Sex Trafficking and Prostitution
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The Philippines Prevents Trafficking Around U.S. Military Bases in S. Korea
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What the Media Won't Tell You About Child Prostitution
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Swedish Prostitution Model Moves to Illinois
Emma Thompson's Journey Into Abolition
Published November 09, 2009 @ 03:47PM PT
Human trafficking victims have a well-informed and intelligent celebrity advocate who doesn't show her underwear in public. I'll wait while you pick your chin off the floor. The newest hero of the modern-day abolitionist movement is award-winning British actress Emma Thompson. Thompson is not new to human rights advocacy or even anti-trafficking advocacy. But she is going above and beyond just using her celebrity to bring attention to this issue and using her well-endowed noggin.
Thompson recently opened an art exhibit called Journey, which is meant to draw attention to the issue of trafficking of women and girls into commercial sex. But the mature and nuanced analysis which Thompson brings to her characters on stage and screen also shows through in her approach to human trafficking. Journey presents trafficking as not just an international phenomenon, but a local one which happens where we live, even in the U.S. and UK. Case in point -- Thompson got involved in the fight for abolition when she discovered a massage parlor on her street was trafficking women. And if I had to guess, I'm gonna guess Emma Thompson doesn't live in a shady, low-rent part of London. Journey drives home the point that slavery in prostitution and commercial sex is not just happening on the other side of the world, it's happening in your community.
Rhode Island Bans Indoor Prostitution
Published November 03, 2009 @ 02:36PM PT
The end has finally come to a long and often malicious battle in Rhode Island over a 30-year-old legal loophole which allowed indoor prostitution to legally occur. Rhode Island Gov. Don Carcieri signed the bill into law today, and it is effective immediately. The debate which took place around this bill and the Rhode Island prostitution law ended up being about far more than just legalese and statutory distinctions. It encompassed the growing debate about the relationship between human trafficking and prostitution.
To say the personal attacks that have been broadcast through the blogosphere during this debate escalated to vicious is like saying people had strong feelings about Obama's election. Both the pro-legalizing indoor prostitution camps and the pro-making indoor prostitution illegal camps did their fair share of demonizing the other side. Those who fought to keep the loophole in the law were accused of being unsympathetic to human trafficking victims, shells for the commercial sex industry, and anti-feminist. Those who fought to close the loophole were called autocratic moralists, Bush administration cronies, and anti-feminists. If you listen to the rhetoric that went on, is sounds like the biggest group of misogynists to ever fight for the rights and welfare of women. At one point I was called an "intellectual malcontent," which I believe was intended as an insult, but which I consider somewhat of a compliment (I strive to be intellectual and I'm am certainly not content with the prevalence of human trafficking and sexual violence against women in the world). But the mud-slinging was more than just meanness, it was symptomatic of how long before today, this debate stopped being about Rhode Island and its residents, and started being about polarizing and conflicted ideologies on how best to protect women.
I've made no secret that I believe that human trafficking thrives in areas with legal and heavily tolerated commercial sex markets, nor that many, many women enter into prostitution as children, due to coercion, or because of a lack of other options. So it won't come as a surprise that I support Gov. Carcieri's signing the bill into law, and that I anticipate it will help protect women and children from exploitation. But it would be naive to think the broader debate is over now that the Rhode Island question is settled. And it would be negligent to think that the next debate should also devolve into the level of petty name-calling and unreasonable accusations that this one did. These questions are not going away of their own accord, and all of us who care about women -- women in prostitution, women who are victims of trafficking, women in need of economic options -- owe it to them to not lose sight of our common goals in the darkness of our differences.
So please, see this message as an open invitation to anyone who was dissapointed by the Rhode Island decision and wants to have a respectful discussion about the relationship between human trafficking and prostitution and how that affects or should affect legislation. Let's do something truly radical to change the world together: let's listen to each other. Let's listen and learn how we can be better advocates, and how we can create better policies. We cannot hide from each other any more than the women we try and help can hide from violent pimps or violent police men or violent clients or the violence of poverty. And we cannot afford to lose ourselves in petty insults when there is so much work still to be done.
This blog will always be a space where people can respectfully discuss these important issues, even when we disagree. All I ask is a willingness to listen.
Photo credit: keepwaddling1
Bacha Bazi: Afghan Tradition Expolits Young Boys
Published November 02, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
Two subjects within the field of human trafficking are too often ignored: cultural traditions of slavery and the sale of boys in the commercial sex industry. CNN recently shed light on both of these in an article about the Afghan tradition of bacha bazi, or "boy play". It's a cultural tradition for many powerful Afghan men, but it's modern-day slavery for the boys who live through it.
