sex trafficking? what sex trafficking?
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stethoscope
Well-Known Member
I have been ridiculed and vilified on Urban for my take on "trafficking" (and prostitution in general).
I am pro-choice on prostitution and completely anti-trafficking - the vast, vast majority of which is for general, unskilled labour.
And I have argued forever that the genuine trafficking of unwilling people into prostitution is miniscule.
In this case, after many months of the intensive, focussed and coordinated work of 55 different police forces accross the UK, thousands of raids and over 500 arrests ..... of the fifteen convictions secured for "trafficking", ten were based on the (weird UK,) law that allows convictions for "trafficking", where the prostitutes involved were willing conspiritors in their "trafficking".
Wake up!
There's nothing wrong with prostitution, nor with those who choose to engage in it, despite the "moral panic" that surrounds it - it's an old and (generally) honourable profession - and the "moral panic" around "people trafficking" should be focussed where it's needed; trafficking cheap labour.
The policy emphasis must be upon protecting and supporting sex workers and not upon seeking demons where few lurk.
Yes, people trafficking is vile, but most is about cheap labour - very few people need to be genuinely "trafficked" into prostitution, the monetary rewards are sufficient to ensure a vast and willing influx of participants.
And the idea that someone can be convicted of "trafficking" when all the supposedly "trafficked" people are complicit in the crime seems like insanity to me.
It's moralistic nonsense of the worst sort. Trying to pass legislation to curb supposedly "immoral" behaviour conducted between/among consenting adults is insane, much like putting people in jail for up to five years for simple possession of small amounts of cannabis, while 9,000+ die in the UK each year directly from overindulging in alcohol (and that is "direct", not including drink driving or alcohol related violence).
"Trafficking" related to prostitution is a miniscule problem, particularly when compared with people trafficked into the general job market. Intimidation and volence are rife in the real trafficking arena and yet everyone seems to ignore this and focus on prostitution.
I believe this is driven by a moralistic agenda and is in danger of trivialising and distracting attention from the very genuine trafficking that does occur.
The vast, vast, VAST majority of prostitutes have chosen this work because it is far, far, FAR more lucrative than anything else they can do. We should let them get on with it, support them, and focus "trafficking" enforcement efforts on those many tens of thousands of genuinelly trafficked workers who are forced, against their will, into hard labour for little more than thruppence a day.
Talk about missing the point!
Woof
I guess we'll have to differ on the criminalising those that buy it thing
My principal concern I guess, is that ensuring that sex workers are there not because they are trapped into it - including the trafficking, pimp/gang, drug dependency, etc. issues. I'm aware that some choose it and do well from it.
I suppose I'm personally very uncomfortable with anyone buying sex from someone else, not in a sex work/'prostitution' is fundamentally wrong/immoral way, moreover I don't like the idea of commoditising/marketisation of the human body. At the same time, it looks like I completely disagree with untethered here too!
Here we go again, eh, Dylan?
When will people wake up?
The "War on Trafficking", is to sex workers (just trying to feed their kids and get on with life,) as the "War on Terror" is to innocent Iraqis and Afghanis (just trying to feed their kids and get on with life).
Wake up peeps, the person you are looking for is not here!
Woof
Most would prefer investment bankers' bonuses - were it possible, as would I.
That's irrelevant.
And to suggest that most prostitutes are "on the drugs", is offensive.
For the vast majority, it's just a job - and a far better, far more flexible and FAR more lucrative one than their other options.
By all means, focus your attention on problematic drug users if that is your emotional emphasis (I'm all for better provision for this group,) but don't insult prostitutes with your misguided concept that "most" are doing anything other than making a rational choice.
Woof
Mr Moose
What the hell are we supposed to tell the kids?
It's one thing to be anti-criminalisation and another to bang a drum for it.
I wouldn't want to encourage anyone into it anymore than I'd want them to have to run the gauntlet to do it.
Only in a perfect world could it really be a 'choice'.
I wouldn't want to encourage anyone into it anymore than I'd want them to have to run the gauntlet to do it.
Only in a perfect world could it really be a 'choice'.
The whole "trafficking" thing, when it comes to prostitution, is not far from the whole "red under the bed" thing when it was communism in the USA in the 1950's.
It's a smokescreen, a diversion, a moral panic.
Global prostitution is HUGE.
Sex trafficking is miniscule, it's a distraction.
Focus on the real cheap-labour trafficking....
....Oh, and the million dead civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Woof
It's a smokescreen, a diversion, a moral panic.
Global prostitution is HUGE.
Sex trafficking is miniscule, it's a distraction.
