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Amnesty International

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With Slavery Comes Hope

The slavery stories portrayed in the short stories of Amnesty International delivered a newfound empathy for the people that have gone through these horrors. Article four is essential when discussing the Universal Decleration of Human Rights due to the overwhelming amount of slavery that has taken place around the world already. Although these are written, and encouraged to never be taken lightly, they still happen around the world today. Slavery will always be prevalent around the world in some way or another. In the short stories, a life of hope mixed with terror is a constant part of these people’s daily lives. Katya is one of the women portrayed in the short story under article four. In this story she is held a slave to the underground sex trafficking world. She was promised a waitressing job in the Balkans but instead was put to use in ways she never thought would happen to her. After Katya realized she wasn’t going to be a waitress she tried to leave, “So she decided she wanted to run back to mummy” (pg. 37 Lewycka). The owner wasn’t about to let her go after having spent good money on her. The owner of the whorehouse had Branko, the owners nephew beat her and eventually fractured some of her ribs and broke her foot. The owner seemed fine with this mistreatment of Katya but could not condone the other more horrendous treatment of her. “The bruises in her mouth and cigarette burns on her cunt I can’t condone” (pg. 38 Lewycka) The owner continually says that he should “let her go” but that she had regulars and that they were important local figures such as politicians and judges. She had later been used and abused so much that her vagina had torn from intercourse. Instead of letting her go they call in “Doktor Sex” who was one of the regulars. Katya was so horrified by everything that had happened to her but the one thing that kept her alive was the hope to once again see her mother. This story about Katya has awakened my senses of empathy for others who have had their human rights violated immensely. I was aware that these places were undoubtedly horrible places for women to be but the story was so eye opening at parts it made me want to go on a quest to find her and save her. The story ends somewhat well for Katya compared to most women in these sort of situations. She escapes and ends up finding a lesbian to help her get to the papers. The story is never written due to the whorehouse owner bribing many people. In Ali’s short story of slavery the boy, Sando, has a harder time finding hope due to his father abandoning him into a life of slavery. Sando’s father Abure took him into Bolgatanga to deliver guinea fowls to eager customers but this isn’t the only thing Abure had planned. Abure brought Sando into the vizier’s house and bargained with a man named Abdul for his sons slave services. The boy didn’t really comprehend what was happening until his father left. Sando was promised an education after a couple years of working around the vizier’s house. Sando was allowed two days off per year of work. Sando was treated awfully by all the people in the vizier’s house. Sando was even raped at one point while working there, “Asim quickly climbed on top of the servant boy, his erection blindly seeking the mouth of Sando’s anus. Sando tried to move his body sideways, to thwart Asim’s efforts, but he was overwhelmed by the other boys’ grip on his arms and legs” (pg. 49 Ali). Sando had a catapult that he held more closely to his heart than anything else in his possession. “handmade play things that included his favorite and most valuable possession – the catapult he used for hunting small rodents and birds” (pg. 43 Ali). Sando’s catapult gave him hope that one day he may return to his maternal mother and live happily. Hope is a hard thing to find in situations like this. The little things in life become your most prized possessions when everything else is stripped away. In both of these short stories the slaves find something that gives them hope to carry on. For Katya it was the hope to once again see her mother and live a life of happiness again. For Sando it was his catapult that was constantly with him, it reminded him of his mother and gave him hope that maybe one day he will be able to see her again. Hope can carry a person through the most horrendous encounters in life. Without something to hope for a person would more then likely commit suicide or just give up on life all together. In all situations of slavery we can find interrelations of people finding hope. Hope that one day their lives will not be what someone else plans for them to do.

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