Trump Is In No Position To Sign A Human Trafficking Bill

My latest piece, "Congress's New Sex Trafficking Bill Won't Solve Anything," is up at The American Conservative. It's a criticism of the latest sex trafficking bill passed by Congress, FOSTA.

The bill prohibits website owners from “promoting or facilitating prostitution of another person.” The terms “force, fraud, or coercion,” were not mentioned, which means Congress essentially redrafted the traditional definition of human trafficking to include prostitution between consenting adults.

Human trafficking is actually a fairly complex subject, but there is one simple, central caveat -- traffickers thrive upon vulnerability. Thus, criminal penalties for prostitution leave members of the sex industry susceptible to exploitation because they can’t go to the police for protection. 

By the way, that exploitation isn’t entirely limited to pimps and traffickers. In order to avoid being arrested, sex workers are often extorted for free sex by those who are sworn to “protect and serve.” Last year, the city of Oakland settled a civil lawsuit with a teen prostitute who had sex with as many 30 local police officers. More than a few officers had sex with her while she was underage.

Obviously, there’s no definitive way of knowing the exact extent of this police extortion. However, there was one academic study that provided statistics. The author Stephen Dubner and economist Steven Levitt have published numerous unconventional studies under the banner of “Freakonomics.” One of which found that 3% of Chicago prostitutes’ sex acts were provided for free to area police officers to avoid arrest.

Contrary to popular belief, websites that allow sex workers to advertise their services help them to avoid working for a pimp. With technology, they can selectively screen their clients and provide the police with data in case they are victimized. Albeit, that is the case in countries where prostitution is decriminalized. For those reasons and more, a university-conducted survey found that nearly 80% of U.K.-based sex workers responded that the Internet made their work conditions safer.

But, in the end, this concept generally falls on deaf ears because we live in a time when the terms “prostitution” and “trafficking” are falsely used interchangeably. In other words, the debate surrounding human trafficking has been stifled by an extremely flawed belief that essentially everyone in the sex industry is a victim of human trafficking.

It’s a small part of the current moral panic in which over-reactions are manufactured by activist organizations. Case in point, Walmart recently agreed to remove issues of Cosmopolitan magazine from checkout stands after receiving pressure from the anti-pornography group, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.

Worst of all, this moral panic often ignores the more relevant issue of labor trafficking. Case in point, Donald Trump has made human trafficking a major talking point without even a hint of pushback from the press. In fact, he declared January as Human Trafficking Prevention Month. Therefore, with that in mind, we should evaluate the labor record of the President.

Donald Trump - Wikimedia Commons

During the 2016 campaign, an alarming story got lost in the mix. The New York Times and Vice profiled the human trafficking conditions at the Trump International Golf Club in Dubai. Foreign construction workers were lured to Dubai with contracts for certain wages. However, upon arrival their passports were taken, they were charged exorbitant fees, paid only a fraction of their promised wages, and essentially forced into indentured servitude.

In his defense, Donald Trump doesn’t own the Trump International Golf Club in Dubai. However, it’s deeply disturbing that the person who signed the FOSTA bill earned up to $10 million licensing his name to a property that, by all indications, was built with modern-day slave labor.

International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers

Yesterday, December 17th, marked the 14th annual International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. Vigils were held worldwide to honor the victims who were murdered this year. 

By and large, this day isn’t recognized by the media within the U.S. This is a point that I detailed last year with a blog post, “US Media Ignores International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.” However, one reporter from a major American newspaper, Kathy Boccella of The Philadelphia Enquirer, deserves credit for writing a story about the vigil that took place in her city. Otherwise, this is a day that is almost completely censored by the American corporate media. 

For a list of 36 sex workers who were killed inside the U.S. this year, you can look at this link from the Sex Workers Outreach Project. One particular victim, Brittany Taylor was murdered inside a Tamarac, FL motel. The man who was indicted for her murder, Tyquan Pearson, was seen leaving the motel with a large plastic container. Investigators later found Taylor’s body inside a plastic storage bin buried in Pearson’s backyard.

The motivation behind this sadistic murder has not yet been determined. However, it is an indisputable fact sex workers are targeted for this kind of violence at an alarmingly higher rate than the rest of society. For instance, one study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology found that sex workers in Colorado were 18 times more likely to be killed than women of the same age and race. A variety of studies have come to even more severe conclusions. 

Stigma and the criminalization of prostitution are main reasons behind such rampant violence. For those reasons, sex workers are unlikely to contact the police to report violent crimes that have been committed against them. Consequently, serial killers view them as easier targets. 