Focus on the real cheap-labour trafficking....
....Oh, and the million dead civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Woof
dylans
overlord of all acorns
Here we go again, eh, Dylan?
When will people wake up?
The "War on Trafficking", is to sex workers (just trying to feed their kids and get on with life,) as the "War on Terror" is to innocent Iraqis and Afghanis (just trying to feed their kids and get on with life).
Wake up peeps, the person you are looking for is not here!
Woof
Absolutely. Trafficking is a myth that is being used to criminalise sex workers.
It is interesting that with you as the sole exception, everyone else on this thread completely ignored that post. The only post on here where sex workers voices are actually heard. WATCH THE MOVIE. Trafficking laws are being used to criminalise, arrest, rob and rape sex workers all in the name of saving them.
http://www.channels.com/episodes/show/3402318/No-Exit-News-MTV-and-the-trafficking-law-in-Cambodia
I respect peoples choices. I'm banging a drum for those that make the choice.
I agree.
Freedom of choice.
As long as no one is harmed, it's just another transaction - I'll fuck you if you fix my boiler (or give my daughter really nice haircuts for the next two months).
In a "perfect world", we'd all have bakers bonuses and it wouldn't fucking matter.
In the meantime......
....You go ahead and fix boilers or give haircuts if that's what suits you.
fair?
Woof
agricola
a genuine importer of owls
It is somewhat naive to suggest that even a sizeable minority of sex-workers do so purely out of choice - there is usually some form of compulsion involved, be it financial, addiction to various substances or the physical compulsion of a trafficker / pimp. This is even more true when one considers those most at risk.
That doesnt justify what has been done (or what Labour are trying to do) to deal with the problem, but we should not pretend that the situation of prostitutes is all sweetness and light.
That doesnt justify what has been done (or what Labour are trying to do) to deal with the problem, but we should not pretend that the situation of prostitutes is all sweetness and light.
dylans
overlord of all acorns
Hallelujah
As Jessiedog says, some of us have been ridiculed and insulted for taking this position but the truth is "trafficking" is a myth. It is a myth that reduces migrant workers to "victims" in need of "saving" where in reality sex workers are workers who need rights.
In developing countries US sponsored anti trafficking laws are being used to criminalise sex workers, particularly migrant sex workers. Brothels are closed, forcing women to work in dangerous conditions, women are regularly robbed, arrested and raped by the police. Sex workers are being forcibly "rescued" against their will and locked in "rehabilitation centres." HIV and condom health organisations are being shut down.
Sex work is work. Sex workers don't want to be rescued they want workers rights
Mr Moose
What the hell are we supposed to tell the kids?
I respect peoples choices. I'm banging a drum for those that make the choice.
I agree.
Freedom of choice.
As long as no one is harmed, it's just another transaction - I'll fuck you if you fix my boiler (or give my daughter really nice haircuts for the next two months).
In a "perfect world", we'd all have bakers bonuses and it wouldn't fucking matter.
In the meantime......
....You go ahead and fix boilers or give haircuts if that's what suits you.
fair?
Woof
You have a poor definition of 'choice'.
tim
EXPLODED TIM! (Help me!!!)
Grandma Death
Reconfiguring & Reconstructing
So if I go to the local haunts of street prostitutes in my town who are in the majority of cases crack or smack heads and I pay them to have sex-they in turn then go out buy some gear get off their heads....who knows if they have kids perhaps the kids are left neglected whilst they are off their heads and as a punter I'm funding a drug habit that's destroying their lives.Of course not to mention the recognised psychological effects on someone who has to suck multiple dicks a day just to survive....
...I can see how you can say nobody is being harmed there and it's just 'another transaction'
Edit...last time I bought a pair of shoes can't remember it being anything like that...
Grandma Death
Reconfiguring & Reconstructing
Indeed. I would argue there is no such thing as 'free choice' we are each and everyone of us influenced by the world around us. I would even add the majority of prostitutes never grew up wanting to choose their profession but rather it was the lack of choices that forced them into the profession.
Arguing for workers co operatives and and sex workers unions doesn't really solve the problem of the long term damaging impact to individuals who find them self in this position or indeed the daily risk they face from punters. It may minimise them but it never eliminates them.
Perhaps we as a society should start looking at why women and men become involved in the game and what drives the punters rather than bolting the stable door after the horse has bolted.
Grandma Death
Reconfiguring & Reconstructing
I just don't buy this line at all. Prostitution is an illegal activity and like any other illegal activity organised crime isn't far behind. Are you or the article suggesting that organised crime would in no way operate without a degree of coercion or the threat of force to make money within the sex industry?
