Trafficking in Women
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"Why I Slept with 1300 Women"
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Georgia Supreme Court: Let Teen Strippers Take It Off
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Another Failed Attempt to Legalize Prostitution?
Supreme Court to Hear "S&M Svengali" Sex Trafficking Case
Published October 16, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT
When she took the job, Sotomayor might not have known she's be talking about whips and handcuffs at work. But that's what will happen when the issue of human trafficking with be put before the Supreme Court in early 2010. And how does human trafficking make it's first appearance at the SCOTUS? In the form of a case that involves S&M, slavery, and some other pretty unsavory sexual stuff. Glenn Marcus, the man dubbed the "S&M Svengali", was convicted of sex trafficking in 2001 and has appealed his case all the way up the legal food chain. It's a case that has potential ramifications for trafficking victims everywhere.
Here's what happened: Marcus had an S&M-themed website in the late 1990s which featured photos of women who were his "slaves" undergoing various levels of physical abuse. He met a woman who court documents just call "Jodi," and she agreed to be on the website. At this point, two stories diverge. Jodi claims Marcus took the relationship too far -- that he forced her to do things she didn't want to do and then write about them for the site. She couldn't escape, and was effectively a slave in real life, although she started out only portraying one on a website. Marcus, on the other hand, claims that everything was consensual and part of Jodi's employment contract. Apparently, even the parts where he carved the word "slave" into her stomach with a knife, shaved her head, and whipped her brutally were part of her contract.
The reason SCOTUS has agreed to hear this case is that the abuse Marcus inflicted on Jodi took place between 1999 and 2001. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the law under which Marcus was prosecuted and convicted, was passed in 2000. Marcus's lawyers claim that Marcus's behavior was so different before and after October 2000, that the jury may have only convicted him on evidence prior to the passage of the law. Even if that is the case, was none of his behavior illegal before? I'm pretty sure carving a word into someone's stomach against their will has never been ok.
I'm worried about the affect this case will have on the abolitionist movement for two reasons. One, I think the S&M connection will only confuse SCOTUS's understanding of sex trafficking. Human trafficking and S&M, with the notable exception of this case, are not really connected. Sex trafficking is not about the sort of activities which take place between the victim and perpetrator, but rather the victim's consent to the situation and ability to get out of it. I'm worried that the presence of S&M will bring the court's focus on the wrong set of issues. Secondly, this case could have an impact for victims who were trafficked before 2000. It is dangerous to set a legal precedent where being trafficked before 2000 and after 2000 (instead of just after) may weaken a case.
I'll be following this case closely and will keep you updated on what our good friends on the SCOTUS decide. Hopefully, they're be able to look past the chain-mail-and-leather packaging on this case and see the central issues beneath -- abuse, consent, and slavery.
Photo credit: laura padgett
Orange County Seeks Happy Ending to Massage Parlor Ads
Published October 14, 2009 @ 01:00PM PT
The Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force can't get a decent massage. Maybe that's because the pages of their newspaper, and newspapers nationwide including the Washington Post, are full of ads for "massage parlors" featuring partially clothed, unlicensed female "masseuses." It's one of the most transparent fronts for prostitution and human trafficking still legally advertised, and people are increasingly calling for an end to the ads.
One of the beautiful parts of the American justice system is that people are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The same holds true for business activities -- they are presumed legal until they are proven illegal. It's legal to post an add promising massages by women in fishnets who just turned 18. It's legal to cover these ads with non-nude sexual imagery aimed at an exclusively male audience. But it's not legal (in most of the U.S.) to run a brothel and it's not legal to sell trafficked women anywhere. So how do you know which massage business are legal and which are illegal? Enter, law enforcement. It's their job to determine if a seemingly-legal business is actually a front for something illegal. A favorite tool of law enforcement to accomplish this is conducting raids in massage parlors they find suspicious, with results varying from ecstatic thanks from newly freed trafficking victims to deportations of undocumented women voluntarily in prostitution to significant abuse by the police. It is certainly a flawed system, but one which does achieve its aims much of the time.
