User:Msilva96/sandbox

Final Wiki Article:

 Mental/Emotional Impact 

McTavish argues that the psychological impact that victims experience, are often times more severe than the physical repercussions. The majority of sex trafficking victims, develop post-traumatic stress disorder since they begin to experience disassociation and depression. Other psychological symptoms that victims of sex trafficking develop, also include: anxiety, panic disorder, suicidal ideation, substance abuse, depression, as well as Stockholm Syndrome. According to Shirley Julich, Stockholm Syndrome is very likely to develop for victims of sex trafficking because there is a clear and evident threat to their physical survival. In some instances, the victim experiences emotional abuse, which bonds the victim to the abuser. Sex trafficking victims become dependent on their abusers and feel responsible for the safety of their families since they are also used as a threat at times.

Most victims often times do not ask for help because they do not identify themselves as victims initially. The psychological trauma associated with trafficking and performing sexual acts under coercion can be destructive. Understanding the mental harm that sex trafficking inflicts on victims will help establish a system that will provide care and help for victims to recover. Psychologists that work with sex trafficking victims highlight that the trauma recovery is crucial to a victim’s competence to be able to sustain themselves in society.

''' Physical Impacts '''Globally, millions of women victims fall into human trafficking and are forced into sex work. McTavish argues that women who are victims of sex trafficking suffer serious physical problems. Survivors report a significant number of reproductive issues as a result of being sex trafficked. Most notably, more than half of the women who were victims contracted some form of sexually transmitted diseases or infections. Survivors reported high rates of STDs like gonorrhea and chlamydia, which was higher than the reports of hepatitis C. Over half of survivors also report that they had pain during sex, urinary tract infections, and vaginal discharge, among the most common symptoms. The statistics of the physical implications that these women endure is a reflection of how the sexual abuse impacts their ability to function.

According to the Annuals of Health Law, the prevalence of having abortions is becoming more frequent for victims of sex trafficking. The research noted that forced abortions were the reality for many victims outside of the United States, and one study even reflected that forced abortions were taking place in domestic trafficking. A large majority of survivors reported that these abortions were against their free-will.

Additionally, according to a study by Janice Raymond, while undergoing barbaric living conditions, victims may experience an improper diet or starvation. Victims suffer from malnutrition because it is their abusers way of manipulating and punishing them. Another tactic used to scare and abuse victims, is through physical force and torture. Victims suffer from broken bones, burns, scars, broken teeth, and much more. According to Deshpande, these physical injuries are often times left untreated, which lead to bigger health affects. Since victims suffer from constant beatings, they can also experience brain injuries, both major and minor. Many victims will experience head aches, migraines, dizziness and in some cases even memory loss.

 Family/Social Impacts 

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, victims of sex trafficking frequently fear returning back to their communities of origin because of the stigma that is attached to their experience as victims of sex trafficking. For some cultures, victims’ families are at risk for being shunned because of their past. This keeps victims distant from their communities as well as from their families.

Family support is important for victims to rehabilitate, and most families do not acknowledge that victims were used as a commodity against their will. However, according to Brunovskis, and Surtees, many victims do not have support from their families when the return home. The victims struggle to reintegrate back into their households since often times families hold resentment because of there absence. At a general level, victims are held to a certain expectation with their families, and this creates tension making it harder for victims to reintegrate. This is particularly true when family members have cared for the victim’s child(ren) in her absence.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

http://dspace.epoka.edu.al/handle/1/866

This is one source that I would like to use because it talks about the history of Sex Trafficking, specifically in Albania. This article highlights a period in history in which sex trafficking and human slavery were ranked very high, for Albania this was during post colonialism.

http://jice.um.edu.my/index.php/MJSA/article/view/3020

This source talks about the problem with child sex trafficking in Bangladesh and it also covers what the government is doing to contribute to this problem. This source also analyzes the sources and causes of sex trafficking specifically the relation that it has to children in Bangladesh.

Trafficking and Prostitution Reconsidered

This book talks about different perspectives on sex work and human rights, it talks about these topics as contemporary global problem. The reason that I really want to use this source is because it is very versatile with the way it talks about this issue so it takes away from any potential biases.

 WEEK 5: Choosing a Topic 

The topic that I chose to focus on for the Wikipedia Project, is Sex Trafficking. After reading the article, I realized how this topic is not talked about in depth and there is so much that is not covered in the article. I plan on adding more to the article, and finding more sources that will exemplify the affects of Sex Trafficking globally. I found this article to be very informative, however it is very short, too short for a topic that deserves to be acknowledged more.

