WEBVTT FILE

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That's what I call it:

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a market.

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It's a labor market.

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A market set up by human traffickers.

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It's like when you're selling sheep.

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Someone raises the sheep,

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and then sells them,
to make a profit off the work they put in. 

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But these agencies...

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they don't even give you a drink of water.

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They don't raise you either,
feeding you the way a parent would.

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Worst of all, is that these traffickers

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buy and sell human beings,

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without having had to put in any effort.

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Because to sell sheep,

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you've had to put in a certain effort
to raise them first.

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Without that work you'd get nothing.

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And so how can it be that for something
as worthy of respect as a human being

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whom they've made no effort to raise

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or to provide with food and drink

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they can put all this work into trafficking them?

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I can only be ironic

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and say thank you.

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There's nothing else you can say to them.

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Because they're dealing with human beings

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destined to be sold like any other product.

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Let's be very clear:
it's our own country that opened up this market.

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Our own president who began
this trafficking business.

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The state wanted to bring foreign currency,
dollars, into the country

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and so they made it easy
for the mafias to traffic young girls.

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They've been buying and selling us for 21 years.

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By us, I mean Ethiopian women.

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This sort of trafficking didn't exist before.

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Ethiopians who came to Lebanon
did so to pursue university studies.

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When you come to a country like this one,

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and you're leaving your country for the first time,

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it's your heart that bleeds, truly.

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When I left my family,

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my tears began to flow
the minute I got on the plane.

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Because I started wondering:
where am I going?

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What kind of people will I be dealing with?

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What language will I use to communicate with them?

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I prayed to God to keep me safe.

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I cried the whole way here.

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I was so young.

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It was the first time I'd ever been separated
from my mother and father.

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It was very hard.

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As soon as I landed at the airport,

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the first thing I heard were the shouts of policemen.

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We were all herded into one room.

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There were so many of us.

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Even if I didn't understand what they were saying
their rage was very clear.

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They weren't treating us like human beings.

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We were shoved around.

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They told us go here, go there!

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They were yelling at us, it was terrifying.

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I stared at the floor, the ceiling.

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I felt like I was suffocating in a great darkness.

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If these men are shouting so much, I thought,

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then what will my employers be like?

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Because these were the men
in charge of "security,"

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of enforcing the laws of the state,

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wearing its uniform.

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No one takes these facts into consideration.

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No one listens to us.

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People say, 'things will get better with time.'

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And this is what makes me angry.

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Of course things will change with time.

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But no one sees us as human beings.

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That's the fundamental thing.

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Should it really take a person that long to evolve?

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Why should it take time to be seen as "human"
in the eyes of others?

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If technological advances can be made this fast,

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then why should it take so long
to evolve as a person?