Sold

**Sold** by Patricia McCormick

Sold is about a young thirteen year old girl named Lakshmi who lives on a mountain in Nepal with her family. Lakshmi is very close to her mother, but they are very poor because her step-father gambles away all of their money. Lakshmi is just like all of the other girls in the village until monsoons wash away all of her family's crops. Her family has nothing left, so her step-father tells her that she will be going to India to work as a maid for a wealthy woman in the city just as one of her friends had done earlier. He intoduces her to a woman who she calls auntie and Lakshmi soon realizes that she has been sold into prostitution. Auntie sells her to a woman named Mumtaz, the owner of a brothel. Mumtaz tells Lakshmi that if she repays her debt by working she will let her go, but Mumtaz is cruel and conniving and cheats Lakshmi of her earnings. One day an American walks to her room and by that time Lakshmi will do anything to earn money so that she may be able to leave. Except, the American says that he can help her if she will leave with him. Lakshmi is told not to trust Americans so she does not leave with him, but she has a feeling that he could get her out of this horrible trap. The American tells Lakshmi that he will come back soon and she has to decide whether to risk everything for a chance at freedom.

I really enjoyed reading this novel, because i did not realize that human trafficking was so common. This book made me devastated to think that girls are being treated like this today. I always thought of prostitutes as people not worth saving because they chose that way to earn money, but now I realize that some girls are sold into prostitution and it happens all over the world even in the United States. Even though this novel is fictional, the author went to Nepal to interview victims of human trafficking. These young girls are sold into slavery by their, fathers, brothers, uncles, and husbands for as little as three hundred dollars. This is a horrible circumstance and I believe that others should be educated on these unspeakable horrors and that more people should help these young women. Hannah Shaw