Actions & Relationships in Sold by Patricia McCormick

Each year, nearly half a million children are trafficked into the sex trade according to the U.S. State Department. To you and me, this number may just seem like a statistic, but after reading the groundbreaking story, Sold by Patricia McCormick, I became aware of the daily lives these children lead. Things like responsibility, hope, and trust, were all apart of the main character Lakshmi’s coming of age experience. Even before Lakshmi was sold into slavery, she was the victim of an abusive relationship. Negative actions towards the other person in a relationship can result in an abusive relationship no matter the situation.

To begin, it was Lakshmi’s stepfather that sold her into slavery in the first place. Back in Nepal, Lakshmi lived in a male dominant culture, and was used to giving up her power over the relationship to her stepfather. He would often gamble away all of the family’s money, even though they couldn’t afford to buy a proper roof for their house. Also, in the text it says, “My stepfather looks at me the same way he looks at the cucumbers I’m growing in front of our hut.” Trusting a foolish man with your financial situation is scary, but Lakshmi’s voice is useless compared to his. This caused their relationship to be unequal due to the lack of respect.

Similarly, as the head of a prostitution ring, Mumtaz used physical punishment against Lakshmi as her strategy to gain loyalty and obedience. She often beat her with a strap. In the book Lakshmi describes the experience saying, “Her strap has left raw sores on my back and neck, my arms and legs. So she hits me on the soles of my feet.” Mumtaz weakened Lakshmi, and stripped her of her once innocent childhood. This caused their relationship to be a battle over power, testing whether or not Lakshmi would give into Mumtaz’s harsh demands.

In conclusion, I realized in my own life, out of all of the relationships that I’ve had, the bad ones always ended for the same or similar reasons. When there is a struggle over power in a relationship, the balance between two people is broken, making respect harder to give and harder to receive. As humans, it is impossible to demand complete control over someone’s mind, since really our first priority in a relationship is to feel that we are the ones being satisfied first. As selfish as that may seem, a healthy relationship can only be maintained with the support of both people, no matter the time or place.