One of the most prolific battles we are facing today is human trafficking. It’s aptly considered modern-day slavery, and thousands of men, women, and children fall into it every year. Sold by Patricia McCormick sheds light on one particular area of trafficking: Nepalese girls being sold into sexual slavery in India.
Sold follows thirteen-year-old Lakshmi. Lakshmi lives with her mother, stepfather, and baby sibling in the mountains of Nepal. Her family is desperately poor, but Lakshmi finds joy in the simple pleasures of her life – her goat, her mother, her school. Eventually, in their hopeless poverty, her stepfather sells her, under the pretense that she will be working as a maid in India. Under this guise, she is taken and imprisoned in an Indian brothel. While Lakshmi is not a real person, she represents the hundreds of girls tricked and coerced into this heartbreaking situation.
In India, we watch devastating moment after devastating moment unfold in Lakshmi’s life. She is subjected to beatings, starvation, rape, and illness. And not only has she been sold into this life, she learns that she’s actually in bonded labor. Interestingly, debt bondage/labor trafficking is considered the most widespread form of modern day slavery, yet very few people know about it. According to Anti-Slavery, bonded labor is extermely common in India, where Lakshmi’s story takes place. They write, “Often entire families have to work to pay off the debt taken by one of its members. Sometimes, the debt can be passed down the generations and children can be held in debt bondage because of a loan their parents had taken decades ago” (para. 6). McCormick’s book also follows this pattern. Despite Lakshmi’s best attempts to work off her debt, it is simply never enough.
Watching Lakshmi change from a beloved daughter at home to a good for sale is heart-wrenching. There’s an exchange where she hears two customers talking about how much they paid for their services. The first says, “If only I had another thirty rupees…” implying he’d like to go again. Lakshmi realizes that thirty rupees is the price of a bottle of Coca-Cola, and “that is what he paid for me” (146). The discovery that she’s only worth one Coca-Cola is devastating.
A moving part of the story is how the girls in the brothel take care of each other and befriend one another, as well as spoil each other’s children. Lakshmi bonds with one of the women’s sons who is able to go to school and learn English while his mother works. These relationships give her hope in the darkness. Lakshmi realizes, “I have been beaten here, locked away, violated a hundred times and a hundred times more. I have been starved and cheated, tricked and disgraced. How odd it is that I am undone by the simple kindness of a small boy with a yellow pencil” (182).
The novel is written in vignette-style chapters from Lakshmi’s point of view. It reads very poetic and lyrical but still easy to follow. The subject matter understandably is difficult to swallow. While McCormick is tasteful and the brothel scenes are not graphic, it is still extremely clear what is occurring.
Sold is a poignant piece about a real issue thousands of people face every day. It’s far from light reading, and the subject matter may be difficult for some people. At the least, I’d encourage you to read up on the plague that is human trafficking. We cannot gloss over it and pretend it doesn’t exist. Put yourself in Lakshmi’s shoes… No one should experience that life. These people should be free.
Several good resources are below:
- https://www.antislavery.org/
- https://polarisproject.org/human-trafficking/
- https://humantraffickinghotline.org/
Jessica
Copyright Patricia McCormick and Hyperion. Image from Amazon.com.
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