Sex Trafficking and Prostitution
"Why I Slept with 1300 Women"
Published October 10, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
Editors Note: The text of Sebastian Horsley's manifesto, available from the link below, contains adult language which I find disrespectful and degrading to women. Read with caution.
British, self-proclaimed "prostitute connoisseur" Sebastian Horsley begins his commercial sex manifesto "Why I Slept with 1300 Women" with an unforgettable statement,
I remember the first time I had sex—I still have the receipt. The girl was alive, as far as I could tell, she was warm and she was better than nothing. She cost me £20.
His bald description of the girl as less-than-enthusiastic (and possibly less-than-willing) is chilling. Since that first, dubious encounter, Horsley claims to have spent more than $180,000 on sex with over 1300 women. Horsley himself may be an anomaly among men, but his attitudes towards prostitution, women, and sexuality are emblematic of the the reasons human trafficking and exploitation are so prevalent in the commercial sex industry.
Horsely describes himself by claiming,
I am a connoisseur of prostitution: I can take its bouquet, taste it, roll it around my mouth, give you the vintage. I have used brothels, saunas, private homes from the Internet and ordered girls to my flat prompt as pizza.
In his bio, he directly compares women in prostitution to pizzas -- both objects of his pleasure to be brought to him when he demands it. This is not an empowered view of women controlling their bodies and sexuality, but an objectifying view of women as the tools of male pleasure. Women in prostitution can refuse sex no more than a pizza can refuse to be eaten. He then rambles on for awhile about his detest for monogamy and emotional relationships, and goes on to discuss why he respects prostitutes,
A prostitute exists outside the establishment. She is either rejected by it or in opposition to it, or both. It takes courage to cross this line.
This shows a common misconception among men who use women in prostitution -- that all women in prostitution enter it freely and willingly because they see it as empowerment, a way to rebel, or simply their occupation of choice. In many cases, women enter prostitution because they are, as he puts it, "rejected by the establishment." They feel the have no other viable economic options, they enter as young girls, they have been abused, they are trafficked, they have substance addictions, or they are desperate. Some women may fit Horsely's idea of outsiders who "cross the line" willingly, but far too many are pushed or coerced over into prostitution. And he follows one common misconception with another,
Of course, the general feeling in this country [the UK] is that the man is somehow exploiting the woman, but I don’t believe this. In fact, the prostitute and the client, like the addict and the dealer, is the most successfully exploitative relationship of all.
Another favorite argument of johns is that if prostitution is ever exploitative, it's the woman in prostitution exploiting the male buyer. In prostitution, the man possesses the social, financial, physical, sexual, and emotional power in the transaction. When prostitution arrests are made, women are far more likely to be arrested than men. Women in prostitution who refuse sex risk being raped, physically abused, and ostracized by society. Prostitution is a manifestation of a gender imbalanced society, and all the power is on the side of the men.
Sebastian Horsley is just one man, but his objectification of women in prostitution and the myths about the indutry he believes are not uncommon at all. These attitudes are in part what allow trafficking and exploitation to take place in commercial sex. As Horsley says,
Yes, yes, I know. Prostitution is obscene, debasing and disgraceful. The point is, so am I.
For once, Horsley, I couldn't agree with you more.
French Culture Minister "Excited" By Sex with Slave Boys
Published October 09, 2009 @ 05:30AM PT
Move over Roman Polanski -- you no longer have a monopoly on sick, ethically-vacant European men who shamelessly enjoy sex with unwilling children. France's Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand is now getting heat for a book he wrote four years ago in which he not only pays for sex with young boys in Thailand, but gets a little happy in the trousers thinking about "the slave market" that made those boys available. Will someone please tell me how this man is still employed running France?
Here are some quotes from his aptly titled 2005 book The Bad Life,
"I got into the habit of paying for boys, [despite knowing] the sordid details of this traffic. ... All these rituals of the market for youths, the slave market excited me enormously... the abundance of very attractive and immediately available young boys put me in a state of desire."
The list of things that outrage me about this statement unfortunately exceeds the 500 word limit I try and impose on myself for these posts. But perhaps my most immediate question is why has it taken four years for someone to realize that this high-powered politician knowingly had sex with trafficked children? He is so brazen in his announcement of lust at the idea of a slave market. And it's not like this was information was discovered through some blackmail pictures or old emails unearthed by an assistant. It was in a freakin' published book! And I thought the French were a nation of readers ...
