During his tenure on America’s Next Top Model, fashion photographer Nigel Barker was perennially kind, steady and honest to the young female contestants—making him an antidote to Tyra Banks wonderfully crazy antics. Barker brought that same ethos to a talkback after a performance of Trafficked, a play about sex slavery and child exploitation, at the Bleecker Street Theatre on Thursday night. But this time, unlike his many countless panels on ANTM, Barker was brought to tears by the ensemble cast of local 15 to 21-year-old girls who wrote and performed in the work. (The piece was also put on by the Project Girl Performance Collective.) “This issue is seen as being simply unsavory . . . not for polite discussion, but this play pulls the cover on it,” Barker said. “This show needs to be seen by men . . . because men need to be better men.”
–ANTM’s Nigel Barker Stands Up Against Sex Trafficking At Bleecker Street Theatre
While we might debate the impact of the increase in sexually explicit material of all kinds that floods our national consciousness–and I have met plenty of people who see porn and strip clubs as relatively harmless if not potentially beneficially forms of sexual liberation–the one area of the sex trade that hopefully we can all agree is incredibly damaging is the exploitation of teenage girls and boys. I interviewed a Homeland Security Agent for the Federal Government investigating Sex Slavery.
“It is a lot more common that people think. People think that this could never happen here, when actually it’s there. You just may not see it, may not know about it, may not hear about it. But, believe it or not, it’s a pretty common occurrence. If the girl’s a minor, she doesn’t need to be forced into it for it to be human trafficking. If it’s a 15-year-old girl and you’re her pimp, even if she wants to go out and have sex for money, that’s still considered human trafficking. Once somebody’s an adult, you have to be able to prove that through force, fraud, or coercion that this girl was forced into those sex acts.”
I also interviewed the Executive Director of one of the leading treatment centers aimed at helping teenage prostitutes. “The great majority of these girls have been raped and beaten and forced into prostitution. This is not your middle-class college-educated girl who says, “I can make money turning tricks with CEOs.” That’s not what it’s about. Ninety-nine percent of it is girls who’ve been terribly exploited,” he told me. He helped me understand the pattern of violence and dependency that occurs when a young girl, or boy, is trapped into The Life.
So my question is, can’t we all agree that the evil of Sex Trafficking is not up for debate? Can’t we join forces to put a stop to the exploitation and violence occurring all too often right under our noses?
CNN reported a major operation yesterday:
“During a three-day law enforcement sweep targeting the problem of teenage prostitution, officers rescued 79 children and arrested 104 alleged pimps, the FBI announced Monday. Operation Cross Country 6 took place from Friday though Sunday with more than 2,500 state, local and federal officers working in 57 cities. FBI Acting Executive Assistant Director Kevin Perkins said the children law enforcement freed from their handlers ranged from 13 to 17 years old with one girl saying she had gotten involved in prostitution when she was 11.”
And still there are comments questioning whether this is a real problem.
We debate a lot of things here on GMP, but one thing I am sure of is that this is a problem and it is wrong. We should all do what we can to help the victims of this heinous crime.
Mostly, the police found and arrested adult prostitutes and pimps. When the police go after underage prostitutes they mostly find and arrest adult prostitutes and johns. Why are the police wasting their time on adult prostitutes? Instead of spending that time going after underage prostitutes? Why aren’t the police finding millions of children forced against their will to have sex for money? Because their aren’t millions of them. And what proof do they have that they were forced against their will? Why are the police just finding, and arresting consensual adults? Because the child victims either don’t exist or are… Read more »
Sure we can, the trouble is when the NGOs in question take the next step of declaring “most or all sex workers are victims of trafficking and therefore all sex work should be criminalised.”
