Prisoner of Her Past Presentation

http://280slides.com/Viewer/?user=60449&name=Prisoner%20of%20her%20past%20&fullscreen

Research Question

What are the health effects for girls involved in sex trafficking in the United States? Is there a higher chance of Aids/HIV?

Step One

1. I am interested in researching sex trafficking and sex slavery in the United States. After reading the packet, the story "The Dark Bride" I was really interested in her story about prostitution. This led to sex trafficking. 

2. The story in the packet called the Dark Bride and Selling Olga. There was also an article about young girls getting into sex slavery. http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=1596778&page=1 

 3. I really want to know about how the children get dragged into sex slavery. I also want to know at what age do they start putting young girls into sex slavery. What are the punishments for sex slavery/trafficking? 

Democratic Republic of Congo in 2009-2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/world/africa/04congo.html?_r=1&ref=congothedemocraticrepublicof

In this article they discuss the harsh crimes that are occurring in the Congo. One woman brings up the point that If these crimes were happening to people of elite status then maybe more things would be getting down. Also, it states that a lot of money and time is being put in to fix the Congo but nothing is actually changing. So many people are being raped and brutalized every day. The peace keepers set up a small base camp of about 20 people to help those who have dealt with these injustices. There are soldiers being sent into these town and they are trying to be more of a help but most of the time woman who have been raped are too embarrassed to admit it to the male officers. The problems are obviously the amount of rape and murder that are occurring and how the government and peace keepers are not really doing that much to help. While they are trying to, the outcome is not

as helpful/ If they are putting so much time into helping the Congo, why isn't is working? 

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/10/05/congo.rapes.arrest/index.html?iref=allsearch

This is just another article talking about the amount of rape and cruel acts going on. The man who is being charged with these crimes is a leader of a rebel group. While the government is trying to solve these crimes, he has raped and told people to rape at least 300 people and they are just now getting involved. I feel like it is too late and there needs to be more help down in the Congo. I think this is just one example of all the crimes that have been going on and because of the extremeness of the case, now people are really looking into it more. What else is the government doing to help out these victims and stop it from happening again?

Group discussion evaluation

A question that I still have lingering is if King Leopold is gay. Although this was not one of our questions, when we started talking about family life it came up. I want to know where his poor relationships with women come from. 

I think we did ok but I feel like the questions needed to be more open- ended and a more generalized questions. Just being able to discuss a question more would have been more helpful rather than finding just one answer and being stuck.

Chapter 8 Discussion Questions

Why didn't company officials pay closer attention to Leopold's actions after the Open Letter? 

Many of the officials who were working with or under Leopold noticed the cruel treatments of the Africans but many were afraid to speak up. Everyone was going along with what Leopold was doing, so to step out of system would be challenging everyone else (pg. 122). 

If the Congo was perfect for Leopold to explore and eventually take over, because of the resources and lack of military, then why did he feel the need to have the military present in the Congo? And why kill so many Africans? 


In the beginning. he seems as though he didn't you military force but then when people started rebelling the use began to increase. Many ethnic groups started to rebel against the "white man". It seems as though Leopold is trying to protect his project in the Congo.



How will the Force Publique rebellions effect the outcome of the Congo?

Response to pg. 1-32

For me, the intro and prologue were really boring for me. I didn't really find it that interesting and was just looking forward to the actual story. But after reading chapter one I realized that the information given in those pages was important to understanding the background. I also find Stanley very entertaining. The fact that he changes his name and his story is really interesting to me. While he has had a very rough childhood, the fact he likes to change his story still surprises me. I like the information about Stanley given in this chapter because it helps show me who this man was and how most saw him. Both of these were completely different because he lied so much to people. I also think it is interesting to see how his mother issues led to him pushing away from woman.I want to see how this will effect his role in Africa or if it will even effect it.  After reading all this it gave me this weird perception of him and I'm curious to see how he does "conquer" Africa.

2 questions: 

How do others perceive Stanley and how does it differ from who he actually is? 

How did his childhood effect him later on in life?