Sex Trafficking and Prostitution
Denmark Considers Prostitution Ban
Published September 22, 2009 @ 02:00PM PT
Denmark may be soon joining European neighbor the Netherlands in the growing club of countries who once thought laissez-faire legalized prostitution was a good idea, but are now changing their minds. The Social Democrat party has proposed instituting a full to partial ban on prostitution to prevent the country from becoming "a haven for the sex trade."
Prostitution has been legal in Denmark since 1999 and was actually legalized by the same party which is now trying to ban it. I know here in the U.S. the concept of a political party objectively evaluating the effectiveness of a policy and then changing that policy when they see a better alternative is incredibly foreign, but here is proof it can happen. The change has come after some Danish leaders noticed that they were the only country in their part of Europe with such free-for-all open prostitution allowed. Hmmm, they wondered, could this be drawing criminals, pimps, and traffickers to Denmark to take advantage of the lax laws? If the Netherlands is any sort of predictor, it sure could. Pimping and brothel ownership have never been legal in Denmark, but where there are legal commercial sex markets there are often illegal ones that follow. And like all countries with legalized prostitution, Denmark has had its share of trafficking victims.
The proposed legislation is "in line with legislation in Norway and Sweden," which I understand to mean it focuses on criminalizing the act of buying prostitution and pimping, as opposed to the act of selling sex. The goal of this style of legislation is to remove the onus of prostitution from women, where it usually falls, and place it on men, who have the social and economic power in prostitution transactions. The effectiveness of this sort of law is still a little up in the air since it's so new, but proponents claim the law reduces the exploitative parts of the commercial sex industry without throwing women in jail.
Despite increased popular support for the bill, the Danish people are not buying it just yet; only about 26% support the measure. The Social Democrat party has an uphill battle to convince the rest of Denmark that the prostitution ban could prevent their country from becoming a major destination for women in the sex trade, both forced and voluntarily, from all over the world. Of course, the pro-legalization contingent has pulled out the same arguments as usual, claiming that banning prostitution (even the Swedish model which doesn't criminalize the act for women) will drive the trade underground and into the hands of criminals. That would be a more compelling argument if such large portions of the commercial sex industry were not already controlled by criminals, even in places where prostitution is legal.
As countries like South Africa consider legalizing prostitution for the first time, we should note that the Netherlands and now Denmark who have both had legalized prostitution for over a decade are seriously rethinking their policies. There is a valuable lesson to learn from the Dutch and the Danes: a prostitution free-for-all may sound like a good idea, but it's not.
Photo credit: Ange Soleil
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
An American Pedophile in Cambodia
Published September 18, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT
Warning: The the videos and commentary in this post are graphic and disturbing, even for a human trafficking blog.
Despite increased international pressure and national efforts to end child sex tourism in Cambodia, it remains a top destination for pedophiles looking to have sex with children. The child sex tourism industry in Cambodia is also notoriously young, including children who are five, six, and seven years old as well as pre-teens and young teens. ABC Nightline conducted a raid on a suspected American pedophile, and what they found was disturbing.
The story of Harvey Johnson -- the man who is the subject of the Nightline sting -- is not unique. It's the story of a retired man who moves to Cambodia and sets up a gig as a volunteer English teacher, giving him access to hundreds of children. Some of the thousands of the sex tourists who travel to Cambodia each year use simialr guises to have access to children, and some just shop for them on the streets. Case in point: while the ABC film crew were researching the ease of buying kids for sex in Cambodia, the cops showed up. At first the reporters were worried, but it turns out the cops just wanted a chance to sell the kids that they had procured, and they started loading girls into the back of the reporters' van. With some police conducting sting operations and others selling children to tourists, it's hard to know who to trust in Cambodia.