Sex Trafficking/Slavery is used by many groups as a attempt to outlaw all prostitution around the world by saying that all women are victims even if they do it willing. This hurts any real victims because it labels all sex workers as victims. This is done by the media, aid groups, NGO’s, feminists, politicians, and religious organizations that receive funds from the government. There are very strong groups who promote that all adult women who have sex are victims even if they are willing, enjoy it and go out of there way to get it. These groups try to get… Read more »
Another terrific article to read is “Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in New York City.” (www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/225084.pdf) I don’t think individuals who question the ‘trafficking panic’ are questioning whether or not forced prostitution or underage prostitution is an issue. I think the issue is that some organizations that label themselves as ‘anti-trafficking’ organizations are anti-prostitution organizations. And many strategies intended to rescue trafficking victims involve the arrest of dozens of individuals consensually involved in the sex trade or efforts to eradicate the sex trade completely. See: http://postwhoreamerica.com/the-problem-with-the-other-problem-with-sex-trafficking/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/julieruvolo/2012/06/26/sex-lies-and-suicide-whats-wrong-with-the-war-on-sex-trafficking/ http://redlightchicago.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/swop-chicago-response-to-operation-cross-country/ In a nutshell, efforts to raise awareness about underage & forced prostitution… Read more »
Hey there. I think we can conclude that under-aged prostitution is a problem. We can also conclude that forced or under-aged prostitution is a problem. I have a problem, however, with the sources you cite & the conclusions you come to. You’re citing sources from rescue organizations, which, while they do a lot of good and have very good intentions, have a very upper-middle-class and slightly paternatistic understanding of the Sex Trade. Please check out YWEP – http://ywepchicago.wordpress.com/ – a grassroots organization run by & led by young women in the sex trade & street-based economies. Please also check out… Read more »
Thank you for this article, Tom. My abuser father rented me to other men in our home from the age of 5 onward. When my age made me unwanted by pedophiles, I was punished and beaten because he couldn’t make as much money anymore. Sex slavery of children is everywhere. It’s sad to see so many comments devolve into a debate over legalizing prostitution instead of focusing on child and kidnapped victim exploitation. Thank you for all you do to help; your work could save children just like I was. No matter how much people don’t want to see this… Read more »
So lets focus on child exploitation and exploitation in general. The problem is just a subset of what I discussed above, where “human trafficking” discourse is conflating exploitation of children with sex work. And in the process, making one issue the hostage of the other, to the detriment of both. This doesn’t have to be an “either/or” battle.
First, define your terms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO4N81t59fQ
First, what TenGalaxies said. Now, of course everybody in this debate can agree that forced prostitution is a social evil that should be stopped. Ditto for forced labor/slavery of any kind, of which forced prostitution is a subset. However, the issues with “human trafficking” are several: 1) The problematic framing of “human trafficking”, which puts emphasis on the migration aspect rather than the aspect of force and exploitation. There is a great deal of labor migration throughout the world, both legal and illegal, including for sexual labor. Only a subset of this is involuntary. And not all involuntary labor involves… Read more »
You are creating a false dilemma here. You are saying that if we think that anti-sex trafficking organizations use wildly incorrect statistics to make the problem look more widespread that it is, we don’t think sex trafficking is wrong. That if we disagree with the way another person wants to deal with sex trafficking, or think that an anti-trafficking measure will do more harm than good, we don’t think sex trafficking is wrong. I highly recommend this article, “Loose Women or Lost Women? The re-emergence of the myth of ‘white slavery’ in contemporary discourses of ‘trafficking in women'” for another… Read more »
Exploitation of UNDERAGE boys and girls? Absolutely, that’s wrong. I completely condemn it.
You should always make sure your sex worker is of legal age. And buy American!
“This show needs to be seen by men . . . because men need to be better men.” <— this is one of the elephants in the room often ignored. MANY of the pimps (and some jons) are women. Yes, women trafficking and allowing their own to be used. Why is this hardly mentioned? I do not mean to derail the conversation, as any trafficking is wrong in my book. Whether for sex or forced labor. The problem gets worse when we only see it as a gender issue, when it is a human rights issue. Males are trafficked into… Read more »
Agree PH. I wrote this piece for CNN about the change in the definition of rape at the Federal level to make gender neutral. https://goodmenproject.com/good-feed-blog/justice-department-redefines-rape-matlacks-op-ed-on-cnn/
Please check out my documentary LICENSE TO PIMP about choices 3 San Francisco strippers make as their strip clubs engage in illegal labor practices that turn them into brothels.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/himab/license-to-pimp-documentary
Tom, I concur.
