Leave a Reply