Sex Trafficking on the Rise

I heard a special feature story on the radio the other day that reminded me of a post that ihavemythings posted a while ago about the “sex wars.” This particular piece was on child prostitution and trafficking in Oakland, California. The story explains the dire situation of female minors who have been trafficked from their hometowns to work in the sex trade in the Oakland and greater Bay Area. Many of the girls were from different parts of California and were abducted by traffickers or forced into “dating” pimps who would then sell them to traffickers.

 

The scary part is (besides, well, all of it) is that human (read: female and children) trafficking is a growing global industry. Not only is it “growing,” it has truly become an epidemic. If policies aren’t changed (which they aren’t likely to in the near future, and I’ll explain why in a moment), human trafficking will become the most lucrative of the three criminal industries in ten years, the other two being the weapons trade and the drug trade.*  The reason for this being the disgustingly high profits that traffickers enjoy-around $45,000 for each person trafficked-meaning that a successful trafficker could make upwards of $500,000 a year with little of the risk that is involved in both the weapons and the drug trade.* The nature of human trafficking is also what makes it so sickeningly lucrative. Drugs are produced and sold for one-time use by the consumer, however, much production and labor goes into the product before the user hastily consumes it. In contrast, the “products” in the sex work industry are people, people who can be used over and over again and require no skills, training or labor before being “consumed.” At the same time, the traffickers and pimps are free to keep any “salary” or any money that the worker has made, enslaving them and reaping the benefits of their labor.

Why is there such little risk involved for modern day slave traders you ask? Well, that’s a damn fine question. It seems that the United States has done little to combat the issue within our own borders, and thus the problem is perpetuated throughout the world. In fact, the U.S. just so happens to receive much of the traffickers for use in American brothels. Sex traffickers face little risk for a variety of reasons. 1) The trade is surprisingly hard to trace back to individuals because most advertisement for sex services is posted by pimps and traffickers anonymously on the Internet. 2) The issue is not on the forefront of the American media and so put on the backburner to the “War on Drugs” or the “War on Poverty” (why is there no “War on Modern Sexual Slavery of Children and Women”?!) 3) As I mentioned before, female migration from developing nations is more often than not into the “service” or “entertainment” industries where women are mistreated as either maids, house-workers, or prostitutes, making the issue transnational and more difficult to assess. Lastly, let’s face it, this issue has not properly been addressed because it is an issue that concerns women and children. Children have no voice of their own and women have voices that are drowned out by the men who run their countries.

 

For example, let’s examine the current policies of the Oakland Police Department to combat child prostitution in the area. The police used to target the johns and pimps when making arrests, but have since moved to a policy of going after the child prostitutes. That’s right, the police department’s “tactic” to combat sex trafficking and child sex slavery is to arrest the children who “participate” in the industry. In what bizarre world do we allow children who are raped to be arrested for “their” “actions”? In another situation I believe they call this statutory rape or child molestation, however, since these girls are “prostitutes,” (most often by no choice of their own) their rights are thrown right out the window, regardless of the fact that they are child slaves.

 

One hundred children are trafficked on average EVERY NIGHT to Oakland’s red-light district. Doesn’t that sound like a huge, HUGE issue to you? Me too. I find it hard to stomach that our country’s police departments have no problem finding infinite funding to combat the so-called “War on Drugs” but can’t seem to find the means to fund new policies that would combat sex slavery. That’s a fucking mismatch of morals if you ask me.

 

This issue really hits a cord with me. Obviously, every issue that we talk about on the blog does, but this is the type of thing that really keeps me up at night. If you’re interested in learning more and/or donating your time or money to help stop sex trafficking, check out some of these awesome organizations:

 

http://www.misssey.org/index.html

 

http://www.newdayforchildren.com/

 

*McKelvey, Tara “Of Human Bondage,” 2004.

and

*Samarsinghe, Vidyamali “Female Labor in Sex Trafficking: A Darker Side of Globalization”