Sex trafficking is wrong, but it’s also a lot rarer than most feminists make it out to be. This was a sting in 57 different cities, coordinated over several months. In all that time, with all the resources they devoted, they found 79 traficked people. While that’s too many people, it is hardly a significant amount given the number of people who live in those cities, or even the number of prostitutes that work in those cities. It sounds like people ginning up a relatively rare problem and using it to institute new laws. We’ve seen where that leads with… Read more »
You simply have no idea what you’re talking about. The sexual exploitation of children is huge, and exists world-wide. Study after study after study has shown that less than 2% of “willing” prostitutes are actually that. Sex trade workers are nearly always “pre-abused” by the time they’re ten. Do the research. These concerns are hardly the inventions of feminists.
Are they studying street walkers, or sex workers in legal brothels? Of the sex workers I’ve seen reply to many threads online, ALL have said they willing wanted to do the career and sex abuse wasn’t an issue. Now I’m not saying there wouldn’t be those who went through extremes like you say but is it a case of certain areas have a much much higher rate of exploited workers, whilst other areas such as areas with legalized prostitution are mostly “willing” participants?
All the strippers I ever spoke with in strip clubs were only doing it until they graduated from college.
One of the women featured in my stripper documentary LICENSE TO PIMP is a 16 yr old Latina who begins stripping so that she can pay for her mother’s cancer treatment. The film is about the choices that 3 San Francisco strippers make as their strip clubs engage in illegal labor practices that turn them into brothels. Please watch: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/himab/license-to-pimp-documentary I am opposed to child sex work + sex work where the adult provider doesn’t consent. The reality is that many teens work in the sex industry. How can we provide alternative resources so they can support themselves? The teens… Read more »
Can they get welfare? I’d say a big problem is access to a wide variety of jobs too, correct me if I am wrong but there is very high unemployment for the youth in the U.S, 25%? If there are no jobs apart from stripping, etc then that could make it one of the only career choices available?
I guess I wasn’t clear enough that I didn’t actually believe the strippers when they said that they were only doing it until they graduated from college. I remember reading a story where a stripper was trying to make a better life for her son and it was a higher paying job than she would otherwise get. That’s why I’m suggesting that we look at the levels of economic coercion. Unfortunately, welfare is often insufficient to live on. Section 8 housing has helped, but I can’t see anyone surviving on what is provided for food stamps. That’s why food pantries… Read more »
Licence to Pimp: The first thing I was wondering when I saw your preview, is “What the hell is a 16 year-old doing working in a strip club in a major US city?” I understand that there are underage sex workers, but stripping is a legal part of the sex industry, and I simply can’t see why club owners would risk hiring a minor (statutory rape being a pretty serious charge) when there are so many legal adult strippers in the labor pool. Did she somehow manage to get false identification? And if the that’s not the case, and San… Read more »
Consider the data you’re sampling. If you’re coerced into the sex trade, will you post about it on the Internet? Will you have access to a computer? Doesn’t that seem like a bit of a faulty anecdotal study you did just there?
Would you like the unknown to ruin the careers of many who are willingly in the trade? The facts I have are there are enough legitimate and non-coerced in the trade for me to be fully supportive of legalization of prostitution. Measures need to be taken to combat the coersion etc but I wouldn’t want legitimate businesses destroyed because some are not legit, hell there are tradies here that do work under the table without appropriate qualifications, should we ban tradework because some do terrible and unsafe jobs or do we just find a way to increase the regulations to… Read more »
Study after study after study has shown that less than 2% of “willing” prostitutes are actually that. Sex trade workers are nearly always “pre-abused” by the time they’re ten. Do the research. Amanda – in a word, bullshit. If “study after study” confirms these claims, mind quoting a few? Preferably some by someone *other than* Melissa Farley who’s pre-existing bias and shoddy methodology are a matter of record. Abolitionist have been quoting the “under 5% voluntary” in sex work figure going back to Kathleen Barry’s 1979 book “Female Sexual Slavery”, but I have yet to see which actual studies back… Read more »
As long as legitimate sex workers (well those who willingly do it) aren’t caught up and harassed in the efforts then I support it fully. End the trafficking, end the exploitation, and free those who are too young to consent, and those who are older and don’t consent to being prostitutes. Legalizing the profession would be the best way to help make it safer, hell if you really want bring in age cards where the sex worker can put down her real or “stage” name but the cards can still prove they are of age.