Bacha bazi is illegal in Afghanistan, but the practice is still thriving. Boys are taken from their families at a young age and sold or given to wealthy and powerful business men, politicians, and military commanders. The boys are dressed in women's clothing and makeup and forced to dance to entertain their master and his guests. They are also forced to perform sex acts on their master or his guests. The few boys who are able to escape their slavery have a difficult time ever making a living doing anything else. They are forever branded in society as a bacha bereesh, or a "boy without a beard," a boy who dances and dresses as a woman.
Their plight is not unlike that of women forced into sexual performance or prostitution, who also have a difficult time being accepted into society and finding work after their ordeal. Bacha bazi boys often return to the industry even after they have left, because they have no other means to support themselves. Women who have been forced into commercial sex often do the same. Perhaps so many similarities exist because bacha bazi feminizes these boys in order to degrade them. By forcing them to perform in women's clothes and by raping them, this tradition not only seeks to humiliate these boys for the pleasure of wealthy men, but also to reinforce the idea that women are inferior and for a boy to have feminine affectations is degrading for him. It's a window into the severe gender inequality that pervades Afghanistan.
What I found most interesting about bacha bazi is the prevalence of a tradition based around same sex rape and gender-bending performance in a severely homophobic country like Afghanistan.
Sex Buys Survival for Runaway Kids
Published October 28, 2009 @ 01:00PM PT
Nothing calls attention to an issue like an article in the New York Times, and this time the media giant has deigned to shine its blinding spotlight upon domestic minor sex trafficking -- sorta. Never once in the article does the author use the term "trafficking victim" the describe the children in question -- American kids who run away from home and end up in prostitution either for survival or under pimp control. But legally in the U.S., any child under 18 involved in commercial sex is a trafficking victim. Semantics aside, though, the issue of American youth coerced and forced into prostitution by pimps is a significant and growing problem.
Author Ian Urbina gives prostituted runaway youth a face in Roxanne L., a 16-year-old girl from Queens who was picked up for prostitution. Dan Garrabrant, the detective questioning her, has only one hour before he must turn her over to social services. If in that hour he can get her to admit that she has a pimp, he can get her off the street and into victim services. He tries everything -- pushing, commiserating, talking about other stuff, offering safety -- but nothing can get her to admit that she has a pimp. His initials are tatooed on her body, but she denies he even exists overt and over. At the end of the interview, Garrabrant is forced to release Roxanne to a youth shelter. Her body is found several days later, killed by the pimp she insisted never existed. Roxanne is not the first, nor will she be the last, child to die at the hands of her pimp.
Out of the 1.6 million children who run away from home each year, about one third (or over 530,000) trade sex acts for tools of survival like food, shelter, warmth, drugs to feed an addiction, or the promise of protection and companionship.
101 Things to Be for Halloween Other Than a Pimp
Published October 27, 2009 @ 01:00PM PT
Here's how my Halloween usually goes: go out with friends, run into a guy dressed as a pimp, proceed to corner the pimp and explain why his costume is inappropriate and offensive. Yep -- I'm pretty much a buzz-kill. I would love to have a conflict-free Halloween this year (and one where my friends don't ditch me), but that's only going to happen if no one dresses up in costumes that glamorize pimping. Pimps are people who exploit women. Period. Yet Halloween glamorizes pimps like no other holiday. Maybe it's because their stereotypical attire makes an outlandish costume. Maybe it's because they are an easily recognizable part of American culture. There have been pimp costumes available on the Internet for a long time, but now even your dog can be a pimp. And as Kat over at Polaris Project points out, so can your pumpkin.
I know coming up with a Halloween costume is hard, so to help you out, I've provided 101 ideas for cosutmes that don't glorify criminals who rape women and sell them like objects. If you're thinking of dressing like a pimp, pick one of these instead, especially if you live in the DC area. Because you don't want to meet me and my feminist literature in a dark alley on Halloween night.
101 Things to Be for Halloween that Aren't a Pimp
- NASCAR driver
- Wizard with a pegleg
- Amelia Earheart
- Dinosaur
- Cat in a litterbox
- Zombie lumberjack
- Your mom
- Flapper
- Harlem Globetrotter
- Wall-E
Man Sells Foster Daughter Into Prostitution
Published October 26, 2009 @ 01:24PM PT
Pimps can be strangers to their child victims, but they are often someone the victim trusts, like a boyfriend, a parent, or a family member. In a case out of Maryland recently, Shelby Lewis sold his 12-year-old foster daughter, along with three other girls, into prostitution -- the price of the "rent" he charged them for living in his home. This case is an excellent case study of what domestic minor sex trafficking looks like in the U.S., since it has a number of very common factors present.
