Frances Metzman

Women And The Sex Trade

Frances Metzman, 2021

Federal law defines “severe forms of trafficking in persons” :
1) sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion or in which the person
induced to perform such an act is under 18.
2) the recruitment, harboring, transportation. provision. or obtaining of a person for labor or services.
through the use of force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of subjecting that person to involuntary
servitude, forced labor, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.

Trafficking victims are often lured by false promises of decent jobs and better lives. The inequalities women
lace in opportunity and justice worldwide make women particularly vulnerable to trafficking. There have
been a few articles and some documentaries about the plight of women sold or kidnapped into sex slavery.
but the general public knows little to nothing about it They think it only happens In foreign countries. The
truth is that in underdeveloped countries some women are more vulnerable and get ensnared in the sex
trade.

But it happens in this country as well. The USA is a big user/ Importer or sex slaves
When I speak about it publicly, the responses are, “If such a problem exists, why aren’t the authorities doing
something about? For one thing, this horrendous problem seems to de given less Importance than say,
illegal drug dealing. One reason is that the women generally come from a disadvantaged class with little to
no voice or clout. We’re talking about an approximate ninety-nine-billon-dollar business annually.
It Is second largest global crime in the world just below drugs. Estimates are that one million are trafficked
throughout the world each year.

Approximately 18,000 people are trafficked into the United States every year, many told they will have a better life elsewhere. That estimate might be conservative because so many of these women and children are brought in
under-the-radar and never surface to the authorities. Not many will report their plight to the authorities. They
are told that the police are the enemy and will arrest and charge them with prostitution and deport them. The major threat is that perpetrators will kill their families in their country of origin. A large number of the women imprisoned as sex slaves come from poverty. homelessness, or leaving the Foster care system. Other fear is having to go back on the streets again. Although they might work fourteen or more hours every day and six days a week, they are kept in squalor nonetheless. Prostitution exists in all countries, but in the sex trade it is not voluntary.

The victims wind up with no money. Pimps charge the women for room and boarding, passports, transportation, clothing and drugs, after they force the women into addiction. With no money, no identification (perpetrators keep their passports) the enslaved are stymied and might even think their captors are protecting them.
 Women and girls as young as eight or nine and even younger – are sold and forced into prostitution.
The older ones (27 is the average age) work in a variety of places like strip joints, bars, massage parlors and brothels. In many ways traffickers feel it is a better business than selling drugs because the women can produce money repeatedly for a number of years, if they survive. Many of the enslaved are also used for labor. For instance, they are forced to sew, work in factories, on farms, perform janitorial services, become domestics and work the construction trade. This goes for men and boys as well. The majority of human trafficking is women/ prostitution. It was a global reach.

Mostly, they are transported and controlled with the cooperation of various organized crime mobs, and the
Women come from all parts of the world – particularly Asia and Eastern Europe. They easily fall for the lie that
a better life awaits them. When they arrive in the country of destination, they are forced into prostitution and told they have to work to pay back their passage. They are often subjected to near-starvation, rape, extreme physical and mental abuse and imprisonment. In 2000 congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), Which created a special “T-Visa that enables victims of sex and labor trafficking to remain temporarily in the United States – if they agree to assist in the Investigation or prosecution or their traffickers. After three years, the attorney general can admit them for permanent residency.”
What keeps the victims silent, for the most part, is the threat of death to those talking to police and their families. 
Our best defense right now is to become aware of the plight of these women. Is there something we can do about it? First and foremost is awareness. second is reporting anything that resembles trafficking such as a truck with women inside, being at a truck stop and seeing unusual behavior. Their captors accompany them wherever they go. This is why I choose this theme for the cha-cha babes of Pelican way to tackle. Let’s see what happens
when they do try to find justice for these women and children.

The Downside To Choosing Marriage

Fran Metzman, 2020

I’m directing this article to mainly women because they seem to be a tad more at fault in this area. But since it does apply to both genders, both men and women – listen up.

Okay. You’re a woman or a man in a relationship. There are red flags cautioning you to beware.
There are irritating personality traits in the person you’re with and you’re not even married yet.
Sometimes the red flags are so numerous it looks like a hemorrhage. But still you marry. Why?

The reasons are numerous, but here are some of the ones I hear most often; your family expects you to marry him, you’ve been together so long that starting to date again is repugnant, you think your love will grow stronger after marriage, all of your friends are married, you think you’ll change those irritating habits once married, and/or your biological clock is ticking. These rationalizations are insidious. Here’s how it works. You weren’t totally happy during the courtship, but you feared that making too many demands would drive him away. Now, armed with a wedding band glinting up at you and waving a little piece of paper in your sweaty hand, you think you can safely proceed in trying to fix that faulty man of yours. It’s easy to lose sight of the fact he’s established a style of living during the courtship that he thinks is perfectly fine, and you haven’t contradicted that notion. Based on that, he figures you accept him as he is. He isn’t usually about to change.

