Sold

Book: McCormick, P. (2006). Sold. New York, NY: Hyperion.

Summary:            Lakshmi’s family thought they were sending her to a better life to work for a wealthy family. The sad truth is that this young Nepalese girl was sold into sex slavery in India. The stories unfold of her cruel life in the brothel until her rescue.

Impression:           It’s hard to read a realistic story about another’s suffering. The story is told from the perspective of Laksmi, who endured beatings and starvation that forced her into prostitution. Her life in her home village was bleak as girls aren’t valued, although she did attend school. She worked hard, but bad weather and her stepfather’s mismanagement of the farm led the family to desperate times.            What causes a family to sell their daughter? What social networks are missing for these crimes to take place? The book does not explore the broken societal forces, but explores the personal story of living as a slave. The girls in the brothel are surviving day by day. They are denied an education and threatened with beatings, if they try to escape.              It is unclear who the rescuers are and how successful they are at helping these children. I wish the book had another chapter to show Laksmi’s experience in the new, clean place. I, also, wonder, why the rescuers didn’t take all the girls from the brothel. It is an eye opening read for students to learn about these atrocities.

Library Use:           Human trafficking is covered in the media, but it is not often covered in the curriculum. When students read a personal story, it makes it incredibly real, because the reader cares about the characters in the story. I would educate students on Human Trafficking from the United Nations website. https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/what-is-human-trafficking.html Students could work with a partner and look up, what, why, how, when, who of Human Trafficking and then tie it into the book.