We Are Not Guiltless

In decrying the actions of those who force women into prostitution and smuggle them across the world for a fistful of dollars, we forget our own inaction. This inaction is in no way less deplorable, and contributes to the suffering of women in a manner no less tangible. We forget that not every woman who works as a prostitute is physically coerced to do so. Some have no choice because it is the only way they can provide for themselves. There are some who are addicted to horrible drugs, and their only means of feeding their addiction is selling themselves. Others are simply absolutely poor, uneducated and lacking any skills leading to meaningful employment. Forgotten by society, they are left to fend for themselves the only way they can. Such a situation is more prevalent in economic downturns like the one we are experiencing now, so all the more pressing is this problem.

The example I would like to share with you comes out of the Gorbals from another time of economic scarcity; The Great Depression. The Gorbals was a slum in Glasgow, and the greatest in Europe at the time. You may think that our recession is no where near as severe as the Great Depression, that I am blowing the issue out of proportion. Read on, and you will understand.

Ralph Glasser, a Scot who grew up in the Gorbals and went on to Cambridge University, wrote down a conversation he had with a friend of his when he was still an industrial worker in Glasgow. They were walking home through the Saltmarket, an area known as a haven for prostitutes. His friend seemed to want to talk. So, Glasser asked him if he had, “one of them,” before. His friend told him yes, that he was just thinking about the first prostitute he had been with when he was 15. He went on to pour out his soul to Glasser. He told him of how, walking home from work on a payday, she had pulled him off the street, held him tight and told him she would show him, “somethin’ wonderful.” She was so skinny, and so cold, dressed only in rags. She asked him for a shilling for fish and chips. She went and bought them, and waited to eat them until she got back. She huddled against him for warmth as she ate the meal, as if, “she hadnae had anythin’ tae eat fer days.” He went on to explain that she had made him feel as if he was somebody, and what they were doing meant something.

Having descended into silence, Glasser asked his friend if he had ever seen her again. His reply was surprisingly emphatic: “Seen her? Ah wish ah could have stayed wi’ ’er fir ever!” The woman lived in the building next to his family, with an abusive alcoholic husband who didn’t work. Her eyesight had been ruined working as a button-holer, not likely helped by the abuse wrought on her face by her husband. She couldn’t work, and had children to support. He ponders if her sight had been better, she would have recognized him and, “left me alane. Anyway, bein’ hungry an’ cauld, whit can ye say? She needed that shilling.”

She needed that shilling. As do many women, with no other way to earn it. As we wage battle with forces who profit from forcing women into sexual slavery, we can’t forget the marginalised women in our own neighbourhoods, so easy to forget, who are not forced into prostitution by an individual’s actions, but our inaction. No effort to force change can ignore these neglected souls, or we commit a crime as grave as those we mean to combat. We must ask: will we be judged by our valiant actions, or our ignoble neglect? Will we be heroes to women across the globe, yet the accomplices to the oppression of our own abused and marginalized women?