The Irony of the Police’s Act
Kristof and WuDunn write, “The girls took the elevator down and wandered the silent streets until they found a police station and stepped inside. The police first tried to shoo them away, then arrested the girls for illegal immigration. Rath served a year in prison under Malaysia’s tough anti-immigrant laws , and then she was supposed to be repatriated. She thought a Malaysian policeman was escorting her home when he drove her to the Thai border-but then he sold her to a trafficker, who peddled her to a Thai brothel.” The police act contrary to what the Rath and her friends had anticipated. Instead to providing protection to the traumatized victims, the police criminalize them. The girls are victims of smuggling and not illegal immigration. Moreover, the police’s act of reselling her to a brothel is ironic when the police’s mandate is deemed to safeguard vulnerable members of the society such as victims of sexual violence. The police’s inhumane act depicts the extent of commoditization of girls. It would be difficult for a victim of sexual trade to get out with the involvement of the police who subsidize the trade.
The Irony of Gender Inequality
Kristof and WuDunn quote Amartya Sen who explains, “ Sen noted that in normal circumstances women live longer than men, so there are more females than males in much of the world. Even poor regions like most of Latin America and much of Africa have more females than males. Yet in places where girls have a deeply unequal status, they vanish. China has 107 males for every 100 females in its overall population ( and an even greater disproportion among newborns) India has 108 and Pakistan has 111.” Although the females’ numbers exceed that of females , they are still disadvantaged in the gender equality equation. Numbers are not determinant factors ion gender equality for they would easily permit women to revert the cultural oppression which they endure due to their gender. If numbers were absolute factor, men would have suffered more in terms of discrimination than women.
