Sex Trafficking ~~ The Conversation

 https://theconversation.com/sex-trafficking-isnt-what-you-think-4-myths-debunked-and-1-real-world-way-to-prevent-sexual-exploitation-158852

~~ and ~~

 https://theconversation.com/4-questions-answered-on-sex-trafficking-in-the-us-120098

 

 

 Sex Trafficking Isn't What You Think:  4 Myths Debunked and 1 Real World Way to Prevent Sexual Exploitation

The idea that sex trafficking is an urgent social problem is woven into American media stories, from reports of Republican U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz’s alleged trafficking of teenage girls to debunked QAnon conspiracy theories about a sexual slavery ring run through online retailer Wayfair.

The common perception of sex trafficking involves a young, passive woman captured by an aggressive trafficker. The woman is hidden and waiting to be rescued by law enforcement. She is probably white, because, as the legal scholar Jayashri Srikantiah writes, the “iconic victim” of trafficking usually is depicted this way.

This is essentially the plot of the “Taken” movies, in which teenage Americans are kidnapped abroad and sold into sexual slavery. Such concerns fuel viral posts and TikTok videos about alleged but unproven trafficking in IKEA parking lots, malls and pizza shops.

This is not how sex trafficking usually occurs.

Since 2013, I have researched human trafficking in the midwestern U.S. In interviews with law enforcement, medical providers, case managers, victim advocates and immigration lawyers, I found that even these frontline workers inconsistently define and apply the label “trafficking victim” – especially when it comes to sex trafficking. That makes it harder for these professionals to get trafficked people the help they request.

So here are the facts and the law.

Demonstrators gather May 1, 2021, outside of the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio, to protest against pedophilia and sex trafficking. Scott Olson/Getty Images

What is sex trafficking?

The Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 provides the official legal definition for sex and labor trafficking in the United States.

It makes “trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age” a federal crime.

In short, to legally qualify as sex trafficking, a sex act involving an adult must include “force, fraud, and coercion.” This could look like someone – a family member, a romantic partner or a market facilitator colloquially described as a “pimp” or “madam” – physically abusing or threatening another adult into sex for money or resources.

With minors, any and all sexual exchanges – that is, trading sex for something of value like cash or food – are considered sex trafficking.

How common is sex trafficking?

Data on human trafficking is notoriously messy and difficult to measure. Survivors may be hesitant to disclose their exploitation out of fear of deportation, if they are undocumented, or arrest. That leads to underreporting.

One way to approximate how many people are being trafficked in the United States is to consult federal grant reports, as suggested by anti-trafficking nonprofit Freedom Network USA.

For example, the federal Office for Victims of Crime served 9,854 total clients – some of whom identified as trafficked, others who showed “strong indicators of trafficking victimization” – between July 2019 and June 2020. The Department of Health and Human Services Office on Trafficking in Persons served 2,398 trafficking survivors during the 2019 fiscal year.

Data from the same office also shows that 25,597 “potential victims” of sex and labor trafficking were identified through calls to the National Human Trafficking Hotline.

Again, this data is incomplete – if survivors have not accessed these particular resources or called these specific hotlines, they are not represented here.

What does sex trafficking look like?

As with other sexual crimes, like rape, sex trafficking survivors often experience violence at the hands of someone they know, not a complete stranger.

Movies like ‘Taken’ – and its many sequels – present an unlikely sex-trafficking scenario in which an American teen abroad is snatched and sold into sexual slavery. EuropaCorp

A study from Covenant House New York, a nonprofit focused on homeless youth, found that 36% of the 22 trafficking survivors in their survey were trafficked by an immediate family member, like a parent. Only four reported “being kidnapped and held against his or her will.”

Often, trafficking victims are younger transgender people or teens experiencing homelessness who exchange sex with others to meet their basic needs: shelter, economic stability, food and health care. Trafficking frequently looks like vulnerable people struggling to survive in a violent, exploitative world.

“They are creating sexual solutions to nonsexual problems,” says San Francisco-based researcher Alexandra Lutnick.

Under U.S. law, these youth are trafficking victims, because of their age. But they may reject the label, preferring terms like “survival sex work” or “prostitution” to describe their experiences.

