Sex Trafficking as a Worldwide Problem Is
Exaggerated
Slavery and Human Trafficking, 2016
From Opposing Viewpoints in Context
Listen
"Lie: 100,000-300,000 children are 'trafficked' every year in the United States."
Maggie McNeill is an author, a media consultant, and a former sex worker. In the following
viewpoint, she debunks a number of myths associated with prostitution and human trafficking.
She argues, for example, that statistics that show that prostitutes die young, or that they are
frequently raped or dissatisfied with their jobs, are inaccurate. She suggests that much of the
panic surrounding prostitution and human trafficking is exaggerated and ends up
putting women who work as prostitutes at risk.
As you read, consider the following questions:
1.
What evidence does McNeill provide to show that the average prostitute does not
enter the profession at age thirteen?
2.
Where did the myth that human trafficking is the most profitable criminal enterprise
originate, according to McNeill?
3.
What does McNeill estimate is the true number of people enslaved in the world today?
Prohibitionists have a set of stock lies they can repeat in an article or Internet comment, so
here is a reference to debunk them....
Average Ages
LIE: The average age at which a woman enters prostitution is 13.
TRUTH: If this were true, there would have to be huge numbers of toddler-prostitutes to
balance the many, many women who start later in life, such as to support themselves after
divorce. Even underage prostitutes start at an average of 15-16, and only 15% of teen hookers
(themselves a small minority of all sex workers) enter at an age below 13. A conservative
estimate for the average age at which women enter the trade is 25. The "average debut at 13"
lie was a purposeful distortion by anti-sex crusader Melissa Farley, who misrepresented the
average age of first noncommercial sexual contact (which could include kissing, petting, etc.)
reported by underage girls in one 1982 study as though it were the age they first reported
selling sex; the actual average age at which the girls in that study began prostitution was 16.
LIE: The average age of death for a prostitute is 34.
TRUTH: That figure was derived from a 2003 study which examined all of the reports of
murdered street workers in Colorado Springs from 1967-1999 and discovered that the average
age of death of those victims was 34. In other words, nobody who wasn't murdered was
included in the figure. It's like using the average age of dead soldiers in a war to proclaim "the
average man who joins the military dies at 21."
LIE: The demonstrable problems with legalization schemes in places like Nevada and the
Netherlands constitute an argument in favor of criminalization.
TRUTH: The demonstrable problems with those legalization schemes constitute an argument
in favor of decriminalization. No sex worker rights organization in the world favors the Dutch or
Nevada models, precisely because they do give rise to a host of problems which are
prevented by treating sex work as work.
The Extent of Trafficking
LIE: 85% of prostitutes report childhood sexual abuse.
TRUTH: The original source for this claim was a 2004 study of incarcerated street workers
which actually claimed that 45% reported sexual abuse and 85% physical abuse. Furthermore,
there are serious methodological problems with the study, which is typical when biased
researchers use an unrepresentative convenience sample and then extrapolate the results to
a much larger population with which it does not correlate to any meaningful extent.
LIE: "End Demand" [laws criminalizing johns] tactics are an effective means of reducing
prostitution.
TRUTH: Economic analysis demonstrates that "end demand" tactics increase the number of
sales of sex, especially at the street level.
LIE: "Human trafficking" is the world's second most profitable criminal enterprise (or the third
most, or most recently the most).
TRUTH: This myth originated in a UNODC [United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime]
meeting where Kevin Bales (see "27 million" below) said, "... it's impossible to answer that
question. If I had to guess I would say it was third...." Ann Jordan surmised that the original
source of the myth (later revealed as Bales) was probably thinking about smuggling, certainly
a more credible candidate for the position.
LIE: Most of the violence to which sex workers are subjected is at the hands of clients
or pimps.
TRUTH: Most of the violence suffered by sex workers in regimes where the work is fully or
partially criminalized is at the hands of police.
LIE: Most or nearly all prostitutes are controlled by pimps and forced to work.
TRUTH: In nearly every stable modern society, the rate of coercion for adult prostitutes is
about 2% or less, and for underage ones about 8-10%; this is roughly the same as the rate of
non-sex-working women who report an abusive or controlling boyfriend or husband.
LIE: Most prostitutes are driven to it by financial need, and 9 out of 10 prostitutes would like to
exit prostitution immediately.
