Two stories caught my attention last week: The first was on PRI's The World about the government of Iceland banning strip clubs in an attempt to combat trafficking in women. Over the last several years, over 1000 women have been brought into Iceland (pop. 300,000) for the sole purpose of being put to work in the sex entertainment industry. Studies in other Scandinavian countries have found that for vulnerable women, there is a very short leap from strip clubs to prostitution. Check out the comments on the website to gain insight into opinions and thought(?) processes of some of the yahoos who listened to the show. One of the themes running through Stieg Larsson's trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest)is trafficking in women and the horrors associated with this human rights abuse situation.

The second real life human horror story concerns the war on innocents in Congo being conducted by the Lord's Resistance Army. Jacob Acaye, a young man who had been captured at age 11 by this group and was able to escape after three weeks, was in Seattle last week talking about this in conjunction with the Peter Eichstadt, author of "First Kill Your Family". They were guests on KUOW's show Weekday.
There have been a number of documentaries made on various aspects of this crisis, especially about the child soldiers. Also check out the website of War Child International.