Kika Carpa is a woman who has been involved in terrible criminal activities. Her crimes have attracted massive public attention in the United States. One of the crimes is sex trafficking. Kika arrived in America when she was a young woman in 1992. Prior to her arrival, she got engaged in a love relationship with her co-worker in her nation, Venezuela. The co-worked introduced her to Sandra, his cousin. Sandra promised to give her a job in America as a nanny. When she arrived in United States, her host, Sandra, took her money and passport.
Sandra took Kika to Jackson Heights in one of the brothels Kika slept with twenty men in that night for 12$ each, but Sandra took the money Kika earned from those men. She then went to Sandra’s house where she could not leave or eat without the Sandra’s permission. One day, Kika succeeded to escape from Sandra’s house, but she slept in a train that night. She did not have any place to go, so she had to go back to Sandra’s Brothel. The pimp at the brothel gave her accommodation. However, he gave all the money Kika made to Sandra because she was in possession of her passport.
Institution oppression refers to the systematic mistreatment of people within a social identity group, supported and enforced by the society and its institutions, solely based on a person’s membership in the social identity group. As we know, our institution is predominantly controlled and made by white males (Week 5 Lecture). This social imbalance has resulted in problems with issues like human trafficking. Female trafficking is a big problem that needs a solution in the United States. To solve this problem, women should be given a chance to participate in these social institutions. The absence of strategic control has led to the spread of female trafficking in the United States.
The sex that results from these trafficking has led to the spread of many diseases. The institution does not have strict consequences for trafficked women, and this has made the trafficking something normal in our nation today. The media has worsened the situation by making it appear one of the normal activities. The media portrays women as people who should always be beautiful and nice in their advertisements. Our institution does not have a specific law for pimps. We need to involve educated women in our institution to help us initiate laws to solve women issues such as women trafficking. Sometimes our institution protects that by indicating that these activities are based on individual freedom and personal choice. Therefore, our institution needs to work on protecting women as one of the most realistic measures to stop the trafficking.
Individual oppression refers to the exercise of authority or power in a biased, cruel, or unjust manner. In the story of Kika there was a lot of Individual oppression. Everybody fooled Kika and used her in activities she was not willing to do. She could not protect herself because of her gender. As they grow up, women have numerous fears because of the experiences they undergo. Feminism is one of the social aspects that causes the fear (Hogeland). Women are perceived to be sex tools by men. Kika did not have the capability to stop this job because she did not know where to go.
She got oppression from everybody because of her gender. Individual oppression is the worst oppression people face. The blacks, Hispanics and women are the people who are exposed to this oppression. One of the practical examples is the situation of black people in Ferguson. This involved a black guy who was shot from white police officers without giving him a chance to face justice. For women, we have many examples, Kika’s experience narrates what women udergo.
Ideology oppression refers to any domineering system whereby one of the ideas that is embraced within the system is the perception that one group of people is superior to the others. This group may be given a chance to have control over the others. Ideological oppression is exhibited in our society in many forms. One of the examples includes perceptions that male, white and middle class are better and upper class than female, black people and poor. Most of us believe that women are a lower class than men and believe they are weak and cannot do hard tasks. Some women think they cannot do anything without men.
Media teaches little girls that they will only work in homes and take care of their children while little boy advertisements show that will be heroes and police officers (Toy Commercials Teach Gender). “The Social Construction of Gender” describes that once a child is given a gender category at birth, they are dressed in either feminine or masculine colors, which in turn, tells society how to treat that child (Shaw and Lee 126). Therefore, the media play a big role in constructing the social biases that lead to the development of ideological oppressions. Gender perceptions form the guidelines along which all actions by males or females are defined for acceptability or otherwise (Lee 126).