It is disturbingly easy to have sex with a very, very young child as a Western tourist in Cambodia. They are being sold by brothel owners, slave brokers, and even their own mothers. The desperation of so many families is so great, that sex with children in Cambodia has become a full commodity, a resource for a family who otherwise would have no resources. And most disturbingly of all, there seems to be no shortage of buyers in this marketplace, no lack of American and European men who want to buy the youngest child possible. If Harvey Johnson is found guilty, there will be a long line of men waiting to rent his house and take his place as a teacher/abuser.
Johnson's case is still pending, but the police and reporters found his apartment to be filled with an disturbing and incriminating assortment of items that would lead most people to believe he was making is own child pornography and abusing the young girls who he taught. You can watch the videos of Nightline's sting operation here: Part1, Part 2, and Part 3 (ABC won't allow them to be embedded for proprietary reasons).
Photo credit: vivere.christus
Children Are Sold for Sex in America's Capitol
Published September 17, 2009 @ 01:00PM PT
Guest blogger Melissa Snow of Shared Hope International discusses their new public awareness campaign to address child trafficking in street prostitution in Washington, DC. Child sex trafficking happens all over our nation's capitol, sometimes only steps from the White House and blocks from a symbol of the end of slavery -- the Lincoln Memorial.
The words ‘sex', ‘children' and ‘13' are an unlikely combination for a campaign message, but this month in Washington, D.C., Shared Hope International confronts a shocking reality; American children are sold for sex in Washington D.C. This September, in collaboration with the D.C. Human Trafficking Task Force, we're unveiling End Child Sex Trafficking: Kids are NOT for Sale in D.C., an awareness campaign to shed light on child sex trafficking in Washington, D.C. In Metro stations near hot tourist spots, on over 200 metro buses, within the Adult Classifieds and Erotic Sections of CityPaper, and on a bus shelter on 14th and K streets, bright yellow advertisements catch the eyes of D.C. residents and visitors that scream messages such as "13 is the average age children are forced into prostitution".
These advertisements, although shocking, reveal that human trafficking is not just an international issue -- it occurs in our nation's capital. Along intersections such as 14th and K Streets, famously populated by lobbyists during the day, and along New York Avenue, young American girls are exploited by a pimp and sold for sex many times a night. These young girls' lives are risked every day when they take to the streets to earn money for their pimp. The advertising campaign, Kids are NOT for Sale in D.C., will make D.C. residents and tourists aware of sex trafficking in Washington D.C. and warn off potential buyers of sex, that buying a child for sex can result in a life sentence.
The Kids are Not for Sale Campaign will run throughout the month of September and is in timing with D.C. Human Trafficking Awareness month. Sponsored by the D.C. Human Trafficking Task Force, a collaboration of local governmental and nonprofit organizations, the Task Force hopes to engage the local community to stop Washington D.C. from becoming a breeding ground for traffickers.
The Washington D.C. area has been identified as a sex trafficking hub, and the D.C. Human Trafficking Task Force is aggressively tackling predators who attempt to buy or sell children in the District. Just last week, Shelby Lewis was indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. and charged with five counts of Sex Trafficking of Children and four counts of Interstate Transportation of a Minor for Purposes of Prostitution. Lewis, a Maryland resident, brought underage girls - including a 12 year old - into D.C. where he forced them into prostitution. If convicted, Lewis faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. Shelby Lewis' case proves that human trafficking is occurring in Washington, D.C.; however, his arrest proves that human trafficking is not tolerated in our Nation's capital.
Although sex trafficking is a difficult topic to face, for the young girls and boys who are trapped in this modern day slave trade we must confront and overthrow this organized crime. American kids are being victimized in our nation's capitol and we need your help to stand up to sex trafficking in Washington D.C. Not on our streets, not in our city, not in our Nations' capital - Washington D.C. will not allow the sale of American children for sex.
Photo credit: Ed Yourdon
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
What Fox News Doesn't Want You to Know About the ACORN Prostitution Scandal
Published September 13, 2009 @ 01:42PM PT
Some workers at ACORN offices in Baltimore and Washington DC made some pretty bad choices recently in front of an undercover film crew pretending to be a pimp and prostitute trying to buy a home. They didn't protest when the actors told them they wanted to bring thirteen 15-year-old girls from El Salvador into the country to sell in prostitution, helped them with creative ways to avoid the cops, and even suggested how to claim the girls as dependents on their taxes. However, there is a lot more to these videos and the media blitz behind them than meets the eye.