Trafficking victims engaged in survival sex may well be arrested rather than offered help like housing or health care. If they cannot prove “force, fraud, or coercion,” or if they refuse to comply in a criminal investigation, they risk shifting from victim to criminal in the eyes of law enforcement. That can mean prostitution charges, felony offenses or deportation.

Such punishments are most commonly used against Black, Indigenous, queer, trans and undocumented sex-trafficking survivors. Black youth are disproportionately arrested for prostitution offenses, for example, even though legally any underage commercial sex is sex trafficking.

What is the difference between sex work and sex trafficking?

Legally and in other meaningful ways, sex work and sex trafficking are different.

Sex work is consenting adults engaging in transactional sex. In almost all U.S. states, it is a criminal offense, punishable with fines and even jail sentences.

Sex trafficking is nonconsensual, and it is generally treated as a more severe crime.

Most sex workers’ groups acknowledge that sex work is not inherently sex trafficking but that sex workers can face force, fraud and coercion because they work in a criminalized, stigmatized profession. Sex workers whose experiences meet the legal standards of trafficking may nonetheless fear disclosing that to police and risking arrest for prostitution.

Conversely, sex workers can be mistakenly labeled by police and advocates as “trafficked” and find themselves in the custody of law enforcement or social service agencies.

Sex workers march against discrimination, the criminalization of their job and sexual violence in Queens, New York, Sept. 18, 2020. Joana Toro /VIEWpress

What can be done?

Based on my research, reducing sex trafficking requires changes that might prevent it from occurring in the first place. That means rebuilding a stronger, supportive U.S. social safety net to buffer against poverty and housing insecurity.

[Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world. Sign up today.]

In the meantime, trafficking victims would benefit from efforts by frontline workers to combat the racism, sexism and transphobia that stigmatizes and criminalizes victims who don’t look as people expect – and are struggling to survive.

==========================

4 Questions Answered on Sex Trafficking in the US

The revelations about billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, who is accused of sex trafficking girls, paint a grim picture of sex trafficking in the U.S. The buying and selling of human beings is strong in America more than 150 years since the end of the Civil War.

Sex trafficking, as the federal government defines it, is “the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act” by means of “force, fraud, or coercion.” This is a form of modern-day slavery.

Found in massage parlors, escort services, residential brothels and street prostitution, some might be victims for weeks and others for years.

As someone who studies human trafficking, I feel that it’s important for the public to understand how it manifests in the U.S. today. While there’s still a great deal that is unknown about sex trafficking, research studies and nonprofits have been able to gather telling data on this industry’s victims and perpetrators.

1. Where does sex trafficking happen?

Sex trafficking tends to occur in motels and impoverished neighborhoods along the interstate highway system as well as in major urban centers. Some of the busiest corridors of the interstate include I-5 in the West, I-95 in the East and I-80, stretching from coast to coast.

Interstate highway map of the continental U.S. Stacey Lynn Payne/shutterstock.com

The nonprofit Polaris operates the National Human Trafficking Hotline, which takes tips on sex and labor trafficking. Although the Polaris data are not from a random-sample survey, they shed light on types of sex trafficking in the U.S. In 2017, Polaris received more than 6,000 hotline tips about sex trafficking across America. Among these data, the top venues for sex trafficking included illicit massage parlors, hotels and motels, and residential brothels.

The National Association of Truck Stop Operators has partnered with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Blue Campaign. The National Association of Truck Stop Operators offers trainings to help truckers, truck stop owners and employees identify the signs of human trafficking, such as malnourishment, lack of eye contact and disorientation.

Hotel chains like Marriott are training their employees as well.

2. Who are the victims?

Reliable data on the number of sex trafficking victims in the U.S. are hard to come by.

In the U.S., studies show that most victims of sex trafficking are young women and girls. They are, on average, 19 years old.

Risk factors for sex trafficking include a history of child abuse, substance abuse, poverty, involvement in child protective services, involvement in juvenile detention and prior sexual exploitation.

Runaway and homeless youth are especially at risk for sex trafficking. A study conducted in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and Phoenix found that 14% of homeless youth identified themselves as victims of sex trafficking. Among these sex trafficking victims, 33% identified as LGBTQ.