There is one element which I often find missing when we talk about the connection between massage parlors, prostitution, and human trafficking: common sense. Let's face it -- many of these ads are painfully obvious as covers for illegal commercial sex. I think we often get so caught up in legal definitions, we forget to use our common sense as a test for what's legitimate and what's not. Legitimate massage ads tend to focus on their licensed therapists, spa services, relaxing atmosphere, hygiene standards, and quality of service. Illegitimate massage ads tend to focus on the age or race of their masseuses, the "eroticness" of the massage, and men as a target audience. Sure, some of these ads are more nuanced and deceptive, but many of them look and feel obviously illegitimate. If the common sense test comes out with a score of sketchy, then the trickier question becomes whether a massage parlor is an illegal brothel full of trafficking victims and/or children or women who have voluntarily entered prostitution.
It's important to approach this intersection between massage parlors, prostitution, and human trafficking with a solid knowledge of legal codes and a strategic plan to work with law enforcement. But it's also important for activists to use their common sense about what is being advertised in their newspapers and speak out about it. Police can raid only so many massage parlor brothels. But when newspapers have gotten enough complaints from readers about running these ads in the past, they've stopped. And no advertising means less business for pimps and less incentive for traffickers.
Photo credit: thomaswanhoff
Schrödinger’s Rapist
Published October 08, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT
If I were a single dude, I'm not sure I'd willingly read an article on dating advice entitled Schrödinger’s Rapist. But every single dude should. It is one of the most witty and intelligent explanations I've ever read of the fear of sexual violence that many women live under. Sometimes, it seems like every news story hides a new and lurking sexual threat for women: rape, domestic violence, sexual assault, sex slavery, sexual harassment, and the list goes on. So how do women live in a society with a seemingly infinite capacity for sexual violence against women?
For those, like me, who slept through Psychology 101, here's the 20 second, oversimplified explanation of who Schrödinger is and what he has to do with violence against women. Schrödinger was a (possibly crazy) quantum scientist (think Einstein) who did a famous thought experiment where he sealed a cat and some poison in a box. While the box was sealed, no one knew whether the cat was dead or not dead from drinking the poison, so Schrödinger claimed this meant it was both alive and dead until someone opened the box. Personally, I would have shaken the box to hear a meow and then taken Mr. Schrödinger to task for being so cruel to cats. But the point of the experiment, at least for our purposes, is that when the state of something or someone is unknown (rapist or not rapist) there are an infinite number of possible states that could be reality. And for many women, that infinity is frightening.
Phaedra Starling, the author of the dating advice article, frames this issue for women as one that exists between two singles on the town. And it absolutely does. But the Schrödinger's Rapist is found throughout society in many forms. He's the young girl's older boyfriend deciding whether or not to pimp her out. He's the boss who may or may not send his assistant a naked picture of himself to see how she reacts. He's a stranger, sure, but he's also a friend, a father, a brother, a co-worker, a religious leader, a famous basketball player, and the list goes on. Schrödinger's Rapist controls some women's live and changes others, but very few women are totally unaffected by this society with infinite opportunities for sexual violence. Whether it's walking with our keys out or calling friends in the middle of dates, the fear manifests itself somehow.
There are many ways men and women are unequal in society, and a big one revolves around sex, sexuality, and the fear of sexual violence. This is important because when we talk about big, overarching issues of sexual violence -- like sex trafficking, prostitution, domestic violence, etc. -- we need to understand that they exist in this context of inequality and uncertainty. Individual women experience sexual violence and the fear of sexual violence in the same way Schrödinger's audience experienced the cat -- without knowing its true state or what will happen next. Women as a group also experience uncertainty about what their sexual future holds -- their rights, their responsibilities, and their ability to protect themselves. And until we understand and then address that reality, we can't effectively address issues like sex trafficking that manifest as a result of it.
Photo credit: Mark Bellucci
Oppotunities to Fight Slavery for Muslims and Christians
Published September 24, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT
Are you a Muslim or a Christian? If so, there are some exciting opportunities to fight slavery by engaging your faith. Human trafficking violates the principles of all major world religions, as well as the common human ethical values we share. Slavery is commonly prohibited by religious texts of all the major world religions. There are many way to engage your faith community in anti-trafficking efforts, whether it's spending time in prayer and/or meditation, giving money, or working in service.
For Muslims
American Muslims are coming together to answer President Obama's call to service by focusing on a number of key issues, one of which is human trafficking. The American-Muslim Interactive Network (AMIN) has partnered with human trafficking organization Bridge to Freedom Foundation to help engage Muslim Americans in service for survivors of human trafficking. Specifically, the partnership is focused on teaching at-risk communities how to identify traffickers and the trafficked. For more opportunities to serve human trafficking survivors and others in need with the Muslim American community, you can check out muslimserve.org.