Mitterand, of course, claims he's done nothing wrong. He clarifies,
"It is neither a novel nor my memoirs. I preferred to leave things vague. Nothing is true, nothing is false."
Wow, thanks for clearing things up. Now I have a perfect idea and absolutely no idea of what happened. He's also complained that everyone is unfairly confusing pedophilia with homosexuality. Just to make sure we're not doing that, let's read his quote again, this time with the gender changed to be female.
"I got into the habit of paying for girls, [despite knowing] the sordid details of this traffic. All these rituals of the market for youths, the slave market excited me enormously... the abundance of very attractive and immediately available young girls put me in a state of desire."
Well, that statement still pisses me off. You?
It's not the gender of the children in the slave market you wrote about raping that's an issue, Mitterrand, -- it's raping children in the slave market! And even if every one of those boys had just had his 18th birthday, you admit yourself that the details of how they got into your bed were "sordid," and you even use the word "traffic." Having sex with adult trafficking victims is wrong, too. And the fact that you state it's the buying and selling (the market) of young boys that makes you hot in the biscuit is disturbing to say the least.
I know that the French people realize their culture is pretty awesome, and I hope that they realize it deserves better than to be tainted by a scummy politician who gets his jollies from sex trafficking. Get this guy out of office and let him and Polanski live on some farm somewhere with nothing but each other for company. They certainly deserve each other.
Photo credit: letemps.ch
Are U.S. Government Contractors Still Supporting Slavery?
Published October 07, 2009 @ 01:00PM PT
A few months ago, The Slave Next Door exposed the truth that, as late as 2005, U.S. government contractors were using slave labor in construction projects paid for by American taxpayers. Employees at the notorious firm DynCorp were accused of having sex with girls as young as 12 in Bosnia in the late 1990s. Now, American taxpayers may be supporting more trafficking through government contractor ArmorGroup. They are accused of frequenting brothels in Afghanistan known to enslave young girls, an act which is in direct violation of U.S. law and Department of State policy. But do you really need a law to tell you sex with underage enslaved girls is wrong?
Former ArmorGroup Director of Operations-turned-whistle-blower James Gordon filed a suit this past month. alleging that not only did ArmorGroup employees break the law by visiting brothels known for holding trafficked women and girls, they withheld documents and blocked efforts to investigate or end the illegal outings. And this little scandal went all the way to the top -- the manager in charge in Kabul is accused as being part of these activities, even though he knew they were illegal. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act prohibits government contractors or employees from visiting brothels overseas.
Gordon says he was concerned because the brothel ArmorGroup employees frequented was known to sell very young Chinese girls and women against their will, and because he was worried that all that sex was distracting the employees from their job -- guarding the U.S. embassy in Kabul. Seriously, Gordon? I mean, why would a U.S. embassy in Kabul need focused and steady protection? Tell me one bad thing that has ever happened to a U.S. embassy overseas in a war-torn area full of insurgents. Oh, wait..... Maybe ArmorGroup should have been doing what I (and the other taxpayers) are paying them to do and not raping young Chinese girls. And yes, their "outings" got in the way of work, because some of them happened during business hours -- hours they should have been protecting the U.S. embassy.
But just visiting the brothels wasn't enough for some of the ArmorGroup employees. Gordon claims to have overhead one AG recruit arranging to buy a girl for $20,000, but was skeptical that he could start making money off her right away. This particular recruit was eventually fired, but the company made very little effort to investigate the incident or do anything to prevent employees from trying to buy and traffic other women and girls. At the rate these guys were being unethical, I'm frankly surprised they didn't congratulate him for being skeptical of such a large investment.
So in addition to supporting human trafficking, ArmorGroup employees were endangering the lives of U.S. embassy staff and guests, as well as the others who worked with them by thinking a lot more with their "downstairs brains" then their bigger, upstairs brains. The lawsuit is pending, but the case has also been brought to the attention of the State Department. Hopefully, this case will be one to show U.S. government contractors that the U.S. is serious about that whole don't-support-slavery-with-U.S.-taxpayer-dollars thing. However, this isn't the first time that a government contractor has been caught exploiting women in brothels or workers in construction. And I'm worried that it won't be the last.