It’s legal here in Australia and well the trafficking hasn’t stopped.
Surely it has been reduced though. There are legal brothels here, are the sex workers are checked and made sure they aren’t trafficked?
Would be worth researching. Lots of corruption surrounds trade of drugs and of people. I’ve read that even though Amsterdam has legal sex work there has been increased trafficking. Legalizing something doesn’t immediately change cultural attitudes nor does it stop nderground business from tryi g to maximize profit. It’s about profit and sales and if someone is willing to buy then black market will continue.
I’ve had similar discussions with feminists concerning banning MGC. They say that a ban won’t stop it and point to bans in Africa. They argue that the best approach is to change cultural attitudes. It’s odd that even they concede that banning MGC stops routine MGC. They’ve never explained why there can’t be a ban and a campaign to change society’s views of MGC. It’s like they think only girls should be afforded the protection of the law and this is from feminists who supposedly oppose MGC, but don’t seem to care that we could stop most. Legalizing prostitution may… Read more »
lol teafi king? Sounds like a product from Tv shopping.
I can’t even find stats on how many sex workers there are in Aus :S My googlefu is failing!
Don’t tease Julie. She tries.
??? I’m using a tiny phone. Archy, you are just fine love.
Haha I realized. I just love some of the words made by spelling mistakes. Lucky it wasn’t worse like some of the stuff on damnyouautocorrect 😛
Does anyone know where to find stats on legal sex workers in Australia? I’ve always wondered how many go into that field compared to something like computer repair, etc.
It’s more about human rights – so yes – decriminalization and legalization are preferred. Trafficking can/will occur under any legislation – so prevention and protection mechanisms need to be put into place not matter what you do.
Prostitution has got to stop being the only focus of human trafficking – and the exploitation of people and human rights needs to be looked at – a lot more!
I’m currently working in India for an anti trafficking NGO. Prostitution is legal here but he UN estimates around one million children are trafficked here for sexual exploitation. Legal prostitution has just made it harder to enforce India’s laws against human trafficking. If a girl says she’s over 18 and is in the business voluntarily (regardless of the truth of that statement. Keep in mind it’s usually given to police who these girls see taking payments from pimps or patronizing their brothels) then its difficult to prove otherwise. The level of psychological manipulation involved in this crime makes our discussions… Read more »
I appreciate your efforts as it relates to this problem. I don’t believe that the problem was that prostitution was legalized. It seems that there are problems with the way it is regulated and the law is enforced. The United States has much better capacity to regulate and enforce.
Like they regulate and enforce the sale of alcohol and tobacco? Or how they regulated the financial markets? You don’t really believe that do you?
And your solution in regards to sale of alcohol and tobacco is what? Prohibition? That worked wonderfully when it was tried with alcohol. The same goes for the market for commercial sex. It’s a “vice”, and like all vices involves a certain trade off between pleasure and hazard. And I think history has well demonstrated that people will seek out vices whether they’re prohibited or not, and that regulation has far less harmful social fallout than prohibition.
If you don’t think markets are well-regulated enough, you should be putting some effort toward making sure legislators and officials regulate them better.
Sex trafficking is wrong but harassing sex workers under the guise of protecting them from something which is not a part of their life is just as wrong. Don’t jinn up a sex panic to prevent something that is at best a minor problem numeically.
Lots of good info on the topic of human trafficking on these sites – which do training:
http://freedomnetworkusa.org/
http://www.combathumantrafficking.org/
Go to this site: http://www.ecpat.net
There’s more info and action opps at ECPAT than you can eat in a year.
Its a global org and pisses-off the scumbags of the world. My kinda place!
Runaways are particularly at risk for this. And it’s hard ot get any kind of reliable numbers on incidence.
The human trafficking part of it has to do with bringing someone across a border – human traffciking as applied ot doing this completley domestically is not how I have heard the term used, but that could just be a gap in my understanding – and usually those are adults. It can start out being consensual, as human smuggling, where the alien is paying the smuggler as her/his agent, but then turn non-consensual in an instant and become human trafficking.
My understanding is that tracking/sex slavery is not dependent on the child’s nationality. It about his/her age only.
