Being an immigrant is very difficult. I know from experience what it’s like to leave everything you know and have behind and go towards an unknown. And in our case we didn’t have to pay smugglers, we didn’t have to walk across borders, we had passports, visa, purchased our own plane fares and weren’t fleeing war. So when I read that the number of refugees and displaced persons from wars and persecutions has reached 68.5 million, I shudder. These are 68.5 million lives which have been Continue reading “68.5 Million Refugees”
Tag: migrants
Libyan Slave Market
Once in a while in all I read to prepare for these pieces, I find myself in disbelief, encountering how evil humans can be. This week it was a story in The Guardian newspaper about what they called Libyan slave markets. Migrants, usually from West Africa, with little or cash and often with no papers, manage to pay people smugglers to get across the desert to the coast. The rescued migrant interviewed for this story tells of a bus ride organized by the Continue reading “Libyan Slave Market”
About a Refugee Selling Sex
There’s a rundown large park in Athens, the Pedion Aeros Park, there a section of the park is known as a place to get sex. Mostly older men walk by at night in search of it. There too several refugees from Afghanistan and other countries, live in tents or however they can, and earn a living selling themselves. One 20-year old Afghan interviewed for the article I read said he was ashamed of what he did, but that was the only thing he could do. The alternatives were to steal, or deal in drugs and that seemed the least violent to him. He is in Greece illegally, cannot find any country that will have him and has no money to pay smugglers. In a place where sex can readily be had, the price goes down, so he gets Continue reading “About a Refugee Selling Sex”
Smuggling and Stopping The Buck
I write this just after reading a recent Rolling Stones’ article on human smuggling in the US, more specifically the activities of a few young men—and some young women— attending Texas A&M in Corpus Christi, Texas. Since Corpus as the locals call it is a city I know fairly well, and the people involved could have been people I knew, or like some of the people I know there, the story rang an even louder bell. These young people were party animals, into drugs and were brought into a smuggling operation through a friend they met a one such party. Corpus, is not far from the border, and residents are Continue reading “Smuggling and Stopping The Buck”