Pretty much ANY criminal activity that involves organised crime operates in this manner-why on earth would prostitution somehow be any different from any other illegal activity?
agricola
a genuine importer of owls
Actually, it isnt illegal and (to my mind at least) never has been. There are aspects of it that are illegal - soliciting, brothel-keeping etc - but for a woman to sell herself and live off the proceeds isnt. Given that criminalizing it would be probably as effective and socially responsible as criminalizing drug-taking has been, it should not be criminalized.
dylans
overlord of all acorns
Are you really that dense?
You have this completely on its head It is the criminalisation of sex work which drives sex workers into the arms of organised crime.
It is the very illegality of sex work which leave many in the industry vulnerable to the very abuse that anti trafficking legislation claims to be fighting.
It is a self fullfilling prophecy. The more sex workers are criminalised and prostitution forced underground then the more vulnerable those workers become to criminal abuse like enslavement and force.
We are not talking about a few crack heads on the corner. All over the world, especially in developing countries the US led anti trafficking laws are being used to attack poor women who choose YES CHOOSE to be in the sex industry.
Anti trafficking is an ideological construct that is being used to mask a vicious anti prostitution policy which is leaving sex workers at risk of serious human rights abuse.
They are being labelled "victims" This is the language that the New Labour moralists used. They need to be "saved" I kid you not, In countries like Cambodia women are "rescued" from brothels. Rescued against their will and locked in "rehabilitation centres" which are nothing more than detention camps where they are robbed and raped by police. .In the name of anti trafficking" sex workers around the world are being denied basic human rights.
Treat sex workers for what they are. Workers. Give sex workers the same labour rights as any other worker and criminal abuse evaporates. This is what those in the industry want. Decriminalisation.
Agree. but he is a pervy free marketer....
I think some people are gleeful for reasons explained in a comment I took from one of the articles.
Secondly could you remind me what labour have done to stop sex trafficking?
About as free as any other job......
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
Yes, that's right, the lads I work with could easily have got other jobs, they just "chose" to sex work.
Fuckwit.
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
Homelessness, drug problems and a history of being sexually abused.
dylans
overlord of all acorns
We all have limited choices. We trade off what is possible with what we find acceptable.What we can do and what we are prepared to do. 15 years ago I used to work in factories I fucking hated it. I could have chosen to work in a bar but the hours and pay werent as good. I CHOSE to work in a horrible stinking factory. It was real shithole too. I came home with needles of metal in my hands. I stuck it out for six months and couldnt do it anymore. I chose to do it cus the money was better than anything else at the time.
A young poor woman in a developing country, lets say Vietnam, faces choices and options of a different kind. But she has choices. She can work for $40.00 per month 12 hours a day in a garment factory and be poor. This is what most women do choose.
Or she can she can go to the bars twice a week and sleep with a customer or two. And make $100 a night. If she does this she knows there is a social cost. She knows better than you. If she becomes a prostitute it is a very conscious choice and you do those in the industry no favours by denying that.
She has a choice. It may be a shitty choice but hey, end poverty or shut up. The last thing that a sex workers wants is moralistic Westerners telling her that they object to how she earns a living, that she has no choice and that she is a victim. this only further disempowers her. She doesn't need saving, she need her rights
A young poor woman in a developing country, lets say Vietnam, faces choices and options of a different kind. But she has choices. She can work for $40.00 per month 12 hours a day in a garment factory and be poor. This is what most women do choose.
Or she can she can go to the bars twice a week and sleep with a customer or two. And make $100 a night. If she does this she knows there is a social cost. She knows better than you. If she becomes a prostitute it is a very conscious choice and you do those in the industry no favours by denying that.
She has a choice. It may be a shitty choice but hey, end poverty or shut up. The last thing that a sex workers wants is moralistic Westerners telling her that they object to how she earns a living, that she has no choice and that she is a victim. this only further disempowers her. She doesn't need saving, she need her rights
agricola
a genuine importer of owls
The problem on this thread is that certain people have taken the article that formed the OP and have appeared to extend it to mean that noone is "forced" into prostitution. As I said earlier, this is very naive.
dylans
overlord of all acorns
No that is not the argument. What those of us who deny the existance of trafficking are saying is that the anti trafficking lobby has pursued a moralistic anti prostitution agenda under the cover of rescuing the victims of trafficking. No "victims" are being rescued at all. Instead sex workers are being criminalised and denied basic human rights
They have manipulated opinion and now they have been shown to be liars. The entire house of cards has come crashing down.
Trafficking is a myth. You have been lied to
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