Fox News and other conservative media outlets would have you believe this is a story about sex trafficking. It's not. It's a story about race, class, prostitution, tax evasion, and serious ethical and legal concerns. In the edited versions of the videos, the actors and the ACORN employees discuss activities that could be classified as trafficking only about 1% of the time. The rest of the time they talk about prostitution, which the woman claiming to be a prostitute repeatedly says she is engaging in by her choice and keeping the money she makes (therefore, she is not a trafficking victim herself). The ACORN employees should have taken action when the actors talked about prostituting underage girls; not doing so was reprehensibly unethical and illegal. And since prostitution is illegal in both Maryland and DC, they shouldn't have condoned lying (and in some cases cheating) on taxes to support it. But Fox and the conservative media have twisted these videos to indicate ACORN as an organization was promoting child prostitution, which was never the case.
The videos are certainly an indictment of four ACORN employees, all of which have now been fired. But they are also an indictment of the conservative media outlets that push stories like this as a way to discredit and defund liberal organizations like ACORN under the guise of concern about sex trafficking. The sting was orchestrated by conservative filmmaker James O'Keefe who targeted a number of ACORN offices, with incriminating results found in two. It's clear the goal of the operation was nothing to do with preventing harm to children, and everything to do with finding ACORN employees willing to help a prostitute get housing and set up a business. From the perspective of the ACORN employees, they were helping a woman without education or resources set up a business to survive. From the perspective of we the taxpayers, they were helping a woman cheat on her taxes and earn income illegally through criminal activity. Had the woman been selling cocaine instead of sex, the legal and ethical implications would be similar. What the employees did was unethical, but it was about taxes, not trafficking, and it was a lot more complex and nuanced than Fox News is making it out to be.
The videos from Baltimore and DC are here below. Watch them for yourself, and then take a look at the way some news outlets have been covering them. It's a scandal for ACORN to be sure, but not one that's really about human trafficking.
Why the UN is Too Pessimistic About a Rise in Trafficking
Published September 12, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
Not everyone has the ovaries to do this, but I'm gonna disagree with the UN. According to a new UN report, crappy world conditions like global recession, female infanticide, and poverty will breed more crappy world conditions like human trafficking into a big depressing spiral. Sure, things are rough and might get a little rougher, but here's why I think that despite the bump in exploitation the recession will initially bring, the future looks rosier than the UN claims.
1. We're getting over our obsession with sex (trafficking). The UN points out that many countries are still struggling to identify and help victims of labor trafficking, even if they've gotten pretty good at finding slaves in commercial sex. But all over the world, NGOs and governments are starting to expand their focus to include labor trafficking victims as well as sex trafficking victims. It's a long way to an equal or even proportional labor/sex focus, but we're moving in the right direction.
2. We're finally getting the idea of domestic trafficking. The past three years have seen a significant increase in awareness in many countries that human trafficking is not just about foreign people being moved across borders, but about anyone being enslaved or exploited anywhere. Countries like the U.S., China, and Brazil with huge internal trafficking problems are finally starting to address them.
3. Legislation is being created and improved. Countries from Japan to Nigeria are creating new and better legislation to prevent trafficking, identify and protect victims, and prosecute the traffickers. Yes, there are still some gaping holes in a lot of the laws, but there are also laws where there were none before. And that's improvement.
Sure, it will be an uphill battle over the next few years, but who's to say that won't just result in some well-toned glutes and a healthy appreciation for the challenge. I think the UN is forgetting how much progress we've made and only focusing on how much we have to go. So chin up and smile and little, UN. You might just find that a positive attitude is the first step to progress.
Photo credit: Optimism by billaday
