Publisher's Synopsis
Human Trafficking is nearly as old as human history; the weaker members of society are always victimized, used and abused by the stronger ones. 'Might is Right' was the motto of the primitive times, it is even truer now in this 21st century. Are we civilized then? We make skyscrapers, we travel to other planets, and so on, and we call it Civilization, while Human Trafficking has become the world's third-largest profit-making illicit industry after arms and drug trafficking. Human beings are sold, displayed, auctioned, smuggled, and trafficked; they are a profitable commodity in the multi-billion-dollar industry of modern-day slavery. Should we still call us civilized?One of the most vicious consequences of Human Trafficking is Sex Trade where women are enslaved, raped, tortured, forced into sex 20-30 times a day; they often end up with incurable diseases like HIV, and finally, they are thrown away once their bodies are no longer marketable.'That night I felt for the first time what it was like to be a sex worker. I had to service eight men. I felt so terrible and ashamed. I showered after every encounter but I could not wash away the filth in me, '' cries out a woman, a sex trafficking victim. Another woman, an anti-trafficking activist, cries out, saying, ''yes, yes, I have to accept that my mother is now a Brothel Madam, who is victimizing other women; I have to accept that I have been raped by my own brother; I have to accept that I have no alternative but to prosecute my own mother and brother.'' Many more women screamed in agony in 'In the shadow of the red-light', a powerful novel on the global sex trade- set in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan. This cross-genre novel is not only a significant literary piece but also a movement against the insanity of humanity; it powerfully raises a direct question, 'Are we really civilized?'