TRUTH: These statements are probably true, but if there is any normal job (not an elite career
occupied by a tiny fraction of the population) to which they do not apply, I'd like to know what it
might be. What makes this a lie is the pretense that it applies to sex work to a higher degree
than to other jobs, which it does not; one Australian study found that half of all prostitutes
ranked their work as a "major source of satisfaction" in their lives, and 70% said they would
definitely choose prostitution again if they had their lives to live over.
LIE: Most prostitutes are "recruited" into the work by pimps.
TRUTH: Most adult sex workers start due to pragmatic concerns, and most underage ones
either think of it on their own or are recruited by friends.
LIE: Most prostitutes suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD].
TRUTH: This is another of Melissa Farley's pet lies. She claims to be able to diagnose PTSD
with a 15-minute self-administered questionnaire, despite the fact that the National Center for
PTSD states that "brief, single-item, closed-ended questions for each PTSD symptom are ...
no more valid for making a diagnosis than self-report measures.... Proper assessment of
PTSD is complex...." In short, she is not qualified to diagnose this condition, and her method
would be quackery even if she were.
LIE: Nearly all men buy sex OR a small, pathological group of men buys sex.
TRUTH: Though a slight majority of men have paid for sex at least once in their lives, about
20% of them do it "occasionally" (several times per year) and 6% "frequently."
Trafficked Children
LIE: 100,000-300,000 children are "trafficked" every year in the United States.
TRUTH: That myth is a distortion of an absurd estimate from the [Richard J.] Estes & [Neil
Alan] Weiner study of 2001, which estimated that number of "children, adolescents and youth
(up to 21) at risk of sexual exploitation." "Sex trafficking" was the least prevalent form of
"exploitation" in their definition; other things they classed as "exploitation" included stripping,
consensual homosexual relations and merely viewing porn. Two of the so-called "risk factors"
were access to a car and proximity to the Canadian or Mexican border. When interviewed by
reporters in 2011, Estes himself estimated the number of legal minors actually abducted into
"sex slavery" as "very small.... We're talking about a few hundred people."
LIE: Prostitutes only do the work because they have no meaningful choices.
TRUTH: 93% of escorts say they like their work for the money, 72% for the independence and
67% for meeting people. And a 2011 study demonstrated that most American escorts are
women with "high opportunity cost," in other words those who have many other meaningful
options.
LIE: Prostitutes spread disease.
TRUTH: Only about 3-5% of all STIs [sexually transmitted infections] can be attributed to either
side of a sex work transaction, and the rates of infection among professionals are much (often
dramatically) lower than among promiscuous amateurs.
Self-Esteem
LIE: Prostitution destroys the self-esteem of women involved in it.
TRUTH: Though only a small fraction of street workers report an increase in self-esteem after
entering harlotry, they represent less than 15% of all prostitutes. 97% of escorts in one study
reported an increase in self-esteem, compared with 50% of Nevada brothel workers; another
study found that 75% of escorts felt their lives had improved since starting the work, 25%
reported no change and 0% said their lives were worse. Anyone who has ever personally
known any sex workers of any kind knows that if anything, their self-esteem is often too high.
LIE: Prostitution is associated with crime.
TRUTH: Criminalization is associated with crime. When "authorities" criminalize a consensual
activity, they shouldn't be too surprised when criminals are then attracted to it. When's the last
time you heard of anyone arrested for bootlegging or rum-running?
LIE: "Sex trafficking" increases when prostitution is legalized.
TRUTH: This claim is based on the deeply flawed [Eric] Neumayer, [Seo-Young] Cho and
[Axel] Dreher study, which failed to even define the term "trafficking" in any way which would
allow statistical comparison. The lie was further developed by a report in Der Spiegel which
used figures for exploitation among illegal prostitutes to argue against legalization. In any
legalization regime, those sex workers who are defined as being outside the legal structure
(i.e., still criminal) are always those at greatest risk of violence and exploitation; to the extent
that "trafficking" actually exists, it is generally the illegal nature of sex work which supplies the
greatest tool for coercion. In the decriminalized structures of New Zealand and New South
Wales, coercion is virtually nonexistent.
LIE: Sex work causes rape.
TRUTH: The evidence suggests that sex work of all kinds actually decreases the rates of rape,
sexual assault, divorce and several other sex-related social ills.
LIE: The Swedish model [which criminalizes johns] has dramatically reduced prostitution and
sex trafficking in Sweden.
TRUTH: The Swedish model cannot be shown to have had any effect on rates of
prostitution at all, though it has made the lives of sex workers much more difficult and
dangerous. Norwegian studies demonstrate that their version of the law
has increased sex trafficking and the number of prostitutes, and also promoted pimping.
