Dispatch from a Baylor Summer Fellow | Elise Zeigler Part 2

Athens is the home and a gateway to philosophy, democracy, and hospitality. In recent years, it has also become a gateway for refugee migration and human trafficking. Both refugees and survivors of human trafficking have fled from economies of where their involvement with the global market is exclusively exploitive or predatorily inclusive. The women I interacted with this summer come from countries where education and jobs were limited to women. In these situations, the woman are without power and agency. Either raised in a paternalistic society or stagnant economy, in leaving their home countries, these women navigate the question of what it means to be a woman in this new environment. For the women predatorily invited into the European economy through human trafficking they begin their migration story in Europe under the control of their trafficker. 

Being trafficked, women have a stake with their employment to support themselves, but prostitution does not empower or develop agency. Studies show that only 1% of those who leave prostitution stay out. Out of the people who return, 80% of them state that they could not find another job, forcing them back into prostitution. Since predatory economic exclusion or inclusion is the reason for someone entering prostitution, empowering employment that offers economic solidarity is a natural exit to prostitutes looking for healthier job or refugee women looking for an employment opportunity.  Whether coming to Greece through human trafficking or refugee migration, in both situations of migration, people come hoping for something more. 

Social entrepreneurship is this thread of hope that weaves the gateways of Greece’s gifts in philosophy, democracy, and hospitality together with the gifts of migrants like: resilience, culture, and family prosperity. When refugee integration is siloed off to refugee neighborhoods or nonprofits, as a city and country we miss the beautiful opportunities to grow from the cross-cultural exchange of sharing each other’s talents. 

Humans hold titles that separate us from others like student, refugee, American, or prostitute. This summer reminded me of the similarities of humanity. In evaluating how to scale and grow social enterprises, it is pertinent to remember the talents of people. As I grow at Baylor and beyond, I want to remember to see people as they are in the present with titles but also look to the gifts they can share and scale in the future.