A young person is more likely to meet her trafficker for the first time online rather than in person, due to the rise of social media.

3. Who are the traffickers and the johns?

Men who purchase commercial sex come from all walks of life.

One comparative study on men and their lifetime history of paying for sex found that 4.9% of men in Tampa, Florida, said they had ever paid for sex. Among those men who paid for sex in Tampa, men aged 41 to 70 were most likely to pay for sex, making up about 13% of the total.

Traffickers include mom-and-pop operations, crime rings, gangs and cartels. Sometimes, when a victim of sex trafficking has been groomed enough, she becomes “the bottom,” helping her trafficker recruit other victims.

Research shows that modern-day slaveholders have a complicated mindset, condescending and paternalistic, not necessarily one of pure evil. Slaveholders can think they are doing a favor to the enslaved, by taking care of them, giving them food and shelter, and even “protecting” them from a world in which they would otherwise be disposable.

4. How much money does the commercial sex economy generate?

A 2014 study of sex trafficking in seven major U.S. cities found that revenues from underground commercial sex ranged from US$39.9 million in Denver to $290 million in Atlanta.

Although many experts suspect that major sporting events, like the Super Bowl, might encourage the demand for commercial sex, preliminary research suggests the effect is negligible.

The breadth of sex trafficking in the U.S. has prompted federal responses. The FBI has organized Operation Cross Country, a collaboration of dozens of field offices and hundreds of local law enforcement organizations. In October 2017, Operation Cross Country XI conducted a nationwide sting leading to the freeing of 84 minors and the arrest of 120 traffickers.

With better data collection methods and a stronger national coordinated effort, the U.S. could eventually come closer to the day when modern slavery is no more.

 

 

 

Genocide and Colonialism: Challenging the Canadian State ~~ Socialist Project

  https://mronline.org/2021/07/28/genocide-and-colonialism-challenging-the-canadian-state/

~~ posted for collectivist ~~

Public opinion has been shaken by the ‘discovery’ of unmarked graves of children who died in residential schools. The word ‘discovery’ has to be placed in quotation marks because Indigenous communities have been saying for many years that terrible things happened at these places. The time has come to call this what it is–a genocide.

The Birth of European Colonialism

Following the ‘discovery’ of the Americas in 1492, a brutal process of plunder was unleashed by European powers with the goal of taking control of plethoric mineral resources, vast hunting grounds and abundant arable lands. The consequences for Indigenous communities were catastrophic. Through killing, disease and enslavement, they carried out one of the greatest genocides in world history.

On the Shores of the St. Lawrence

In the northern part of the continent, the Indigenous population was spread out across a huge territory, with many communities possessing a significant capacity for resistance, at a time when European settlements were still sparsely populated. Competition between England, France and the Netherlands obliged the French colonial power to come to terms with Indigenous Peoples, more out of necessity than virtue.¹
While its aims were the same, France negotiated a number of treaties recognizing the rights of Indigenous People, both to open up western territories to trade and exploration, and to thwart English colonial ambitions.

Major Turning Point

By the second half of the 18th century, Britain was emerging as the major world power. Given the large French-origin population on the shores of the St. Lawrence, the British colonial power sought ways to subjugate but not annihilate them. They took a different approach to Indigenous Peoples. They crushed the revolt led by Odawa war chief Pontiac (Obwandiyag), traditional ally of the French, which erupted at Fort Detroit in 1763 and spread across the Great Lakes region. Following the secession of the territories that became the United States, the War of 1812 put an end to American ambitions and consolidated the hold of the British Empire.

Soon after, the defeat of the republican movement’s 1837-1838 insurrection further strengthened the colonial power. In 1841, Herman Merivale, Oxford professor and future Permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, recommended “insulation” and assimilation as a “solution” to the “Native Question.” Indigenous Peoples had to “choose” between assimilation and confinement to reserves where population movements and economic activities were strictly controlled. In 1842, the first Indigenous residential schools were established. The goal of these institutions was clear: “killing the Indian in the Child.”²

Confederation

In 1867, the British North America Act gave the federal government jurisdiction over lands reserved for Indians, and over Indians as such. In 1869, Indigenous lands were privatized and leased back to them, with a certificate of ownership (“location ticket”) issued to formalize the transaction. Indigenous women forfeited status if they married someone outside their community. This colonial arrangement was completed through the crushing of the Manitoba Métis and the execution of their leader Louis Riel in 1885, opening up western territories to large-scale settlement.