Fact and fantasy intermingle into a muddied pool of misconceptions when one looks to marriage as a cure to problems in the relationship. That sort of thinking will drop you into a quagmire of quicksand, something detrimental in the long-term. Somehow, we think that there is something magical in becoming “legal” in the eyes of the law and we will be protected from all that is harmful in life. All that was wrong will turn right. Ha!

Once you declare, “I do,” many develop new expectations in addition to attempting to alter your mate. Maybe in the back of your mind you have some romanticized ideal of what your spouse should be – kind of like kissing a frog and turning him into a prince. You may expect your guy to morph into this idealized notion of what a husband should be. And your husband may also have a new set of expectations for his blushing bride. In the real world these expectations can’t be met.

Attention! Neither one of you isn’t about to change.

Where Are We With Modern Male/Female Relationship:

Fran Metzman, 2020

What? Men respond more to beauty and don’t appreciate women if they exhibit more intelligence or ambition than their own? Is this possible? Isn’t this outdated? Even though I’ve suspected these conclusions for a long time, I allowed for the possibility I was wrong. Many people told me my instincts were off-track. But are they?

Of course, there are some changes, but it appears that the glass ceiling in business extends into relationships. Perhaps the change we’ve experienced is essentially that there is now an allowance for a degree of intelligence in women where a few years ago even a small demonstration of smarts was a no-no. Bimboism was the rule of thumb. In this blog I’ll deal with male attitudes and how it affects interaction between the sexes. What I see is that we’ve come a short way, baby. Where does a study like the one mentioned leave women? Do women have to hold back their true intelligence and ambition to attract and keep a man? Do they become more desirable if they are secretaries rather than lawyers or doctors, flight attendants rather than pilots? The fact that we are still asking
these questions shows that we have regressed to an earlier time when women were told never to beat a man at tennis or let him know she can do complex math.

A single woman I know who is in her late thirties asked me if she should allow a man to carry her packages to appear more helpless. She had read a book on how to get a man, and that was one of the suggestions – appear to need him. Another woman I know who is highly intelligent recently told me that men have to be manipulated in order to “catch” and keep them happy. Men have to feel adored and be the smarter ones even if they aren’t. She insisted that it’s up to the woman to create the illusion of male superiority even if the females are pulling the strings. In other words, play the game, otherwise prepare to never find a mate.

I responded by giving her my theory on the inherent problems this type of behavior produces.
Here it is. At some point, it is more than likely a woman will tire of game playing and lose respect for the man she is manipulating. In order to hold on to the attraction she initially felt, she might begin to feel tremendous pressure to intensify the game. Although she started the relationship in this way, she might have hoped to bring him up to a level of maturity where she’d be able to back off somewhat. That usually doesn’t happen. A kind of mother/son relationship is likely to occur and, under these circumstances, she has become his mother.

Frances Metzman, 2018

Does your partner listen attentively to what you say? Does he/ she remember important issues you discussed the day after? Do they ask pertinent questions about your issues? Do they ask how they can be of help or if they should keep a distance? If you say you want input, do you get it or a shrug and waning attention. It’s important to watch and see if your partner tends to say no to every request you make without seeming to mull it over or ask more questions about it.

How about this important issue – does he/she do their domestic tasks without nagging to get them done? If you don’t live together and you make dinner does your romantic interest help with cleanup? Is that person watching sports or favorite TV programs more than talking to you? If more time is spent with buddies or girlfriends as a regular habit rather than with you, you might want to deal with that. If you complain do you get called a nag or too controlling and seething anger?

It’s important to introduce your partner, after a reasonable amount of time, to your family. Are they reluctant or do it grudgingly? If family is important to you it’s possibly a deep conflicting situation. When you are out with your your lover’s friends and it’s all comfortable that’s fine, but if out with your friends and tensions rise, then ask why. If your answer is there’s no common ground or some other issue and no compromise in sight, look very carefully at these red flags. Does your partner demand that you fit into a traditional gender role without any leeway for an equal exchange and it disturbs you – time to question the relationship.

A good way to avoid a lot of misconceptions is that once you feel committed to a person try to set up, verbally or written, with both parties, what likes and dislikes you have. If that person is unwilling and it’s important to you it might spell trouble ahead. It’s very important to know upfront how each of you functions, feels, thinks and behaves. Know what you can negotiate and what you can’t. Listen carefully to your partner and expect the same.
And if you decide to keep all problems under wraps until you get married, thinking you can make changes then? Think again. Good chance you will not change that person and it is unfair to spring it on them after signing that certificate when you have tolerated annoying habits during the courtship. Use your brain as well as your heart to clear a path to a great relationship.