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General Buddhism => General Buddhism => Topic started by: DS Star on January 26, 2014, 09:13:21 PM

Title: When lust and greed won over conscience
Post by: DS Star on January 26, 2014, 09:13:21 PM: Conscience: The awareness of a moral or ethical aspect to one's conduct together with the urge to prefer right over wrong: Let your conscience be your guide ~ www.thefreedictionary.com (http://www.thefreedictionary.com)

One will not believe this unless you witness it with your own eyes...

Prostitution is legal and widespread among the low, middle & upper class in Bangladesh, in a country that has 'Muslim' majority where adultery is considered as a very serious 'sin' that is even amounted to death sentence.

Here in Bangladesh, there is this one of the largest brothels in the world known as "Daulatdia". It is a village of 1,600 women who sell sex to 3,000 men every day. (Source: The Guardian 9 January 2008).

Another famous brothel is Kandapara - a home to about 900 sex workers, where the young prostitutes, some as young as 12, are forced to serve between 10-15 customers each day. The girls' owners will take money in exchange for food and a small place for the girls to stay.

What is worse is that these young girls here are putting their health in danger by taking a drug to make them fatter so they are more attractive to clients.

Oradexon has devastating side-effects. “The women rapidly gain fat after they start taking the drug. But they also get diabetes, high blood pressure, skin rashes and headaches. It’s highly addictive,” Nahar said.

Dr Bashirul Islam, head of the healthcare services in Faridpur, added: “This drug often causes a kidney failure which can lead to a premature death of the patient.”

These inhumane brothels are controlled by powerful politicians & thugs to enact profit out underage girls who are often trafficked from remote regions that are plagued by poverty & government corruption for generations.

http://youtu.be/mKpiHx-uedM (http://youtu.be/mKpiHx-uedM)

(http://multimedia.asiaone.com/static/multimedia/gallery/120319_teenbrothels/images/pic1.jpg)

Seventeen-year-old prostitute Hashi, embraces a Babu, her "husband",
inside her small room at Kandapara brothel in Tangail,
a northeastern city of Bangladesh.

(http://multimedia.asiaone.com/static/multimedia/gallery/120319_teenbrothels/images/pic6.jpg)

Hashi is seen here talking to a customer.
She earns about 800-1000 taka daily (S$12 - $15)
servicing around 15-20 customers every day.

The men, and women, i.e. the clients, the pimps, the madams, the traffickers, the drug sellers, the brothels' owners, the corrupted politicians and the government; where is your conscience?

Their lusts for worldly pleasure and their greed for money, all that is temporary, had blinded their inner eyes to look beyond this life... Where is their conscience?
Title: Re: When lust and greed won over conscience
Post by: Q on January 27, 2014, 07:04:27 AM: Oh my goodness, this is horrible!

But it's a vicious cycle... as long as there is lust and people's greed for money, with not a single consciousness on morality or differentiating between good and bad... such a situation will continue. The very fact that these brothels are 'legal' already makes this 'business' some what acceptable in local society.

I wonder what happens to these girls once they are older and not attractive anymore...
Title: Re: When lust and greed won over conscience
Post by: eyesoftara on January 27, 2014, 07:57:44 AM: Lust and greed most often than not, wins over conscience I am afraid. Prostitution is the oldest profession in the world and unfortunately nowadays the business is not just between the prostitute and clients. There is a value chain in it and the prostitute are exploited. Hence, they are often the lowest paid in the value chain, perhaps to keep them poor and keep their reliance on the "bosses".

This greed at its worst. Even in Buddhist countries like Thailand prostitution is big business so I endeavor to say this has nothing to do with religion but it is out of human greed and yes lust on the customers' side.