Yes – CSEC is commercial sexual exploitation of children – and it doesn’t matter what the gender or citizenship of the youth is. The age is < 18, but some states have legislation that states <16. There is an emphasis in the media on domestic minor sex trafficking – of girls, yet there are no statistics in any city/state to substantiate the rates. Domestic youth are trafficked for labor and sexual exploitation – but there are no law enforcement teams doing national stings on construction or agricultural sites – or ckg magazine crews. FBI has been doing these stings for… Read more »
Fox anchor Bill O’Reilly recently reported on an Occupy group that disrupted a round-table on this very subject. Their complaint: cracking down on trafficking might adversely affect sex industry workers.
Occupy: game over.
Consider ckg more sources – the protestors and sex workers are all against trafficking. The HEAT conference’s methods are similar to the approach that was used here – stings and sweeps – which do nothing but drive the entire sex industry and trafficking underground, stigmatize sex workers and empower traffickers.
Thanks, Carol, I went to the source of the Factor story, and I’m still of the opinion that if Occupy is seen as protesting any anti-trafficking effort they have sullied their own movement.
http://www.inquisitr.com/257892/occupy-oakland-protests-a-child-sex-trafficking-conference-and-blames-capitalism-for-prostitution/
Consider your source.
I don’t know if the debate is so much is it wrong, but how should it impact our behavior. There seems to be a push to educate men on the reality of sex trafficking in hopes that men will change their behavior. A lot of people don’t see a problem with prostitution. I’m a big bodily autonomy guy so I lean heavily toward legalization of prostitution. As long as consent is acquired, I don’t really care if it involved an exchange of money. People who are forced into prostitution like these girls (and maybe boys) could not be considered to… Read more »
John:
My view is that we should all be aware of the prevalence of sex trafficking of minors and work hard to expose it. This is not all that different from the issue of child molestation in the Catholic Church or at Penn State or anywhere else. Shine a light on the people who are doing these things, and punish them.
On prostitution and the sex trade in general for adults I certainly think there is a credible argument to be made that legalization with strict regulation would be better for the workers involved.
Tom, if it were so prevalent we wouldn’t have to work so hard to uncover it. Don’t you think if there were really a purported 38,000 trafficked children working the last Superbowl that the cops would have picked up more than one solitary child?
Drug trafficking is very widespread and how hard to we have to work to try and stop that?
Unless you are invloved in either human trafficking or the prevention of it, how exactly would you know how prevelent it is?
From police reports for one and other news outlets. Superbowl VL did not net one single minor despite the hysteria. If there really were rape houses, auctions as depicted in ‘Taken’, or a pimped child on every corner with men lined up around the block I would think the the lay person would detect it. Much like the lay person does actually see a bit of the drug trade. To be honest I no longer believe the anti-trafficking hysterics anymore. It just seems the the scope and breadth of the problem is hugely exaggerated for people with an agenda.
Please read the piece I did with Homeland Security, Mammone. The Justice Department sees it as the #1 issue in terms of slavery of human beings. Unless you are saying there is some grand conspiracy theory than I am not sure how you can discount the problem.
“Sex with a minor is wrong”
Define “minor”. It’s different in every state and country. If you had said “sex with a minor is illegal”, I would agree. Try to keep legality and morality separate though, please, especially when the topic is trying to state a ground floor for what we can all agree on is wrong.
If I remember correctly in my state it’s illegal for an adult to have sex with anyone under 16. It is illegal for anyone more than three years older than someone 16 or 17 to have sex with them. 18 is considered an adult. I’m not certain that an adult having sex with a minor is always illegal (in my state it’s not always illegal depending on the relative ages), but in my opinion, it is always wrong. Regardless of the law a minor should not be considered to have the capacity to reasoned consent. For purposes of discussion I… Read more »
Sorry Drunk. I have personally interviewed girls, and some boys, who were all 12-15 and grossly mistreated. I would say that in each case what happened to them was both wrong morally and criminal.
Great article! A friend of mine has worked with GEMS, an organization that works with teen prostitutes/runaways and tries to get them onto a different path (namely, education)….Rachel Lloyd, the founder, has written an eye-opening book on the subject, “Girls Like Us”….We must do more to protect our children…