Is it really love?
Now mama is stewing over the problems of legalizing prostitution, of laying heavy fines on johns (those clients who go to ladies of the night—or day, for that matter) and what would be the best solution to all issues concerning women who sell sex: crack down on the organized crime circles who bring young women from outside the European Union into the EU, telling them that they will have a better life, a job, a more secure future than where they live? Most of these poor girls end up as prostitutes and worse, shackled by being in debt their so-called “liberators”, and rarely do they find the wherewithall or the kindness of strangers to help them change their lives for the better.
The trafficking in human beings—women and children specifically—for purposes of sex has become a business that is extremely hard to shut down, and now, mama tells me, there are more and more groups forming as advocates for the business of prostitution, representing women who feel that prostitution is a viable form of making a living and should have benefits such as social security and health insurance. Interesting concept, no? As papa points out, most people have to make a living at something, and if prostitution puts bread on the table and clothes ones’ children, then it is a vocation that works.
Certainly there must be women who actually like their jobs as sellers of sex, but there are far more women exploited in the world of prostitution than those who say it is by choice that they walk the streets or work in brothels.
This kitty has not actually visited the famous brothels just south of here over the border in Spain, but a recent article in our local paper talked openly about how the girls who work there are charged, for example, 5 euros (about $7) just for a roll of toilet paper. Everything the workers in the brothel use has to be bought through the “company” who then jacks up the price to make even money on the women than they make on them as prostitutes.
Frankly, I don’t like the idea of anthros trafficking in endangered animals, much less young women who think they are coming to a new life with security, who spend their very hard-earned savings on getting out of a repressed society only to find they owe more than they can ever pay back unless they sell their bodies.
It’s a tough problem. Do I know how lucky I am to be someone’s kitty who feeds me and snuggles me and keeps me healthy in mind and body? You bet your boots I do.
If only I could do something to help these women find another path for their lives.
And unlike me, they only have one.
I am so lucky…