The Green River Killer, Gary Ridgway, killed as many as 49 women, most of whom were prostitutes. He openly expressed those thoughts:

“I picked prostitutes as my victims because I hated most prostitutes, and I did not want to pay them for sex…I knew they would not be reported missing right away and might never be reported missing. I picked prostitutes because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught.” 

Gary Ridgway was sentenced on December 17, 2003. In turn, that date has been recognized every year since as the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. This day memorializes the victims, such as Brittany Taylor. She was only 19 years old and had planned to join the military. Meanwhile, her grieving mother has to live the pain of having a child murdered in a senseless tragedy.

Keep in mind that the vigils that are held on the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers memorialize the victims of murder. There simply wouldn’t be enough time to recognize all of the sex workers who are victims of violence.  

There are many studies of this kind and the numbers are always staggering. The Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Institute published two studies on indoor and outdoor prostitution. That group found that 80% of outdoor prostitutes and 42% of indoor prostitutes were victims of workplace violence. More alarming, fourteen percent of the respondents reported being assaulted by police officers. In many cases, sex workers are extorted for free sex by police officers.

You can also read a stunning factsheet provided by the Sex Workers Outreach Project. In particular, there’s a stark contrast between the violence rates in the U.K., where prostitution is semi-decriminalized, and the U.S. Sex workers in the U.K. experience demonstrably lower levels of violence than in the U.S. 

The obvious conclusions are that are decriminalization doesn’t eliminate the stigma associated with prostitution. However, it does grant sex workers some basic legal rights, which creates safer working conditions and drastically reduces the level of violence in their lives. And that’s one of the most important takeaways from December 17th. This marginalized segment of society is simply asking for their basic human right to be protected from violence.

Prostitution Headlines from Super Bowl Week Reveal Struggles & Progress

Over the years, several news outlets have produced sensational stories about thousands of “sex slaves” being trafficked to the Super Bowl. There were various human trafficking news reports related to the Super Bowl this weekend, but none of them included blatantly absurd suggestions that 100,000 victims would be in the vicinity, as has been reported in the past. Most media outlets have toned down the rhetoric based upon the results from past years. It’s sad to say, but that is progress in the prostitution debate.  

Mint Press News published an article, “Houston’s Hosting The Super Bowl & A Growing Human Trafficking Industry.” It was the typical aggressive anti-prostitution/trafficking news piece, including a stock photo with a scared young girl being touched by a menacing older man. However, the tone is shifting in this genre. This article didn’t claim that there would be a spike in trafficking linked with the Super Bowl. In fact, it included an interview with Rebecca Pfeffer, an assistant professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Houston-Downtown, who openly labeled the Super Bowl trafficking connection as a “myth.”

In short, this piece by Mint Press News accurately pointed out that human trafficking takes place throughout the calendar year. It even pointed to the issue of labor trafficking, which is usually omitted from this discussion even though labor trafficking is more prevalent than sex trafficking. As a matter of fact, Sports Illustrated printed an article, “The Super Bowl Sex-Trafficking Myth: Is it the crisis it's cracked up to be?” It accurately demonstrated that there is a verifiable human trafficking problem in this country, but the extent of the problem has been vastly exaggerated.

Make no mistake, there were credible news reports about actual cases of sex trafficking in Houston for Super Bowl weekend. However, in general, the issue of human trafficking has been grossly exaggerated. Journalistic misrepresentations ruin honest debate for better policies. After all, the media has an unofficial role in determining public policy. This Super Bowl trafficking myth has been perpetuated by news organizations that haven’t vetted for facts when quoting socially conservative activists who believe that sex work can’t be consensual. They have successfully conflated prostitution with human trafficking. In other words, many of the media’s sources are anti-prostitution activists who use human trafficking as a red herring.

The media has blindly accepted the narrative from the law enforcement community that the only way to combat sex trafficking is to criminalize everyone in the sex industry. When prostitution/trafficking stings take place, most news organizations rely solely upon arrest figures. Few news outlets dive into the details to find out if there were any actual victims of trafficking. Instead, most of these articles use ambiguous language by stating that the police “helped get these women off of the streets.” These kinds of reports neglect to mention that these “saved” women are in jail while awaiting trial for prostitution charges.

Everyone wants to eliminate human trafficking, but moral panics, such as the Super Bowl trafficking myth, have eliminated any debate to find the best course of action for tackling this issue. Most modern news coverage implies that every sex worker is a victim of human trafficking. Consequently, very few news outlets offer a different perspective that decriminalization would grant sex workers their basic rights to be protected against force, fraud, or coercion.

