Stopping The Trafficking Of Women And Girls For Sexual Exploitation

Stopping the Trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation:

How do we eliminate the demand?

Florence Deacon, OSF

March 8, International Women's Day, 2006

Individual interested in the crime of human trafficking are familiar with the basic statistics: Up to 800,000 people are trafficked internationally each year for sexual exploitation and forced labor, 80% of them women or girls. While the most common United States government estimates cited are from 14,500 to 17,500, an NGO resource guide prepared by the US Department of Justice put the figure as high as 50,000 people trafficked into the US each year.[ Senator Dale Volker, Public Hearing on the Issue of Human Trafficking, New York Senate Codes Committee, February 2, 2006; Trafficking in Persons: A Guide for Non-Governmental Organizations, US Department of Justice, http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/crim/wetf/trafficbrochure.html accessed on 2/04/06.] The International Labor Organization has estimated that yearly profits from sexual trafficking are $27.8 billion, averaging $23,000 for each victim of sexual exploitation.[ A Global Alliance Against Forced Labor, cited by Steven Greenhouse in Forced Labor Said to Bind 12 Million, New York Times, May 12, 2005.]

The United States government defines "Severe forms of trafficking in persons" as "1) sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion or in which the person induced to perform such an act is under 18; or 2) the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of subjecting that person to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery." However, using minors in commercial sexual activity is considered trafficking even if coercion is not involved.[Trafficking in Persons: A Guide for Non-Governmental Organizations, US Department of Justice, http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/crim/wetf/trafficbrochure.html accessed on 2/04/06.

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As the crime of trafficking in persons becomes more visible, many governments and Non-governmental organizations have focused on the "supply side" of the problem and are developing mechanisms to protect people from being trafficked, to rescue those who already have been, and to reintegrate them back into society. However, others realize that no matter how effective these programs are, trafficking will continue as long as there is a demand for it. This paper will present various approaches to understanding the "demand side" of trafficking women and children for sexual purposes, then will set the context in which sex trafficking flourishes and suggest ways to eliminate the demand for it.

Trafficking in women and children for sexual purposes is closely tied to prostitution, which is a controversial topic today. Some argue that prostitution is a free choice of women and part of their human right to earn a living, so it should be legalized. They argue that "demand for sex work is not a predominant driving factor for trafficking, which is driven by poverty, race, and gender inequities." According to the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center, Network of Sex Work Projects, and Prostitutes of New York, arresting johns in order to reduce trafficking "represents a dangerous slippage into an anti-sex work, anti-male and homophobic mindset which, under the guise of protecting sex workers, is another way of undermining sex workers' autonomy and causing more harm to them." While some argue that purchasing sex acts is a crime of violence against women, the Urban Justice Center disagrees: "Extending the powers of law enforcement into yet another sphere of the lives of sex workers presents a great threat to the human rights of sex workers." They believe that effective labor and migration legislation, not eliminating the demand for prostitution, will end trafficking.[ Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center, Network of Sex Work Projects, and Prostitutes of New York, March 2005, for Beijing + 10.]

This argument is being played out in New York state at present as the legislature is drafting "AN ACT to amend the penal law, the civil practice law and rules, and the criminal procedure law, in relation to criminalizing the trafficking of persons for labor servitude and sexual servitude."[ Senate Bill # 6231, Assembly Bill # 1898-a.] As a result of lobbying by "sex workers" who want prostitution to be legalized, the sexual servitude portion of the initial bill has been weakened.[ Conversation with Senator Volker, February 2, 2006.]

Donna Hughes, a professor in the Women's Studies Program at the University of Rhode Island is frequently consulted by governments on trafficking in women and children for sexual purposes. She has divided the demand side of sex trafficking into three components: the person who purchases sex acts; the pimps, traffickers, brothel owners and corrupt officials who profit from prostitution and trafficking; and the culture which encourages demand by normalizing prostitution, lap dancing, or other commercial sexual activities.[ Donna Hughes, Best Practices to Address the Demand Side of Sex Trafficking, August 2004, p. 6. http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/demand_sex_trafficking.pdf, accessed 12/9/05] Each of these must be addressed to eliminate the demand for sex trafficking.

Kevin Bales, a consultant to the United Nations Global Program on Trafficking in Persons, has suggested looking at basic marketing principles to understand the demand, since for the traffickers, it is an economic exchange in which trafficked people are the "products" that produce a profit.[ Kevin Bales, Understanding the Demand behind Human Trafficking, http://www.freetheslaves.net/files/Understanding_the_Demand.doc accessed 2/8/06. Since his ideas were tentative, he asked that he not be quoted without permission. He has not responded to communication in that regard.] He noted that trafficking is only possible in an economic context in which workers can be enslaved for profit, and a social context that allows such exploitation.

Bales points out that slavery is an economic and social relationship between two people involving very unequal power, exploitation and violence. Such a moral economy can only exist in a subculture which marginalizes or defines some people in a way that makes exploitation possible. A public re-definition must precede changes in behavior. The application of basic human rights takes place in a cultural context, and extending basic rights to