Salvation

A/N

PLEASE READ. As my readers, this is one thing I will ask of you to take seriously.

So, I'm going to be honest. I got inspiration for this book idea when I went on a trip to Ghana, Africa. During this trip, me and the group of women I was traveling with got the opportunity to be able to visit an amazing castle with a horrible and gruesome past.

This castle was Cape Coast Castle (picture above). If you have not heard of it, don't be surprised. I didn't know about it before my trip either. But I must warn you, if you decide to look it up, be prepared. This castle was one, of what I assume to be many, castles that became a living nightmare for hundreds upon thousands of people. This castle was used for trafficking slaves from all over Ghana and Africa to what was then known as 'The New World'.

While on the tour we had asked our guide why the castle wasn't destroyed if it had such a bad history, his answer is one that will stay with me forever. He told us that it was so they could teach others about the past so that their future might be better, after all, we go through the past to get to the present that way we can learn for the future.

Hearing about the past of that beautiful castle really shook me to the bones. It made me furious that 'white' people decided that 'black' people were no more than pieces of meat for sale. What made me even more furious about this whole exchange was that it wasn't just the white foreigners that were taking men, women and children from their homes; it was also their elders.

The people that were suppose to protect you. The people that you looked up to. These people decided that your life, your work, was worth a few measly pieces of tobacco, or a gun. They traded their future generations for items that the future generations could have gotten for them in different ways, ways that were much more humane.

If you readers have been reading the comments that I wrote, (my original A/N) then you would know that I didn't expect to be writing anything like this. But I felt that after listening to the radio today, it needed to be said, it needed to be spread.

On the talk radio that I listen to, they have interviews with many different people, covering anything from brand name clothing to natural disasters. Today while half-listening during work, there was an interview with what sounded like a woman who had actually been a sex slave. I'm not sure if she was, or if she was just a researcher for it, but either way, it caught my attention.

She spoke of sex slavery and how these men would take girls from as young as 12 and force them to have sex. She continued talking for a while, and while I didn't catch most of what she had said, I did catch small bits and pieces. Another but that she said was how they dealt with the women once that 'owner' was done; apparently they had a system set up, a system for them to trade, sell or simply 'get rid of' these girls.

So please, DO NOT think that sex slavery is not happening now-a-days. I wish it wasn't happening now as much as I wish that it didn't happen in the past.

But what can one person do?

ANSWER: not a whole lot. All we can do is spread the word and hopefully make a difference for the future. By saying this, please, do some research; you never know what you'll find, and spread the word to help stop this injustice.

Thank you for reading this, you don't know how much it means to me to be able to get my opinion out there and to hopefully make the world a better place by doing so.