Hope for trafficking victims?

In case anyone has noticed, I haven't been posting much lately here.

There's been less stuff coming through on the private Natashas email list. But mostly, it's because this topic can be so depressing ... the overwhelming enormity of it makes it seem futile.

And, I've discovered The Secret, and have been focussing on the positive or, rather, getting positive results in my own life. Adjusting one's life outlook requires a paradigm shift, and that takes a big chuck of concentration.

As with the Holodomor, I've been reluctant to personally get too deep into the trafficking issue, lest despair overtake me.

But, as I apply The Secret in my own life, I wonder if maybe that reluctance is actually working at cross purposes to my desire to do something to help trafficking victims. I put up this blog thinking it was one thing I could do, and while it's moving up in the Technorati rankings, it's not exactly getting a gazillion hits a day, a week, or even a month... much less improving the situation.

What I've done in my own life is use The Secret to visualize my stepdaughters' recovery. They have been addicts all their adult lives. Both are now in their 30s. We've watched them go in and out of recovery programs, feeling helpless to do anything as they certainly did not want any help we could offer them.

One of them has 4 beautiful children and a wonderful husband, and had abandoned them for life on the street and crack cocaine. But just a little over a week ago, it occurred to me to use The Secret to help her (and her sister). So I told hubby that we need to just visualize and believe that she is healed, healthy and happy. In truth, we had in the past never really got beyond the hoping stage, you know, the old "hope for the best but expect the worst" mindset.

Well, wouldn't you know it, but the very next day we got a call from her husband, saying she'd left a "farewell" (I'm going to commit suicide now) message on his cell phone, which he rarely takes to work, but for some reason did this day. We'd shared The Secret with him, and so he asked "The Universe" for instructions and then immediately called 9-1-1.

Within 10 minutes the police found her, brought her into the hospital and locked her into a psyche ward where, for the first time in over a decade, there was finally a shrink actually interested in helping her and getting her completely off drugs instead of just giving her another prescription.

The next day, her husband was not able to go and visit her, and it just so happened that I was going to a meeting that morning that had been postponed from an earlier day. Wouldn't you know it, I was going to be very near the hospital. Although I had no idea if she'd be receptive to a visit from me, and in fact I had sworn I would never again have anything to do with her (that's how bad the situation was), I felt compelled to go and see her. There, we made polite small talk, but I was able to briefly mention The Secret. I asked her to promise me that she would start to think of what she wants instead of what she doesn't want, i.e. addiction and the misery it has brought her and the rest of us.

I left her, rather depressed after our encounter which seemed at the time a waste of time.

It wasn't. What I said apparently has resonated so strongly with her that, according to her husband, she actually is changing her behaviour, facing her past (for the first time) and facing the future with optimism. She is a believer of The Secret and hasn't even read the book or seen the movie!

And, that same day that she was brought back, my husband heard from her sister, for the first time in about two years.

The rapidity of these turnabouts is nothing less than astounding and cannot possibly be attributed to anything other than our faith in The Secret and applying the law of attraction. While we asked on their behalf, it was actually for ourselves, because we so want them to be healthy, happy and whole, and part of our lives. Their complete and total recovery is very real to us, and the speed at which our vision is manifesting itself is almost dizzying.

So it makes me wonder.... if enough people believed and applied The Secret to trafficking victims, couldn't it result in similar success for them?

Legalizing prostitution a stupid idea

I vehemently disagree with those (probably) well-meaning but misguided souls advocating to legalize prostitution.

In theory, it's fine, but in reality it would be a travesty. All you'd be doing is allowing pimps and traffickers to visit even more misery on women (and children) in order to cash in on the growing sex-on-demand "industry."

If it were a bona-fide "trade" that women choose voluntarily, that would be a different story. How many little girls do you know who aspire to being a prostitute? Is that a "profession" you would encourage your daughter to take up?

Maybe some do enter the "trade" of their own volition, but they're in the minority and usually are soon disabused of any romantic notions of a "Pretty Woman" lifestyle. Most, however, enter it out of desperation and despair, or because they are trafficked.

Personally, I think it is possible to treat the victims (i.e. the women and children forced into prostitution) with dignity without legalizing the so-called and very mis-named sex "trade." It is the johns, rather than prostitutes, who should be carted off to jail.

It's not a matter of changing the law, but of changing attitudes. Unfortunately, it is much easier to change laws.

If you still think prostitution should be legalized, watch this.

The film is in English. So watch it.

And weep, like I did.