The background: Nicholas Kristof, a NY Times columnist whose columns often focus on gender as a social justice issue, traveled to Cambodia a little over a year ago. There he met some sex-trafficking victims and wrote a few columns about them, describing them as shy and trembling. He bought two of them from their brothels and returned them to their families. He recently returned to Cambodia to see how the two girls were doing. One girl has been moderately successful in a business venture; the other has a methamphetamine addiction and has returned to working in a brothel to support her drug addiction.
And here I am, sitting in judgment.
One, I object to the manner in which these girls were removed. Although Kristof never mentions this in any of his columns, there are several organizations dedicated to the protection of sex-trafficking victims in SE Asia. Public health and social work experts have been doing this kind of work for years. If Kristof had contacted some of these groups, he could possibly have gotten involved in a larger rescue operation, one that would have benefited 50 or 100 girls, not just two. By not involving the groups that work daily to do this rescue work, by not even mentioning them, Kristof has made this his own personal campaign. What if he had mentioned some of these groups and concerned readers could send money to them? What if he had interviewed some of the workers who for years have been removing children from brothels? No, he chose to go it alone, heroic cowboy, and now we can all say oh, what a wonderful man he is.
What a wonderful man. How generous, how unusual, for a white Western educated man to care about the lives of young SE Asian girls. We should all be so grateful to this man for stepping outside his male domain to pay attention to the problems of young brown women in another nation. Right?
Wrong. I know it is unfair to blame Kristof for being a white Western educated male; we can’t help who we’re born to. However, this whole process feels to me like the Big White Man Liberating the Trembling Brown Girls From the Horrors of Their Native Land. If you don’t believe me, listen to his voiceover in some of the multimedia presentations. Dripping with paternalistic pity.
Finally, I know that in order to increase awareness of the problem, we need photos and stories about it — how else would anyone know? — but I feel like a voyeur when these two girls reunite tearfully with their families and the camera zooms in on their faces. That’s a private moment we don’t all need to share. I wonder how the family felt about having their emotions broadcast?
Neocolonialism, even when well-intended, is still not the way to go about liberation operations. (Of course, if people listened to me, then the world would be different…)
I don’t think he did anything wrong. Sure, he could have gone to those other organizations, but would he really have accomplished any more by going through them and just diverting his efforts? Same thing with the money – if he had given them the money rather than buying the girls’ freedom himself, would they have been able to do more with it? It’s debateable but I really doubt it would have wound up much better, if at all.
At least he was doing something, unlike most everyone else.
January 26th, 2005, at 4:55 pm #Many people go through life without making a significant impact on ANYONE. This guy frees two young women from a horrible situation which I would deem a life-changing event and he’s the “Big White Man…blah blah” What is wrong with you?
August 19th, 2005, at 6:09 pm #The problem is he didn’t solve crap. The two women were both drug addicted and it was only a matter of time for them before they ended up in slavery again. The support should have gone to the organizations who had been there for a while and had some ideas on how to permanently help some of these women. Instead he goes for the quick fix which is shortly no fix at all and then struts around acting like the cock of the walk because he helped free some women and doesn’t that make all the chicks in the office want to drop their panties?
August 19th, 2005, at 8:19 pm #Sorry, but I’m with Zbud and redshift on this one. Most organizations mean well but really can’t or don’t do as much as they should. One person went out on a limb and sacrificed his own time and money to save two women, and he’s being categorized in with criminals? What the hell? Of course he didn’t solve the situation – that’s because the situation is a lot bigger than he is. But at least he did what he could, which is more than most other people would.
As for the one woman who went back into the brothels to support a drug addiction: She had a choice to make when she was bought out of her situation. She could have either chosen a new life, or reverted back to the old one. She chose the old life. It was her choice. Nicholas Kristof should not be blamed for that.
August 23rd, 2005, at 10:53 am #Paragraph number A: Central Point: “…at least he did what he could.”
Again, my problem here is that he struts around afterwards making a big deal out of being such a humanitarian knowing he accomplished NOTHING. It’s like a kid entering in a spelling bee contest and not preparing at all, losing horribly, and then saying, “At least I did what I could.” Except that the word could theoretically encompasses all possible actions. Back out of the analogy, this guy could have actually done something to help. Instead he took a quick, newsworthy action with ultimately no positive consequences.
Paragraph number B: “She chose the old life.” We’re talking about drug addiction here.
August 23rd, 2005, at 2:53 pm #Paragraph A: If he can help one person, then he’s accomplished a lot and whatever he did was worth it.
Paragraph B: And?
August 23rd, 2005, at 2:55 pm #