It is just the state of samsara.
Title: Re: When lust and greed won over conscience
Post by: rossoneri on January 28, 2014, 12:35:01 PM: It is just sad to know that this is happening. I've nothing to say much besides i am in shocked to know that prostitution is becoming so big and treated like a chain of fast food in this country. A Muslim country in particular. I can't help but to think that these girls are treated like a product which the farm is producing, similar to those chicken in the farm but in this case is a human. By forcing them to be addictive to the drug in order to make money that eventually will kill them. This is just so horrible/ evil. Not sure what did they (prostitute) had done in their past life to have the karma to be treated this way. I just hope that some how or rather one day this could end or lessen.
Title: Re: When lust and greed won over conscience
Post by: brian on January 28, 2014, 06:01:47 PM: Coming from a country where prostitution is legalised will perhaps give me a little bit more of a different from others. Well it is always 'ok' from the solicitor's side while obviously compassionate feelings will be towards the prostitutes. It does confuses me as to why prostitution can be legalised. Do we not feel pity to the sex workers? Probably they were given drugs to make them having to earn enough to feed their addiction? This is even more apparent in the third world countries. For me, as a Buddhist, it is considered as breaking vow of not committing sexual misconduct. One have to ask if the prostitute would really willingly have sex with us if not because of money.
Title: Re: When lust and greed won over conscience
Post by: Kim Hyun Jae on January 29, 2014, 01:29:38 PM: I don't anyone who is a female will willingly become a sex slave or become a prostitute anywhere unless it involved being forced into it, being poor and without education or skills to get a proper job, greed, etc.

Whatever the reasons they were, prostitutes had to do what they need to do - a job. I don't think these prostitutes enjoy what they do, ie. sell their body or services but if a client were to pay and they needed the money - it is literally a 'barter' trade of the flesh. I don't agree with what prostitutes do but they may NOT have a choice in the city they lived in.
Title: Re: When lust and greed won over conscience
Post by: Jessie Fong on January 31, 2014, 04:01:03 AM: Quote from: Kim Hyun Jae on January 29, 2014, 01:29:38 PM
I don't anyone who is a female will willingly become a sex slave or become a prostitute anywhere unless it involved being forced into it, being poor and without education or skills to get a proper job, greed, etc.

Whatever the reasons they were, prostitutes had to do what they need to do - a job. I don't think these prostitutes enjoy what they do, ie. sell their body or services but if a client were to pay and they needed the money - it is literally a 'barter' trade of the flesh. I don't agree with what prostitutes do but they may NOT have a choice in the city they lived in.

I agree with you - not one female would willingly go into this profession.

Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in sexual relations, in exchange for payment.

Since there is demand and supply, this trade will not vanish from the face of the earth. There are countries where this sex trade is legalised, making it more difficult for the prostitutes to leave this job, as the money is there.
Title: Re: When lust and greed won over conscience
Post by: Matibhadra on February 01, 2014, 03:58:50 AM: Quote
It does confuses me as to why prostitution can be legalised.

There is a distinction between “prostitution” (offering sexual intercourse for pay) and “pimping” (to procure women for the gratification of others' lusts and personal profit).

The article in the original post is about pimping, specifically about the sexual exploitation of vulnerable girls by unscrupulous pimps. Pimping, which is a form of slavery, is mainly related to social inequalities prevailing in a country.

As to prostitution, whatever may be one's personal feelings about it, often very hypocritical, should be the free personal choice of the people involved, and not the business of any state, or of any church, or of anyone else.

Enslaving women, which includes pimping, is accepted (Leviticus 25:44-46), if not prescribed and even enforced (Numbers 31:18) by some religions such as Judaism, as long as the sexual slaves are non-Jews, the “goyim”.

It's funny to note that in countries sold by the media as “dictatorships”, such as Cuba, prostitution is free but pimping is forbidden, while in the US, which sells itself as “the land of the free”, the controlling state brutally interferes with and represses the personal freedom of prostituting oneself, while hypocritically allowing for the social evil of pimping in selected placed such as some Nevada counties.
Title: Re: When lust and greed won over conscience
Post by: RedLantern on February 02, 2014, 02:14:44 AM: Passion,greed,covetousness,hatred,lust these emotions dominate the soul,causing blindness and leading to destruction.Every major religion recognizes that suffering and evil are caused by excessive desires directed toward a selfish purpose.Buddhism has summed up this principle in the second of the Four Noble Truths and denote these desires by the term "craving".Craving is poisoning the heart ,deluding the mind,and blinding people to evil course of action.
My heart goes to the young children who were the victims when they were supposed to be protected.Due to inhumane brothels owners,corrupted politicians and the government these innocent children had to endure a bleak future.
Title: Re: When lust and greed won over conscience
Post by: dondrup on February 03, 2014, 06:57:22 AM: As a desire being in samsara, humans have unquenchable thirst for sexual pleasures amongst all the desires in samsara. It is due to this, prostitution has arose and evolved into a profession that fulfill this demand.