Photo credit: mr.nomind
In Recession, 35% of Asians in Prostitution Are Children
Published October 01, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT
I was heartened to hear today that the IMF says the global recession is over, but they might have a hard time convincing the thousands of children who are now being forced into commercial sex as a result of the recession in Southeast Asia that bluer skies are ahead. UNICEF estimates that now up to 35% of people in prostitution in the Mekong sub-region are between 12 and 17 years old. Sorry, IMF, but the recession's not over for them just yet.
35% is a huge number- just over one third. Statistically speaking, if you went to this part of Asia and had sex with three "women" in prostitution, one of them would be a child. Children are not a small portion of the commercial sex industry, but a major sustainer of it. To those individuals who argue that trafficking victims make up a tiny portion of people in prostitution and that the vast majority are in the industry willingly, I say "not in the Mekong sub-region". But why is it this part of the world that sees so much child exploitation?
A number of factors are contributing to an increase of children sold for sex in the region. Unemployment in Thailand is spiking, and thousands of factories and projects are being shut down. As poverty is increasing, living conditions are deteriorating and children are more likely to leave school and search for work. Even before the global recession, some countries like Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand relied on child sex tourism as a large contributor to GDP -- anywhere from 2% to 14%, according to the ILO. And with other forms of productions down, that percentage may be rising. Then, of course, there's always the reputation -- earned or not -- of lax laws and easily-bribed officials.
But these problems are not unique to Southeast Asia. Unemployment and factory closings are high everywhere, even here in the U.S. More children are becoming homeless and families are unable to pay school fees. Does this mean that perhaps Southeast Asia isn't the only region seeing an increase in child trafficking and child sex tourism? Sure it's the most famous region for child sex tourism, but other parts of the world -- places like Brazil, Costa Rica, and Mexico especially-- are also becoming common destinations for child sex tourists. I wonder if those areas aren't seeing this same increase.
On one hand it's great to have optimistic economic indicators that the recession is now over. But it's another thing to remember that the human reality of the recession will last for years, regardless of what the economists think looks promising. The 12-year-old girl who was forced into a brothel in Cambodia yesterday won't be released today because the IMF has announced the end of the recession. She'll be there for months, maybe years to come. Maybe she'll find a way out and maybe not. In either case, her recession is far from over.
Photo credit: youngsixta
Georgia Supreme Court: Let Teen Strippers Take It Off
Published September 29, 2009 @ 01:00PM PT
Yesterday was a good day for Atlanta area men who like to see young women take their clothes off -- they're about to get to see a lot more of it. The Georgia Supreme Court unanimously ruled that young women ages 18, 19, and 20 have a right to work in strip clubs that serve alcohol, overturning an Atlanta city ordinance raising the age to 21.
Legislators claim the law was created to discourage underage drinking, not to target adult entertainers. However, workers ages 18 to 20 in a number of other industries like convenience stores, concert venues, and stadiums would have been exempt from the law. Adult entertainment clubs where alcohol sales are a major source of revenue, were not. In the end, the court decided the case based on the argument that 18 to 20-year-olds have a right to handle alcohol in their jobs; their right to strip in public was never officially questioned.
This case may have an impact on a growing suggestion within the anti-trafficking movement: move the age of consent for commercial sex from 18 to 21. Some advocates have suggested this change should only apply to prostitution, but others have petitioned for the age increase to apply to young women in pornography, stripping, escort agencies, and other adult services as well. The argument for an age of consent increase is that it gives young women more time to mature enough to make an active decision to enter the potentially dangerous field of commercial sex. As a society, we feel young people are not mature enough to make responsible choices about alcohol until they are 21, how could we expect them to make responsible choices about commercial sex, which can be arguably more dangerous for women, before then? The argument against the age increase is that it unfairly limits 18 to 20-year-olds, who are legally adults, from choosing commercial sex. Young people are considered mature enough to consent to sexual activity at ages ranging from 15 to 18, depending on the state, why should they have to wait until they are 21 to consent to commercial sex? Young women can choose to join the army and put their bodies in front of bullets at age 18, why should they not be able to handle the dangers of commercial sex until 21?