The Muslim American community has been traditionally less involved in the anti-human trafficking movement than Christian and Jewish communities. Perhaps this is because Muslim-Americans have spent so long fighting negative cultural stereotypes about their faith, and they may be reluctant to draw attention to issues like trafficking, domestic violence, and abuse in their communities. As I've mentioned previously, the Quran condemns slavery like other major religious texts, so a call to fight human trafficking is natural for Muslims. I'm excited to see an increased focus on human trafficking by Muslims, since they have a great capacity to engage the Islamic faith in protecting victims and preventing trafficking in both Muslim and non-Muslim communities.
For Christians
The Salvation Army is hosting their 4th Annual Weekend of Prayer and Fasting for Victims of Sexual Trafficking. If you are interested in participating, you can get more information and resources to participate here. The Salvation Army has a number of great resources available on their website, including information for pastors, suggestions for prayers, and fasting guidelines.
Many denominations of the Christian community have been active in the anti-trafficking movement for a long time. Catholic organizations like the U.S. Conference for Catholic Bishops and Catholic Charities were primary recipients of anti-trafficking funding under the Bush administration. The World Evangelical Association just created an anti-human trafficking task force. Christians have a number of opportunities to engage their faith in anti-trafficking efforts, which also means they have no excuses not to.
It's great that these opportunities exist for Christians and Muslims, but I would love to see an opportunity that exists for all people of faith to work together. We all share in our condemnation of slavery and struggle for a freer, fairer world. Do you know of a movement against human trafficking in your faith? If so, I'd love to hear about it!
Photo credit: mufan96
The Internet's Role in Human Trafficking
Published September 20, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
Here's a pop quiz for you. Is the Internet a.) A series of tubes invented by Al Gore b.) an evil system of perversions with no redeeming qualities c.) one of the greatest facilitators of human trafficking in commercial sex markets or d.) all of the above? If you chose c.), you're right! If you chose d.), perhaps you might want to do a little background reading. The Internet is a tool, and like all tools it can be used for good or bad. And right now, the Internet is one of the largest facilitators of sex trafficking in the world.
Here are some common Internet technologies and how they are used to facilitate human trafficking in commercial sex:
- Craigslist.org: Used to sell child and adult trafficking victims for commercial sex. You may have noticed I've got about as much love for the adult services section of Craigslist as Taylor Swift's mom has for Kanye right now, but that's because they are a huge facilitator of illegal prostitution and the sale of children for sex all over the word.
- Online photo sharing: Allows for mass dissemination of child pornography without having to worry about being caught by the nosy developer or mail carrier. Online picture catalogues help buyers choose a girl as an "escort" or sometimes even as a wife. Online ordering of women has revolutionized how some traffickers do business.
- Mobile upload technology: Like photo sharing technology, mobile upload technology allows pimps and traffickers to conduct business on the road, sharing pictures and videos with perspective clients and making sure the girls they exploit are available 24/7.
- Social networking sites: Allow people interested in exploiting women and children to connect with each other and with potential victims. Traffickers use social media to connect with both buyers and victims, and in some cases to connect them directly to each other.
- Vast availability of porn websites: Pimps who sell children often use legal, adult pornography as a grooming technique. And I'm sure it's a huge surprise that they have no problem finding plenty of it all over the Internet.
- E-Commerce tools: Used to conduct the financial transactions of child pornography and of victims of human trafficking. Think someone would never charge sex with a child to their credit card via a website? Think again.
- Encryption technology: Enables transactions, information trails, and conversations to be difficult to impossible to detect by law enforcement.
Fortunately, law enforcement agents have access to these same technologies and are using them in sting operations and to identify and prosecute pimps and traffickers. However, too often the criminals are several technological steps ahead. They see the exploitative potential of emerging technolgies before we do, a dynamic that must change. Because, while these tools revolutionized the business of exploitation once, it won't be long until something new comes out and does it again. And this time, we want to good guys to be the tech-saavy ones.
Photo credit: dalbera
Government Funded Feminist Porn
Published September 14, 2009 @ 03:39PM PT
Sweden has famously taken a unique stand on how to end the exploitation of women in the commercial sex industry -- promote gender equality in prostitution. Now, they're expanding that philosophy to the porn industry by using government cash to pay for "feminist porn." But will by-women, for-women skin flicks free the porn industry from exploitation and misogyny?
