Tiananmen Square
Kristof and WuDunn explain, “After we married, we moved to China, where seven months later we found ourselves standing on the edge of Tiananmen Square watching troops fire their automatic weapons at Prodemocracy protestors. The massacre claimed between four hundred and eight hundred lives and transfixed the world. It was the human rights story of the year, and it seemed just about the most shocking violation imaginable.” The imagery of the massacre explains the extent to which human’s righto live is violated by the police who shoot at them indiscriminately. The author include this historical happening to depict their work as a non-fictional work which is based on the real life occurrences of the violation of human rights. Being witnesses to the massacre is a reality which the authors cannot erase from their memories.
“The Brothel Business Model”
Kristof and WuDunn expound, “An essential part of the brothel business model is to break the spirit of the girls through humiliation, rape, threats , and violence. We met a fifteen-year-old Thai girl whose initiation consisted of being forced to eat dog droppings so as to shatter her self-esteem. Once a girl is broken and terrified, all hope of escape squeezed out of her, force may no longer be necessary to control her.” The model of dehumanization is intended to make girls feel like objects without any value. Compelling a girl to eat the excrement of a dog is tantamount to tell her that her worth is below the dog’s excrement. The girls are absolutely degraded to the degree that they resign to their day to day sexual oppression.