In the Shadow of the Canadian State

After the Second World War, the Canadian state proposed the elimination of Indigenous People’s distinct status, supposedly to give them the same rights as Canadians. But Indigenous Peoples rejected what they saw to be a policy of assimilation. In the 1980s, a memo drafted by a team of experts recommended a limiting of federal-government obligations, a reduction of federal spending on First Nations and a shifting of responsibilities to the provinces. Adopted in part, these measures have created the current state of affairs.

Third Party Management of communities by remote white accounting firms paid out of meagre band budgets is used as a form of fiscal and political punishment. Traditional governance has been eroded by the continued imposition of Ottawa’s band council system. Indian political organizations and First Nations are controlled by annual funding cycles in which large amounts of money can be withheld to express political displeasure, making long term planning impossible.³

While Canada ranked 12th internationally in 2016 according to the UN Human Development Index, the Registered Indian population would have ranked 52nd among countries with ‘very high’ human development, compared to a ranking of 63rd in 2006. The off-reserve Registered Indian population would rank 42nd in 2016 among countries with ‘high’ human development compared to 47th in 2006. The 2016 on-reserve Registered Indian population would rank 78th, while the 2006 on-reserve population would rank 89th, among those with ‘high’ human development. Destitution, unsanitary housing, lack of access to drinking water, malnutrition, and inadequate health and education services are widespread. Indigenous culture and languages have been marginalized.

The Main Stumbling Block

Since the revelations of crimes knowingly perpetrated by the Catholic Church, public awareness in Quebec and Canada has evolved. As for the federal state, though, beyond holier-than-thou rhetoric advocating “reconciliation” and increased spending, the main pillars of the system remain unchanged. No attention is paid to the fundamental issue–Indigenous sovereignty, the right to self-government, in accordance with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Ottawa refuses to negotiate with communities who do not want to give up title, ignoring the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.

One hears the word “reconciliation” everywhere these days. “Moral” responsibility for what happened is accepted, but the colonial system remains untouched. In the absence of real sovereignty, though, there cannot be substantial change. Moreover, were the rights of Indigenous Peoples to be recognized, they would constantly come into conflict with a Canadian state whose political economy is based in large measure on resource extraction, which requires territorial control. The Indigenous activist and academic Glen Coulthard has put this another way: “For our nations to live, capitalism must die.”⁴

So What Can Be Done?

The fundamental institutions of the Canadian state, built on a foundation of colonial plunder, cannot be reformed. You can’t fix a house whose foundation is rotten. In the short-term, though, there are emergency measures on which we must focus:

• Demand accountability from the institutions which allowed this genocide, from the Canadian state down through its consenting partners in provincial governments and the Catholic Church. The murders that took place in residential schools, the systemic violence that continues against Indigenous women, and the entrenched institutional racism as exemplified by the Joyce Echaquan case, cannot remain unpunished.
• Develop an emergency plan to bring an end to poverty and the under-development of infrastructure, which condemn Indigenous communities to live in a kind of Fourth World.
• Immediately suspend new resource-extraction projects which threaten territories with the destruction of the environment and the building of massive facilities that further disfigure the land.
• Buttress governance structures for and by Indigenous Peoples, including in the areas of security and public safety.
• Support the Indigenous renaissance, which involves breathing new life into civil-society organizations and rehabilitating Indigenous cultures and languages, under Indigenous control.

In the long-term, however, a total overhaul is required, with full recognition of the right to self-determination as its starting point.⁵
Such a “deconstruction” would only lay down markers for a possible “reconstruction,” probably on the basis of reinvented state entities. Of course, an epic struggle will be required to reach that point. From the point of view of Quebec’s movements for emancipation, an alliance with Indigenous Peoples is indispensable, through a process like the constituent-assembly project promoted by Québec Solidaire in recent years. We can only rebuild Turtle Island if we do so together. •