Book Review: Sold

Synopsis

Thirteen-year-old Lakshmi leaves her poor mountain home in Nepal thinking that she is to work in the city as a maid only to find that she has been sold into the sex slave trade in India and that there is no hope of escape.

Comments

A powerful story, based on the real-life horror of young girls who are sold into the sex trade.  The horror of their lives is portrayed with an amazing restraint of graphic details and this book is appropriate for the age-range.  It received a ‘pause’ rating due to the complex nature of the social issues involved.

Language

None [?]

Sexual Content

Multiple episodes of a girl being raped-no details of act itself, aside from a man bragging that he’s good in bed and she should be glad it’s him who’s taking her virginity.  Story is about girls sold into the sex trade and housed in a brothel.

Drugs/Alcohol

A teen coughs his way through his first cigarette.  A teen girls is drugged.  A baby is given medicine to make it sleep under the bed when the mom has customers.  A girl in the brothel drinks alcohol so it doesn’t hurt so much when she is with customers, something her mother started her on.

Violence/Disturbing

A woman is slapped by a man. Multiple episodes of physical and emotional abuse. A young teen girl is drugged and raped.  A girl who has been sold into the sex trade hangs herself.

Social/Family

Evident sexism in the value of sons over daughters.  Mention of women using herbs to rid themselves of babies.  Step-father gambles away poor family’s meager amount of money.  The girls in the brothel are supposed to get a shot each month to keep them from getting pregnant, but they want babies, as a baby is the only family they have. A woman who escapes the brothel is shunned by her family and forced to return.

Religion/Spiritual

Mother wants to set wedding date on advice of astrologer. The mother makes an offering to the goddess, praying for rain.