- First, the victim was a part of the foster care system. It's common for American girls who are eventually trafficked by pimps to have been in foster care at one point in their lives. The connection between foster care and trafficking is due to both the vulnerability of young people without stable homes and the dysfunction of many foster care systems in the U.S.
Second, the pimp was someone the victim knew as a protector. While pimps can be strangers, they often approach victims first as boyfriends, friends, stepfathers, family members, etc. They groom the victim to rely on them and then claim, as Lewis did, that the cost of their protection and love is prostitution.
Third, the victims started in their early teens. Lewis first began pimping his foster daughter out when she was 12. He also sold three other girls, who he began exploiting at 13, 14, and 16. The average age of entry into prostitution is 12-14 in the U.S., so the ages of the victims in this case are typical.
Fourth, one of his victims was registered with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. It's not unusual for children who are reported missing, either as runaways or as kidnapping victims, end up in the hands of pimps like Lewis.
Lastly, child pornography makes an appearance in this case, as it does in many others. Lewis had pictures of his victims tied to beds in sexual poses at his apartment. Pimps can earn money by selling pornographic images of the girls they exploit in addition to selling the girls themselves.
While one of these factors might not be present in all cases of domestic minor sex trafficking, they are certainly present in a number of them. This case is an example of how the issue of child trafficking in the U.S. is deeply connected to the need for reform of the foster care system and better education for girls. The questions this case begs are much broader than just those related to human trafficking: Why are foster youths so susceptible to trafficking? Why are men buying girls so young for sex? It's a reminder that we must always view trafficking within the context of social issues pimps utilize to help them traffic girls.
Photo credit: EOS Cameroun
The Myth of Initial Consent
Published October 25, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
No one can consent to slavery. Period. But there is a myth that if a trafficked person initially agreed to be in the country or industry that they were eventually enslaved in, that initial consent somehow mitigates the fact that they are being forced to work against their will. Despite what else they may have consented to, no one consents to slavery.
This myth most commonly manifests itself with victims trafficked into prostitution. Let's say Katya is Ukranian and is looking for a way to support her family. She goes to an international job broker who tells her she can make serious money in stripping and prostitution in Jamaica at the clubs and resorts. They discuss the terms, and she signs a contract that states she will choose her own hours, her own clients, and be able to set the prices for her sex acts within a certain range. She'll also give 10% of what she earns to the company. Katya is fine with working in the commercial sex industry and engaging in prostitution under these terms, and plans to save the money she makes in Jamaica for a year and then return to Ukraine. When Katya arrives in Jamaica, she is met by Sam who takes her to a brothel. There, Sam takes her passport, punches her in the face, and rapes her. He tells her she must give half of what she earns from stripping and prostitution to him, but can keep the other half. If Katya tries to refuse a buyer or take a night off, Sam beats her. He won't return her passport, so she is unable to leave the country. Katya never thought prostitution would be like this. Is Katya a trafficking victim?
Yes. The fact that she agreed to work in prostitution voluntarily does not mean she is not a slave now. Katya consented to a work situation that included commercial sex (even illegally), but one where she was free to refuse or leave. The reality for Katya was that she was not free to leave and was held in prostitution by violence. She was not allowed to keep the money she earned or make choices about who she provided sexual services to.
Here's another example. Miguel is approached by Andres in his town in Peru and offered a job picking asparagus about 100 miles away. The Andres tells Miguel he will have to pay off a $500 debt for the cost of travel to the farm and room and board while he works there, but that the debt should be paid off within a few weeks, and Miguel can keep the rest of his wages for the season. Andres knows Miguel's cousin, so he seems trustworthy, and Miguel takes the job. When they get to the farm, the men are told that the trip was more expensive than they thought and they each now must work off $800. A few weeks later, Miguel asks when he will start to receive his wages and is told that the price of food has increased, so they now owe a debt of $1000 for room and board. Eventually, Miguel and some other men demand their wages and threaten to leave or go to the police. Andres refuses and threatens to shoot them if they go to the police. He tells them he will kill their children if they don't keep working. Is Miguel a trafficking victim?
Yes. Miguel agreed to take on a certain amount of debt, but that debt increased unfairly and with no explanation. When he tried to take his wages or leave the situation, he and his family were threatened with violence. Even if a person agrees to pay off a debt, they have not consented to debt bondage. Even though Miguel initially consented to work for Andres, Andres used force, coercion, or deception to keep him there, thus trafficking him.
Photo credit: Robyn Gallegher
