Human Trafficking in the US
Polygamy and Prostitution
Published August 27, 2009 @ 12:50PM PT
What do men who use prostitutes and polygamists have in common? According to Marci Hamilton, quite a lot. They are both populations of men who get away with raping, abusing, and degrading women, even in places where what they're doing is illegal. And like polygamists, johns are rarely prosecuted.
I've never really heard johns and polygamists compared in such stark terms, but I think Hamilton may be on to something. Both prostitution and polygamy reduce a woman to a commodity. In prostitution, a woman becomes an object, a tool for the pleasure of a man no more human than a sex toy. Because the transaction of prostitution is about money, (not mutual desire, affection or pleasure), it commodifies as woman's body and values it only as a means of male pleasure. In polygamy, a woman also becomes an object, though in this case a tool of reproduction, social status, and occasionally pleasure for a man. Polygamy, as is practiced in fundamentalist religious communities, values women as commodities- suppliers of children. They are just as much a machine designed to work for men as women in prostitution are.
Prostitution and polygamy are both symptomatic and catalystic of a fundamental gender inequality, where women are objectified and commodified without regard to their humanity or agency. And yet, the male perpetrators of both these crimes, the johns and the polygamist husbands, are rarely held accountable for their actions. I once worked on a case where a 40-something man was caught having sex with a 15-year-old girl, for whom he had paid $200. The police arrested the girl, put her in the back of the cop car, and brought her to jail. They told the man what he was doing was wrong, but let him drive away. When asked later why the cop let the john go, he replied,
"He had a wife, and I thought it would be bad to embarrass him like that."
Having sex with a kid should be embarrassing! It sould be a lot more embarrassing, in fact, it should result in an actual punishment. How are we afraid to embarass men who are engaging in prostitution, but we're not afraid to embarass the women and girls?
What interests me the most about the parallels between prostitution and polygamy is that many people who see prostitution as an opportunity for empowerment for women see polygamy as the opposite. In fact, I would argue the contrary. Prostitution and polygamy share more common values than dissimilar ones. Those values include a view of women as tools of men, female bodies as tradable commodities, and social superiority of men over women.
Photo credit: Jasonsager
Teen Trafficking Survivor Gets Life Without Parole
Published August 25, 2009 @ 05:00PM PT
These days, the Rhodes scholars of the criminal justice system seem to like locking people up for life the way Mark Sanford likes frequent filer miles on Aerolineas. Well, they've managed another winner: sentencing 16-year-old trafficking victim Sara Kruzan to die in prison for killing her pimp. My partner-in-crime-blogging Matt has the criminal justice perspective on what happened, but here's how things look from Sara's perspective.
When Sara met G.G., the 31-year-old man who would become her pimp, she was 11. Sara's mom struggled with drug addiction, so when G.G. would drive Sara and her friends to the roller skating rink or the mall, it felt like having a real parent around. He gave Sara presents and told her she was special- so special, that she should never give sex away for free. He convinced her she was a product.
G.G. groomed Sara like this for two years before he raped her. By then, his control was complete and he forced her into prostitution. Sara and the other girls who G.G. exploited were out on the streets from 6pm to 6am, every night. Twelve hours a night, seven days a week, for three years, Sara was raped by strangers so G.G. could profit. After three years, she snapped, and she killed him.
Surviving sexual violence is one of the most difficult things in the world. Surviving repeated sexual violence as a child doubtlessly takes its mental and physical toll. G.G. stole Sara's 8th, 9th, and 10th grade years- money and rape taking the place of dances and dates. How can a person ever recover from something like that? But Sara survived.
What Sara did was terrible, and she knows it. But if ever there are mitigating circumstances for a crime, these are them. To tell someone like Sara who has overcome such abuse that her destiny is to die in prison, no matter how much she changes, is cruel.
The vast majority of women in prison have histories of abuse from families and/or intimate partners. Does this mean they are not accountable for their actions? Of course not. Murder should always be punished. But Sara Kruzan's case is one of ludicrous over-sentencing of a young girl who escaped from hell in a heinous way.
Sara Kruzan deserves to be punished. But she also deserves hope. She deserves hope that she didn't survive being raped and sold for three years for nothing. She deserves hope that the darkest chapter of her life has passed, and a horizon lies ahead. She deserves hope that she can change.