The idea behind the feminist porn initiative is that porn can be wonderful and empowering for women both watching and acting in the films when it's not driven by a profit motive based in male sexual desires and couched in a culture which views women as sex objects. In other words, give the cameras to feminist filmmakers, fund the project with tax revenue, and you'll have "empowering erotica," not just male-centric porn. The project also aims to end exploitation in the industry, including ensuring everyone who takes it off on screen is at least 18, and no one is there as a result of force, coercion, or desperation. In theory, state-funded feminist porn avoids the degradation and exploitation the mainstream, commercial porn industry propagates.
Sweden poses (as usual) a creative solution to the problem of human trafficking and exploitation of women and children in the porn industry, but one with flaws as transparent as the costumes in these films. First of all, what exactly is "feminist porn?" Just like men in the mainstream porn market demand different things from their porn, so would women as porn consumers. Who gets to decide what makes a feminist hot? Secondly, the success of this initiative is based on the assumption that all women in the porn industry will act ethically and respect other women by not exploiting them. I got news for you Sweden -- women traffic other women and girls into prostitution and porn, too. I wish ending exploitation in pornography were as easy as funding feminists to make their own porn, but the fact is women can commit crimes of exploitation just like men. And finally, isn't there a better use for this money? Out of all the ways we can end exploitation and improve equality for women, is making more porn really the answer? I'm not sure it is.
Regardless of whether or not the porn initiative is effective, or whether Swedes decide that it's a good use of their tax dollars, Sweden's idea poses some interesting philosophical questions. If you could somehow make society gender-equal, would porn cease to be exploitative? Is using tax dollars to fund pornography ethical if the goal of that pornography is to represent a traditionally marginalized group? Pornography, like art, has always been a subjective category. But does that reduce its value in achieving social equality?
This initiative might have a prayer in Sweden, but I can safely predict it won't take in the U.S. Unless, of course, we manage to sneak a provision for feminist porn into the new health care reform bill that everyone's already skimming and arguing about. And that would bring a whole new meaning to Republican complaints of getting screwed by the government on health care reform.
Photo credit: pnoeric
Arranged Marriage vs. Forced Marriage
Published September 08, 2009 @ 01:00PM PT
Arranged marriage and forced marriage are both significant issues for many women around the world. However, while these two forms of marriage may sometimes overlap and blur boundaries, it's important to understand the basic differences between them. Here is a quick guide to arranged marriage vs. forced marriage.
Arranged Marriage
An arranged marriage is one set up by some party other than the couple getting married. This could be a parent or relative, a community leader, a website, or a professional matchmaker. Arranged marriages were the norm until the last couple hundred years, and they are still practiced in some cultures. Proponents of arranged marriage claim it reduces divorce rates, prevents promiscuity, and creates a strong social order. They key factor present in an arranged marriage is the consent of both people getting married to be matched and married through a third party arrangement.
Forced Marriage
Forced marriages are arranged, but without the consent of both parties --specifically, usually without the woman's consent. In a forced marriage, a woman can be matched by the means described above, or she can be sold or traded to her new husband for something of value. Forced marriage sometimes takes place between a child or young girl and an adult man. Victims of forced marriage may experience domestic violence, rape, abuse, neglect, and forced domestic servitude. Many countries consider forced marriage in which something of value is exchanged for the woman ( a dowry, fee, gift, etc.) a form of human trafficking.
When Arranged Marriage Become Forced
While arranged and forced marriage are different issues, sometimes the distinction between them can blur. For example, a woman might enter into an arranged marriage willingly, but want to leave because of domestic violence or other issues in the relationship. If her community, family, or legal system prevents her from leaving the marriage, that marriage can be considered forced. The issue of consent is also tricky here. Is a woman consenting to a marriage if she fears being socially ostracized for refusing it? Is she consenting if that marriage is the only way her family can survive financially? Marrying under those terms might meet a legal definition of consent, but it's certainly not an active choice on her part.
It's important to understand both the distinctions between arranged and forced marriage and the fact that they sometimes overlap. While arranged marriages have brought happiness and stability to both couples and communities, forced marriages are by nature exploitative and unequal. Marriage with children too young to consent to marry cannnot be considered arranged and should be considered forced. As with most significant human rights issues, a good understanding of arranged and forced marriage is the first tool of advocacy.
Photo credit: Scenes from an Indian Wedding by Madaboutasia