Why did so many news outlets embrace this form of yellow journalism, i.e. the Super Bowl trafficking myth? Sex trafficking stories certainly generate income, but many anti-trafficking “activists” with conflicts of interest helped create this myth. Long story short, in multiple ways, the anti-trafficking movement has become a racket, i.e. a dishonest and lucrative business model. Elizabeth Anne Moore wrote a blistering investigative report in 2015 for Truthout, “The American Rescue Industry: Toward an Anti-Trafficking Paramilitary,” which revealed that the top 36 anti-trafficking/rescue organizations collected $1.2 billion over the course of 2012 (the latest public records). However, Moore’s report demonstrated that most of these groups had very little money to assist actual victims of human trafficking. Granted, not everyone is this profession has cynical goals, but a billion dollar market certainly draws many opportunists.

Again, the anti-trafficking movement has become a racket. One of the other definitions of a racket is applicable, i.e. an entity that poses itself as the solution for a problem that wouldn’t exist without their involvement. Granted, sex trafficking will occur whether prostitution is decriminalized, legalized, or criminalized. However, criminalization will inevitably lead to more exploitation for those in the sex industry. Furthermore, prostitution laws haven’t had a noticeable effect on the demand. Look at the column from last Thursday by The Miami Herald, “Despite closing of 'adult' section, Miami Backpage girls thriving online.” The government was able to pressure that website to remove their adult ads, but that merely pushed the industry underground with fewer protections for sex workers and less transparency for law enforcement.

A story from last Tuesday in Alaska should eliminate any doubt for those who don’t believe that prostitution laws inherently lead to the exploitation of sex workers. A prominent activist, Tara Burns, is leading a sex workers rights group, Community United for Safety and Protection (CUSP), that is lobbying for the state to close a loophole that allows undercover police officers to have sex with prostitutes during their investigations. Burns has a history of illustrating the absurdity and hypocrisy of her state’s prostitution laws, including cases in which women have been convicted of “trafficking” themselves.

It’s difficult to believe in the prohibition of sex work when so many government officials are guilty of committing this crime. Fairly often, off-duty police are swept up in undercover stings. There were no such headlines this week, but there were two stories involving prosecutors (one current assistant district attorney and one former district attorney) who were standing trial for solicitation of prostitution.   

Numerous law enforcement officers are abusing their roles as “saviors” against sex trafficking. As a matter of fact, Alaska isn’t the only state that claims that it’s necessary for the police to have sex with prostitutes in order to protect them from trafficking. Last Friday, Hawaii’s state introduced a bill that would decriminalize prostitution and close the loophole that allows police officers to have sex with prostitutes during their investigations. Unlike Alaska, Hawaii’s loophole was a story of national interest dating back to 2014. Despite the negative publicity surrounding that story, no lawmaker has publicly championed this bill, nor does it appear likely to pass. The author of the proposal, House Speaker Joseph Souki, is publicly neutral on the issue and he points out that he wrote the bill as a favor to a persistent activist, Tracy Ryan, who lobbied the legislature to write a similar proposal ten years ago.

There would be much more support for this bill if the media presented a more fair and balanced approach to the prostitution debate. For example, a study was published two weeks ago in a renowned peer-reviewed medical journal, The Lancet, which concluded that countries with criminalized prostitution had significantly higher levels of HIV. There is a litany of research that comes to similar conclusions and that’s partially why the most respected health organizations, such as UNAIDS and the World Health Organization, support the decriminalization of sex work.

Likewise, the top human rights and social justice organizations, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, support the decriminalization of sex work. In short, the stigmatization from prostitution laws minimize the fundamental human rights of sex workers. As you know, sex workers are frequently victims of violent crime because predators know that sex workers are not provided the same legal protections as the rest of society. Last Friday, a California man was sentenced to death for raping and murdering four sex workers. In this case, the police were able to track him down because he is a registered sex offender who was wearing an ankle monitor. However, the murders of sex workers often go unsolved due to their criminalized status; this is another topic that the American media does a disservice.    

In conclusion, you have to recognize progress when you see it. Far fewer media organizations are willing to propagate the Super Bowl trafficking myth, which is a step towards a more honest debate about prostitution. Hawaii’s bill is an opportunity for progress that shouldn’t be taken lightly. The positives far outweigh the negatives with decriminalization; the only issue is spreading the word.