But in Sara Kruzan's life without parole, there is no hope.
Why "Human Trafficking" Sucks as a Term
Published August 24, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT
Do you ever wonder why it's sometimes difficult to get what human trafficking is really about? It's confusing, in part, because the phrase "human trafficking" kind of sucks at portraying the heart of the issue. Robin Sax has got a great article over at HuffPo on this, but here's my take.
The problem I have with "human trafficking" is the "trafficking" part of the term. "Trafficking" has a number of definitions, but most of them have to do with movement or trade of goods. In fact, before "human trafficking" became a term and a crime, many people understood trafficking in the context of moving drugs or weapons across international boarders. So in hearing the phrase "human trafficking", they picture people being moved across international boarders.
But human trafficking is not a crime of movement, it is a crime of exploitation. According to the U.S. law, for example, human trafficking is defined as "recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining and person for labor or services through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery; sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age." Note that transportation is one action of many that can make someone a trafficker. For example, if John and Judy live next door to each other and John recruits Judy into prostitution at his house through force, fraud or coercion, then John has trafficked Judy, even though they've never left their street. On the flip side, if Stan drives men from Albania to Greece to work, he may be helping them illegally cross a border, but he is not trafficking them. However, if Stan drives men from Albania to Greece intending to subject them to debt bondage, he is trafficking them. It's not the transportation which matters, it's the exploitation.
The reason language is so important is that when we assume movement is the centerpiece of human trafficking, we miss out on helping huge populations of victims who are trafficked within their own countries, towns, and sometimes even within their own families. Their exploitation is just as real as the exploitation of victims who were moved overseas, but they may not be identified as trafficking victims based on an imperfect understanding of their situations.
Personally, I prefer the term "modern-day slavery" because I think it better describes the victims' experience and what the perpetrators do. On this blog, however, I use the two terms interchangeably, in part because many more people are familiar with the term "human trafficking" than the term "modern-day slavery". Even the phrase "modern-day slavery," though, can be problematic. Most people connect slavery with physical bondage. Victims of modern-day slavery are sometimes held in physical bondage, but are often held by emotional, financial, and psychological chains.
Despite the imperfections in terminology, the need for better understanding of human trafficking/modern-day slavery remains as strong as ever. For until we can name it, how can we fight it?
Change.org Reader, Survivor Finds Justice After 10 Years
Published August 21, 2009 @ 11:22AM PT
Even in the darkness that human trafficking casts over the world, we occasionally find a bright ray of light. That ray shone on me today from a survivor named Privilege, whom I have been very lucky to correspond with.
Privilege first contacted me last March, hoping to find a way to share her story with the world. She had been brought to the U.S. by a husband who brutally abused her. And against all odds, she had managed to escape that abuse and ask for justice. Yet years later, she was still waiting for the U.S. government to grant her a U Visa, which would give her temporary legal status and work eligibility in the United States for up to 4 years. Without that visa, Privilege couldn't get a job to support her children. She couldn't truly feel free. She asked me to publish her story and I did, because it needed to be told.
Today, after an almost decade-long struggle, Privilege received the news that she was a U visa recipient, and her new life in America could begin in full. She says,
Today my attorney called me to inform me that I am now a U Visa recipient!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can now earn a living for myself and decide how my life will go!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have been waiting two months short of ten years for this moment. There is a God out there and He has smiled on me! Thank you to everyone who prayed for me and called and wrote to USCIS on my behalf. A new day has dawned. I hope and pray that the waiting period will be even less for those that follow in my steps!
Good luck to you, Privilege, and to your family. I know having overcome so much, you will continue to do great things. We at Change.org are happy to have been of service to you in your quest for justice.
Stop Crucifixes and Bible Covers Made By Slaves
Published August 21, 2009 @ 08:22AM PT
In 2007, a case of crucifixes purchased by St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York was traced back to a factory in China where girls as young as 15 were forced to work up to 19-hour days, seven days a week. Today, Christian items from bible covers to t-shirts are being made in factorys which abuse and traffic workers. And some Christians are standing up and refusing to stand for slavery.