There are various views about prostitution. And it is a known fact that prostitution has given rise to so much human suffering! It is for this reason, that laws are established to regulate prostitution.

All countries around the World have different laws and regulations pertaining to prostitution. The differences are due to the varying circumstances that each country faces.

Similarly, most mainstream religions have established ethics on moral conduct to regulate the human sexual activity. For example, sexual misconduct is one of the ten non virtues in Buddhism and is strongly prohibited as it will lead to severe negative repercussions.

Prostitution is a social problem that requires collective and continuous effort from all parties concerned using law, religion, education or any other appropriate measure to overcome it.
Title: Re: When lust and greed won over conscience
Post by: bambi on July 11, 2014, 02:49:26 PM: Everytime I read news about prostitution and how kids are sold or kidnap for such thing, it 'kills' me inside.
NOBODY wants to be a sex slave. Imagine, all those people always die of a disease either from the sex or the pills. I have seen movies of human trafficking and its just amazing how it is happening around the world and their government just cant do much because of corruption, gangsters and drug lords.
I am sorry that their karma manifested in that way, no matter what they did in their previous lives, no one should suffer and not able to do anything about it.
My prayers to all sentient beings who are suffering and may all sentient beings be liberated, free of suffering.
Title: Re: When lust and greed won over conscience
Post by: maricisun on July 17, 2014, 02:45:21 PM: It's so sickening and disheartening to know that some country legalised prostitution. Can lust and greed be so great that there is no conscience anymore? Do they have feelings for all the girls out there especially those as young as 12 years old?
Have they consider if they were there own daughters out there how would they feel then? Is it because they are somebody's daughter that it doesn't matter at all.
Maybe it's the girls karma as well. Karma has its cause and effect. But whatever it is no one should suffer like this. It's torturing to be in this trade. What will happen when they grow older and of no value anymore?
Title: Re: When lust and greed won over conscience
Post by: Matibhadra on July 19, 2014, 08:25:13 AM: Quote
It's so sickening and disheartening to know that some country legalised prostitution.

For instance, US, the land of many hypocritical moralists, where prostitution is legal in Nevada. Another example is Israel, where not only prostitution is legal, but also human trafficking is rampant and widespread.

According to the findings released in March 2005 by a Parliamentary Inquiry Committee, between 3,000 and 5,000 women had been smuggled into Israel and sold into prostitution in the previous four years. Most of the prostitutes came from Ukraine, Moldova, Uzbekistan, China and Russia, and many were smuggled through Egypt.

An organization calling itself the Task Force on Human Trafficking claims that every month, men in Israel visit brothels up to one million times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Israel#Trafficking

Human trafficking in Israel includes the trafficking of men and women into the country for forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation.

Israel was also a destination country for women trafficked from Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Uzbekistan, Belarus, China, South Korea and possibly the Philippines for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_Israel
Title: Re: When lust and greed won over conscience
Post by: X on July 22, 2014, 07:00:15 AM: There will not be conscience when people nowadays are so materialistic, they are all blinded by greed and lust. I really feel sad for the people there, their situation is exactly like they are locked up in a prison. There is no way to escape. Their country is so poor that they have no other choices than to work in a brothel. It is really sad, really really sad to see that they have to waste their life doing something that they dont want. Especially the woman who said that she dont want to leave anymore and she wants to die. Precious human life wasted just like that, really helpless. For money, they are willing to take drugs which will harm them. This shows that what greed can do to someone. Poor thing.
Title: Re: When lust and greed won over conscience
Post by: grandmapele on July 23, 2014, 04:11:36 AM: Pray that human beings can transcend their animalistic nature and use their brain in a positive manner. We have the mental capacity for so much positive in so very many ways, but we tend to let it slip and take the easy way to live negatively.
Title: Re: When lust and greed won over conscience
Post by: MoMo on July 23, 2014, 10:22:16 AM: While girls of their age in elsewhere are attending school, hanging out with friends these girls was basically living in hell busy selling their body. What have they done in the past to have resultant into this? >:(
As long as we are born with this contaminated aggregates lust and greed will always be us. Our every thoughts and actions will be based on the 8 worldly Dharma which centered around the “I”. The strong will prey on the weak, the weak so powerless to do anything about it as they have no skill, no education nor any other resources to change their life.
Title: Re: When lust and greed won over conscience
Post by: pinecone on July 23, 2014, 03:48:35 PM: While most fortunate teenagers from other part of the world are enjoying this teenage life, it is so unbearable to see these poor little young girl trading their body and flesh in order to have a meal on the table or at times, they were being kidnapped and forced by the syndicates to generate income. Study by researchers shows that those young girls sex-trafficked from Nepal and India has been found that 38% were HIV positive . If these voluntary and self-willed prostitutes, most probably the greed has clouded all their conscience.
Title: Re: When lust and greed won over conscience
Post by: Solomon Lang on July 24, 2014, 05:17:56 AM: The Aboriginal people in Sydney as seen by Eugène Delessert, December 1844 to August 1845:-

