From the Los Angeles Times, Salon.com, National Public Radio:

Investigative reporter Benjamin Skinner spent four years traveling the world as he researched modern-day slavery for his new book, “A Crime So Monstruous,” and says there are more slaves today than at any point in human history.

When he was in a seedy brothel in Bucharest, Romania, posing as a slave trader, he was offered a young woman with Down syndrome in exchange for a used car.

… I could have done one of a few things: I could’ve paid to redeem her. I was with a couple of guys and I could’ve fought physically with the traffickers to get her out. Or I could’ve gone to the police the next day to tell them, which is what I did.

Very unsatisfying, that. You want to rip this guy’s head off, right? I was shown this woman who had scars all over her arm — she was clearly trying to kill herself to escape daily rape, and she had Down syndrome.

I was so in shock. I was undercover and I had this moment where I thought, “What would my character be doing in this situation?” So I tried to smile. And I physically couldn’t. I was so horrified. I looked at my translator, who had not done this kind of work before, and there was just sheer horror on his face as well. To see somebody who is in such a condition.

They had put makeup on her and her makeup was running because she was crying so much.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 11:49 am and is filed under Down syndrome, abuse, books, international, violence. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post