An estimated 800,000 people each year are victims of human trafficking. Of these, 80% are women or girls and 50% are minors. They face severe physical, psychological, and emotional abuse on a regular basis.
Traffickers often lure impoverished victims into slavery with the promise of employment, social status, education, or citizenship. Sometimes children find themselves kidnapped off the streets, other times family members will sell off their loved ones to appease a debt—an exchange termed "debt bondage." Governments internationally fund institutions to help fight this human-rights epidemic.
Yet trafficking continues to be one of the most thriving criminal organizations in the world.
The documentary above, Stolen Innocence, inspired me to start writing this book in 2019. Please feel free to check out the video if you have time. The issues are troubling, but sometimes knowing is half or at least part of the battle.
Integers, Parabolas, and Jivika took longer to complete than other work I've written, because to write it I had to research some of the most disturbing areas of society. It was horrifying, soul-crushing. Often I did want to stop writing this book, but I am so happy I didn't.
I hope to one day visit Old Delhi and interview police and survivors willing to share their experiences, so that I can better hone the events in Jivika for a more first-hand authenticity. I wrote this story as a novella of only about 28,000 words, in order to potentially extend it to novel length after I travel overseas for insight.
Delhi stood out to me due to my heritage, half Indian, and also due to India sadly being among the top ten countries affected by human trafficking.
Slavery puts chains not just on individuals but on the earth herself.
Everyone deserves a voice. Everyone deserves a life. Everyone deserves to be free.
Thank you for reading! If you wish to learn more about this topic, see the links below (I will also post them in an inline comment of this paragraph so they're clickable):
https://www.dianova.org/opinion/human-trafficking-in-india
https://www.state.gov/reports/2021-trafficking-in-persons-report
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3651545
https://www.migrationdataportal.org/themes/human-trafficking
https://www.statista.com/topics/4238/human-trafficking
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Integers, Parabolas, and Jivika
General FictionA girl in Delhi has a brilliant mind and secrets darker than the nights that won't let her eyes close. She lives in the Labyrinth, a place that always seems dim, even in the middle of the day. There, customers flock in their dozens, and there, th...