As it is customary among the Australians [Australiens] to take their wives from foreign tribes, he who wishes to have a companion – or, rather, a slave – sets out secretly at night with a few of his comrades and, club or ‘waddy’ in hand, they all throw themselves upon the parents of the girl, whom they surprise in the midst of their sleep. For his part, the lover grabs her who has been the object of his preferences and takes her off with him to his tribe, not without having first overwhelmed her with blows and bad treatment, and almost always unconscious.

This last trait, which is difficult to believe since nothing explains it, is reported by a few travellers, among whom George Barrington in his Voyage to New South Wales. ‘As soon as one of these natives [naturels]’, he says, ‘has caught and abducted the woman he has chosen and whom he goes to seek in an enemy tribe, he knocks her over, hits her with a club on the head, the back, etc. and, seizing her by one of her arms, he drags her, streaming with blood, through the woods, over rocks and mountains with all the violence and determination of a savage [barbare] till he finally reaches his companions. The tribe to which the woman belonged usually seeks revenge for this outrage by the law of “an eye for an eye” [la loi du talion], but the wife holds no grudge and rarely abandons her husband and her new tribe.’
Title: Re: When lust and greed won over conscience
Post by: Matibhadra on July 24, 2014, 11:47:21 PM: Quote
The Aboriginal people in Sydney as seen by Eugène Delessert, December 1844 to August 1845:-

This kind of demeaning account of peoples living in Western-colonized countries is quite usual. Aboriginal, native peoples are systematically described by Western travellers in the most disparaging way, so that their extermination is seen as ”justified” by the Western colonizers and Western public opinion in general.

Eugène Delessert, himself a banker, comes from a family of Calvinist bankers, and while in California specialized in brutally suppressing social movements.

Calvinists believe that everyone is predestined, which means that if someone was born as an aboriginal ”pagan”, then one deserves either slavery or death.

Meanwhile, in barbaric, genocidal Israel, where white slavery (enslavement of prostitutes) is rampant, men frequent enslaved prostitutes 1 million times per month (when they are not bombing Palestinian children with chemical weapons and perverse ”flechettes”, of course).

But the likes of your Delessert would not say anything, and would even praise Israelis as the ”chosen people”!

Congratulations for blindly relying on, and irresponsibly spreading, the genocidal hate-propaganda of such a criminal!
Title: Re: When lust and greed won over conscience
Post by: Klein on July 26, 2014, 04:46:44 AM: There are many folds to this situation that shows the importance of understanding the dharma and practising it when we are fortunate enough to do so.

1. The girls choose to be prostitutes out of desperation due to poverty.
2. The mama or pimp choose this business venture out of greed.
3. The clients choose to hire prostitutes out of lust.

When we practise the dharma now and practise it well, we will create the causes to continue our dharma practice in future lives and not be reborn in these situations or in worse situations. Due to our merits from previous lives, we are fortunate to be near the dharma. Grab it before this opportunity is gone.
Title: Re: When lust and greed won over conscience
Post by: Matibhadra on July 26, 2014, 05:52:52 PM: Quote
1. The girls choose to be prostitutes out of desperation due to poverty.

In case, as most often, the girls hardly choose anything. They were compelled, physically and mentally forced to prostitute themselves.

Judaism believes in a ”free will”, a supposed ”freedom of choice”, and therefore they suffer because they ”freely choose” to suffer, because they are evil, and thus deserve suffering.

Buddhism teaches that people are enslaved because of ignorance and karma, that they suffer because they are compelled to, and thus there is no judgmental attitude of blaming and punishing.