The Just Holy Hardware Campaignhas launched this week as part of a movement to end slavery, especially slavery of children, in the production of religious items. The initiative, based in Australia, aims to provide religious organizations with paraphernalia made under fair labor conditions, with a "no-slavery" guarantee. Sr. Pauline Coll, a representative on the national executive of Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking in Humans (ACRATH), has been particularly outspoken on the issue, saying the massive U.S.-based Association for Christian Retail,
"was found to lack basic codes of conduct and a factory-monitoring program. There was little to reassure American Christians that the religious products they buy to celebrate their faith were not made under inhumane conditions."
In Australia, a team of NGOs have drafted a Christian Good Standard, which they hope organizations will adhere to when purchasing Christian items. Organizations in Australia are currently adopting it.
The U.S. is a huge market for Christian goods, and if the Association for Christian Retail (a very large organization) agreed to adopt a set of standards similar to the one adopted in Australia, it would make a huge impact on the lives of the slaves who are right now suffering in silence while making religious artifacts. Please, ask the Association for Christian Retail to adopt a set of anti-slavery standards for the production of Christian goods.
Christian or not, slavery is wrong. And slave-made items are tainted by this injustice, whether they are shoes or crucifixes. We need all people, regardless of faith to come together and take action so that we can end slavery in the production of religious artifacts.
World Evangelical Alliance Tackles Trafficking
Published August 14, 2009 @ 07:30AM PT
This week the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) announced the creation of a new human trafficking task force, bringing the weight of its 420 million members against this global scourge. This decision has the potential to bring throngs of new Evangelical activists and abolitionists into the fight against slavery.
Evangelical Christians as a group have had a long history of activism around human trafficking. In many countries, the first shelters for trafficked persons were run by Evangelical churches or organizations, and in some areas they remain the only refuge for trafficked persons. The WEA's commitment to this issue is commendable, and I hope will mobilize Evangelical Christians around the world to increase their own awareness of this issue and take action to help end human trafficking. However, there are three things I would like the WEA to keep in mind as they begin their fight against trafficking.
- Remember labor trafficking and trafficking of adults. The exploitation of children in prostitution in morally reprehensible, and I can understand why Evangelicals who have strong moral convictions gravitate toward this population of victims. But I hope the WEA sees the bigger picture and does not focus on child sex slaves to the exclusion of others. Slavery is just as real in the field or the home as it is in the brothel.
- Trafficking isn't about sexual orientation or abortion. Other than the relatively rare cases when a trafficking victims identifies as LGBT or is seeking an abortion, these issues are separate and shouldn't be lumped together. I hope that WEA can work with folks who agree with them about human trafficking, even if their views on other issues are different. We are all in this to end slavery.
- Reach out to other faith-based groups. People of all faiths care about this issue. I hope WEA works with other faith-based groups in partnership and mutual support. It can be hard to work with people who believe different things from you, but we all believe that people have a right to be free.
Good luck with the task force, WEA, and I hope you keep my three points in mind. We abolitionists need people of faith fighting with us, but even more so, we need people of faith who are thoughtful, educated, empathetic, and open fighting with us. I hope in the WEA those people are easy to find.
Mexican Drug Cartels Switch to Selling Humans
Published August 13, 2009 @ 11:19AM PT
Here's a math problem you won't remember from school: Which is higher, the black market value of a pound of cocaine or the black market value of a 13-year-old girl? If you guessed the girl, you get 100% on this math test.
When a drug cartel trafficks a pound of cocaine into the U.S., they can only sell it once. When they traffic a young woman into the U.S., they can sell her again and again. This is a simple economic fact that I (and others in this field) have been aware of for years. However, it seems some Mexican drug cartels have recently discovered this additional potential for profit, and they are now switching from trafficking heroine to trafficking human beings.
The idea that drug traffickers will suddenly switch to humans is even more disturbing in the light of an increased national discussion around legalizing some drugs, like marijuana. What would the pot traffickers do then? Would they get respectable jobs in the brand new legal marijuana industry? Or would they use their criminal contacts to traffic harder drugs, guns, and people? I'm of the inclination that while some criminals might go clean in a new legal drug industry, the rest will see how much more cash they can make through the illegal sale of human beings.
What do you think?
CNN recently did a story on this disturbing new trend, which feature anonymous interviews with women being trafficked into the U.S. by some of the Mexican cartels.
