Ever since Darva Conger stepped up to the altar on national television to wed stranger Rick Rockwell, the fur — and the ink — has been flying. Denver Post columnist Diane Carman, reasonably enough, decried Fox’s entire concept as a degrading "slave auction," while her colleague, Chuck Green, pointed out with equal reason that the "slaves" went along willingly. (Conger herself called her decision to appear lark.")

Enough has been said on both sides of this particular issue, but it serves to bring to light an altogether more disturbing one. This issue lacks the tantalizing flavor of scandal, the glitz, the fun and even the much-publicized annulment. Perhaps this is why the world would prefer to sweep it under the rug as our dirty secret.

I refer to the "real deal" sex-slave trade that takes place across the globe and in this country, contrary to the 13th Amendment, to say nothing of basic decency.

These women, girls, and, yes, boys, are either forcibly taken from their homes, sold by their families, or lured by the promise of legitimate jobs that do not materialize. Some too, are literally purchased as brides, without the benefit of the choice Conger always had.

The U.N. Commission for Human Rights presents haunting statistics:

Kenyan criminals manage to enslave Ugandan girls by promising their parents that they will be hired as domestics or for agricultural work.

In Nepal, poor girls are often bought and sold twice; first, to wealthy families, who dedicate them to temples, and then, by unscrupulous priests more interested in money than spiritual edification.

Brazilian women, apparently, are in high demand by club owners in Surinam, fetching $500. For the price of two car payments, you too, could own another human being.

Other sources report equally frightening statistics. One refugee from Burma (now Myanmar), Ohmar Khin, has told of girls as young as 13 being sold into prostitution. Khin estimated that this had become the fate of about 40,000 girls in her former country —twice the population of Montezuma County. You can bet these girls didn’t go off to a glittering, if empty, life as the "arm candy" of rich men too pathetic or lazy to find their own mates.

Neither was a life of luxury and international television exposure the end result of a Mexican woman’s endeavor. "Inez" thought that she would find work in a restaurant, and build a better life for herself. Instead, she was held against her will and rented to men by the minute — as many as 35 "clients" a day. Adding irony to her insult was that her enslavement occurred right here in the land of the free.

The U.N. blames poverty as the cause of this persistent, virulent crime that has claimed over two million victims worldwide. But it isn’t the whole story. In business, demand determines a product’s success or failure. The demand for women in this evil and twisted market is high. . .in Spain, Britain, Germany and the United States. Poverty can only answer for so much, for although it explains why others are selling, it cannot explain why we are buying.

And we do buy. Firms in Japan have sold Asian women as brides to as many as 5,000 American men. Sold. Not "arranged," not "negotiated" or whatever other euphemism makes the practice easier to accept. Sold. It cannot be said whether these brides are happy, but this is not the point. The point is, one human is totally dependent on another for her very existence, and the other owns her, contrary to the sovereign laws of a country that has outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude.

Some also buy on the Internet, and they do not buy only women, or only foreigners. They buy American children. Oh, not the actual child (in most cases), but something almost as precious: children’s privacy, security and innocence.

For those who still cannot understand how any of this is "our" problem, I beg you to consider it in concrete, specific terms: Your daughters, your little sisters, your nieces, disappear from their homes and reappear on the mean streets of a foreign city, where they are nameless, faceless, and completely dependent on the dregs of humanity who own or buy them. Visualize their helplessness as they are herded into squalid rooms; taste their fear as they begin to realize, despite the language barrier, that they will spend 12 hours a day turning tricks. Imagine the ruined shells of what they once were returning to you one day, hooked on drugs, maybe dying from AIDS.