Every day on the streets of the US, women are being raped, viciously attacked and left for dead. When women do die, their killings almost never make the local news and the perpetrators who commit these horrendous acts of violence do so with almost total impunity.
Under the country’s laws, these women are victims. But their lives are deemed worthless by the public and the state. They hold no political agency or economic power and, while they are incarcerated time and time again, the perpetrators – the people who hurt them – are never jailed.
The men who attack them are “regular” guys – husbands, sons and co-workers – but they are seen as outcasts, somehow deserving of mistreatment.
This is the reality of life as a victim of human trafficking in the US today.