The Relatively Hidden Problem of Sex Trafficking

Many, if not most, people are aware that sex trafficking is a big industry, but they often have the wrong idea about it. People usually imagine sex trafficking occurs like this: A young girl is kidnapped by shady men, drugged, raped, and kept in a locked room with no access to the outside world, except when they are sold for other people's pleasure. People picture the movie Taken in which Liam Neeson’s daughter visits a foreign country and is preyed on by traffickers. Although this does occur, it fail to address the entire problem.

Sex trafficking is often referred to as modern slavery. Similar to how African slaves were brought over to America in ships via the transatlantic slave trade, women and children are taken against their will and turned into sex workers. Now, there is an important distinction between sex trafficking and prostitution: sex trafficking refers to the use of coercion to make adults and children engage in commercial sex acts against their will, whereas prostitution is a type of occupation. Both are involved with commercial sex work, but one is involuntary and the other is voluntary. However, there is often a lot of overlap, so people tend to treat the two as the same. People also love to think that sex trafficking is a vestige of an era, when brothels and prostitution were openly accepted as a part of American society and culture. However, this is not the case. Sex trafficking is still rampant in America; it has just been pushed under the rug because the practice has been criminalized. The fact that many people are unaware of this prominent industry just goes to show how disillusioned America is as a society. The myth of the American Dream must be abolished in order for us to address these hidden issues and fix our broken system.

According to Emek Ucarer in “Trafficking in Women: Alternate Migration or Modern Slave Trade?,” there have been three main legal ways of dealing with sex work: prohibitionism, regulationism, and abolitionism. Regulationism is practiced by many European countries where the government regulates prostitution by performing regular health and safety checks on properties and practicing prostitutes must be registered. Abolitionism advocates the elimination of the practice altogether as a political issue, treating it rather as a private matter. Abolitionists of prostitution believe regulating the practice would infringe on the human rights of those involved. Prohibitionism is what America practices, along with some other countries in Asia, in which the people involved are criminalized and punished as a means to diminish such practices. Though prohibitionism seems like a reasonable response to the issue, it fails to address the root causes of the problem and places the blame on the victims. This is a problem because the very definition of sex trafficking claims the victims are coerced into the business, either by a trafficker, another sex trafficker, or for greater political and economic reasons.

One of the biggest reasons for sex trafficking is the economy. The international political economy contributes to the issue by creating push and pull factors for people to migrate, especially from countries of the global South to those of the global North. Owing to the low economic status of the developing countries as well as the barrier of gendered division of labor against women, migration for opportunities of labor seems like a favorable alternative, especially to those suffering from low wages or unemployment. Traffickers are able to prey on those vulnerable women and trick them into joining the industry and becoming a commodity.

The international political economy also contributes to the sex industry in the opposite way, from the global North to the global South. This is commonly referred to as sex tourism, where mainly white, First-World men fantasize about “exotic” women in developing countries, where these men may be more desirable and sex is cheaper. Sex tourism is even seen as a source of income for some developing countries, since these men pay for the travel and living expenses in addition to the sex work, offering the financial foundation for the oppressive system. If there was no demand for sex work, there would not have to be a supply of sex workers. In a way, the buyers are just as accountable as the traffickers. Furthermore, this is not just an international issue; it is also a domestic one. Americans are trafficking fellow Americans for other Americans, and little is being done to stop this.

America’s prohibitionist stance on prostitution and sex-trafficking focuses on cracking down on state borders and migration, hoping to discover anyone involved in the trafficking business when they cross the border. Unfortunately, the sex-trafficking industry is extremely complex and organized, and over time, they have developed various methods for getting past the border and remaining unsuspected. The internet is one booming avenue for advertising the sex workers and making connections with potential buyers on sites like Backpage or Craigslist. The physical work is often done in a home, a motel, a strip club, or massage parlors. A video by National Geographic portrays just how easy it is to gain access to prostitutes in America and Lisa Ling’s documentary highlights how young the victims can get.  Despite all these opportunities for exposure, the victims are too scared to seek help because of threats by the traffickers or fear of legal punishment. As a society, our condemnation and shaming of all people involved and our tendency to view the issue as a foreign one is only helping the system to continue and grow within our own country.

What can be done to help solve the issue? First and foremost, we need to stop blaming the victims of sex-trafficking. Instead, we must facilitate access to whatever emotional, physical, social, economic help they need. Often times, the victims just want a sense of belonging and connection. Therefore, letting them know that they do not need to turn to sex work as a means of achieving those feelings should be a good start. Moreover, he racial discrimination and stereotypes that promote sexual fantasies must also be addressed. Lastly, criminalizing sex work might have only made it more difficult to expose the magnitude of the problem. Perhaps, legalization of the practice would help gain more information and have systematic governmental regulation to protect the victims.