 WEEK 4: Add to an article 

I added this citation to the article about Gender Inequality in China, because it elaborates two issues that are mentioned in the text but that are not talked about in depth. I wanted to add this specific citation because it addresses the issue with women in education in China. The article solely focuses on past occurrences and the citation I picked shows how it is prevalent in society today. The reference I added highlights the effects that the hierarchy in China creates for women who want to pursue an education. It also talks about women being seen as less committed to their families when they decide to take this route as opposed to being domesticated. Nonetheless, the citation I chose does reflect the progression with gender equality in regards to education in China and how much more accepted it is now. Parents are more eager and they encourage their children to pursue an education more often now than they did before.

I also wanted to add this citation because it elaborates more on the topic of employment in China. This is mentioned in the article so I figured this citation could help those reading understand that although there is a gap with earnings, there has been progression. Nonetheless, the citation allows for people to see that women in China still suffer from occupational segregation and are not accepted in what some jobs are seen as masculine roles.

 Article Evaluation: 

The Gender and Development article makes interesting points on how this concept came into existence, and how it exists today. The article is well organized and most of the points the are brought up are clear and reasonable.

The beginning of the article is very important to mention, especially with this kind of topic because it creates the foundation for which these theories came about. If the Women in Development approach was not mentioned, it would be harder to understand why having the Women and Development approach is so important and valuable. Before I read this, I had never heard of these approaches before, the article does a good job at explaining what they were and how they were established.

Also, another aspect of the article that I really appreciate about this article, is the way every approach is separated and explained. However, I would go into more depth in the Neoliberal approach because although it does mention the ways in which gender development has increasingly become a part of government agendas, it does not address the problem that it creates with development. It briefly touches on the fact that women are a part of this never-ending poverty cycle created by micro-financing. I think that the article should definitely expand on that point because it is a very relatable topic, especially for women. Maybe even mentioning examples such as the loans that women get in order to pursue an education, and the burden of never being able to pay off their loans. This example goes hand in hand with what is being discussed in this article in regards to women being held back financially and more likely to become impoverished.

I also like how this article makes a distinction between Women in Development and Women and Development. We started with this approach known as Women in Development. This approach did not address unequal gender relations, as well as the exclusion that women experienced on many levels. The WID approach just focuses on women’s practical needs, needs which are specific to their gendered roles in society. The article should mention that the root of all these issues is patriarchy so therefore the dismantling of the patriarchy is the aim of strategic gender needs. However, I think that the reason that they do not mention this, is because it could come off as a very opinionated statement rather than a fact. The reason that it is especially important to consider the effects of that on this media outlet, is because if opinionated statements are established it diminishes the credibility of the article.

Another issue that is not brought up in this article that I think is important to mention, is that women are more likely to be impoverished than men. Diving deeper into why this is the reality that most women face, is worth sharing with others so that we can educate more people on what needs to be done in order to diminish the limits that women experience. This could be a part of the article that mentions how micro credit affects women and their ways of living. Micro-credit was mentioned and it is definitely a relatable topic, so adding to that by discussing how it has affected women and the economy could make it an even stronger point.

I would say that this article is bias on some topics that are being discussed. The reason that I feel this way, is because when the person who wrote this article mentions women who are marginalized in a society that has neoliberal standards, they do not address the issues that they face, or how it affects their voice in regards to politics.

The article should also mention how there is a wide gender gap with development. This should be highlighted because then it gives the article an opportunity to mention what resources men have that women do not have access to, and it addresses why these gaps even exist. Most of the points that are made in this article only address the issues that women have, so considering mentioning issues that men have or do not have is essential in order to understand both sides of things. This will also help for the person reading the article to grasp the gender gap and differences that are created because of neoliberalism. And since the article already mentions neoliberalism, this is a great opportunity to mention the gender gap, and how it all relates to development.

This article although I mention earlier that there is some bias, it does a really good job at getting the points across in an informational way rather than in an opinionated one. Aside from the point that I mention, it highlights the topics with urgency without being biased. This is important because when articles like these are created, mentioning the facts can sometimes skew the reader away from what actually matters, and this article incorporates both factors in order to show the importance of these topics that are being talked about.

The last point that I want to make, is that this article could have added more about gender and development around the world. I think it focuses too much on United States development and its relation to gender, it briefly mentions the efforts of Women’s Development Business in South Africa, however mentioning what other countries around the world are doing in relation to development could make the points that are being made even stronger.

In class, we talked about the connotation that the word development has on our perception of what it actually is. This is something that I think would be interesting to mention, especially in this article since it does focus on development for the most part. The article mostly mentions gender, women specifically and the effects that they have and experience in regards to development. If the article briefly mentioned what development means in the United States in comparison to other countries, it could strengthen the points that are being made and also bring up questions that people never thought of before.