I have no doubt that raising the age of consent for commercial sex to 21 might help some women who are stuck in prostitution get out, and might prevent other women from being tricked or coerced into the industry in the first place. But I also have no doubt it would take away the livelihood of some women who are in legal adult industries, like the Atlanta women who fought for their right to strip. It's a tough issue, but one we don't even need to tackle right now.
The fact is there are plenty of truly underage girls -- 11-17 years old -- in prostitution and other commercial sex industries. Before we even consider raising the age of consent for commercial sex to include a broader number of young women, let's focus on helping the children who are in commercial sex right now get help to get out. We don't have enough shelters, enough social workers, enough counselors, and enough lawyers for all the child trafficking victims in the U.S. as it is. Let's focus on increasing services for child victims, not the age of consent.
I hope Atlanta realizes that 18 is still the low-end cut-off age for teens to be allowed to dance nude or strip in clubs, because I've seen 15 and 16 year old girls who have been exploited in strip clubs in the city. Maybe they will use the resources they would have applied to 18-20 year olds to find and help the younger children who need it the most get out of the industry and on with their futures.
Photo credit: Thomas Hawk
The Ethics of Using Sex to Sell Abolition
Published September 27, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
Here's something I don't have to tell you: sex is interesting. In fact, maybe you're reading this blog just because the title mentioned sex. Maybe you're reading because of the sexy picture. Sex is so interesting, that human trafficking can be a "sexy" issue, even though the sex involved is often violent and exploitative. A number of public awareness campaigns for human trafficking have capitalized on the sheer sex appeal of the issue by featuring images of attractive, often restrained women. Are these campaigns merely taking advantage of the sexily marketable nature of the abolitionist movement? Or is it unethical to use sex to sell a campaign against sex trafficking?
Monica over at $pread Blog has an interesting and highly intelligent take on this same issue with some different ads. Here are some of the sexiest human trafficking ads I've found.
This ad was originally created by the government of Luxembourg and is one of the creepier things I've ever seen. And I've watched The Ring alone in the dark. It features an attractive, topless, white woman trapped in what looks to be a vacuum-sealed meat wrapper. Sure, her boobs are blurred out, but you're obviously supposed to think about the fact that she's naked while she's caught in this creepy, evil grocery store. I get what you're going for, Luxembourg, but I'm not buying it.
Speaking of creepy, this image has something really wrong with it. Have you figured out what it is? On first glance, the woman appears to be wearing heels, but really it is just her skin, stretched into a stiletto heel shape. The message reads "Some people are very attached to their work." I'm not a huge fan of that slogan because it gives the impression trafficking victims are work-a-holics, which if you didn't know anything about trafficking, you might think was true. And once again, we're seeing what looks like a white, adult woman in what is obviously supposed to be a sexy heel. Though I must admit I find flesh shoes to be a bit of a turn off, personally.
When I first saw this Amnesty International awareness campaign, I thought it was an ad for some sort of new ankle jewelry. To me this says "human trafficking is a crime where beautiful, thin, white women with impossibly perfect and shapely legs are given delicate gold jewelry which is lovely, if impractical." She also has on great shoes. If this is trafficking, it doesn't look to bad to me. But it's not trafficking but a long shot.
One of the most noticeable similarities between all these ads is that all the women are white. If someone looking at these ads were to try and identify a trafficking victim, they would probably peg her as a thin, beautiful white woman in classy footwear. And they would be way off.
There are plenty of anti-trafficking awareness campaigns that use images which aren't the slightest bit sexy, but these are some of the ones which straddle the line of ethics, if not cross it. The use of sex to advertise abolition is a huge issue, and one I struggle with every day on this blog. We want to attract potential abolitionists' attention with memorable, provocative images. And when the message is about exploitative sex, sexy and upsetting images are often a good fit. But there is a line between drawing attention to the problem to contributing to it. Human trafficking objectifies women's bodies completely; abolitionist campaigns shouldn't do the same. So when I have a choice to use an image of a sexy woman that I know will grab readers' attention and a more innocuous image like a sign, which one should I choose? It's a judgment call every time, but one that can significantly affect the way people understand and view trafficking victims.
Do you think any of these ads cross the line?
Top photo credit: franulloa
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