LIE: There are 27,000,000 people enslaved in the world today.
TRUTH: That number was developed by a "trafficking" fanatic named Kevin Bales using media
reports multiplied by arbitrary numbers of his own devising; the more the hysteria, the higher
the number of articles and thus the higher Bales's number grows. "Trafficking" estimates are
all over the map; the official UNODC estimate is less than a tenth as much (2.4 million), and
even with vague, loose and ever-expanding definitions of "trafficking" the office has evidence
for only about 40,000 in the entire world.
LIE: A very large fraction of sex workers are below 18.
TRUTH: In legal forms of sex work, virtually none are; in illegal forms the fraction is still very
small. Only about 3.5% of prostitutes in Western countries are under 18.
Sex Trafficking Is a Worldwide Problem
Slavery and Human Trafficking, 2016
From Opposing Viewpoints in Context
Listen
"This is a multimillion-dollar industry that affects every country in the world, including ours,
cities and suburbs alike."
In the following news article, The Reporter indicates that human trafficking is a worldwide,
multimillion-dollar industry. The article further points to a recent conviction of a man who led
a prostitution ring as an example of human trafficking. According to The Reporter, women may
be lured by promises of money or fame, only to realize that they cannot get out of the sex
industry. The article concludes that increased awareness and more law enforcement can help
reduce human trafficking.
As you read, consider the following questions:
1.
How many people does Weaver say are trafficked over the US border?
2.
According to the viewpoint, how does Dan Emr say women can be tricked into the sex
industry?
3.
What kinds of contemporary slavery does President Obama mention in the speech
quoted by Weaver?
January is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, also referred to as
Human Trafficking Awareness Month. How aware are you of human trafficking?
A Multimillion-Dollar Industry
Globally, there are millions of women and children enslaved in the human trafficking industry.
According to the FBI's [Federal Bureau of Investigation's] 2011 report on trafficking, it is the
fastest-growing business of organized crime and the third-largest criminal enterprise in the
world.
There is a common misconception about human trafficking: that it takes place elsewhere in the
world, not in the United States and definitely not in Montgomery County. But in fact, there are
an estimated 293,000 American youths currently at risk of becoming victims of
commercial sexual exploitation, according to the FBI report.
And there are between 600,000 and 800,000 people trafficked across the U.S. border—half of
them are children, and 80 percent of them are female. Human trafficking is absolutely a global
problem, but it is also a national—and local—problem.
That's according to U.S. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, R-8, who has been active in supporting House
bills preventing and addressing human trafficking.
"I spoke with my staff a little over a year ago on this, after speaking with members of Congress
who were also concerned about emerging statistics on an issue that we all felt, growing up,
was an issue for a foreign country," Fitzpatrick said. "But the reality is that this is a
multimillion-dollar industry that affects every country in the world, including ours, cities and
suburbs alike, and that includes Philadelphia and the towns around it."
Prostitution in Montgomery County
And if you're looking for a case of sex trafficking in Montgomery County, consider Florencio
Perez Martinez, a 45-year-old man from Perkiomen Township who just faced more than 100
felony and misdemeanor prostitution-related charges for allegedly running a five-county
sex-trade business.
As of Dec. 19 [2013], Martinez, a Mexican national residing in the U.S. illegally, faces
11-and-a-half to 23 months in the county jail, then deportation.
"He was part of an enterprise that was running a prostitution business pretty much all over
Montgomery County," said Assistant District Attorney Jordan Friter, who sought jail time
against Martinez, according to Digital First Media [DFM] archives. "He would pick up a girl
each week at a bus station, either in Norristown or Philadelphia, would house her for a week,
drive her around to customers, collect the money from her and then take her back to the bus
station and pick up a new girl."
Martinez had been operating his business since January 2011 as part of an organization
supplying adult women to customers in Montgomery, Bucks, Philadelphia, Chester and
Delaware Counties who paid for the women's sexual services. According to DFM archives,
customers paid the women between $25 and $30 for sex; Martinez then took a $10 to $12 cut
from the women.
"It's the kind of crime that affects a whole community. It was throughout Montgomery County.
He was doing this right in quiet neighborhoods and this type of activity can't be tolerated by the
community," said Friter, who leads the district attorney's sex crimes prosecution unit.
Bringing in women from an outside source, as Martinez did, is just one of the ways
human trafficking can manifest itself. The national survey of residential programs for victims of
sex trafficking, conducted by the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority [ICJIA] and
published in October 2013, examines the different forms and causes of sex trafficking.
Recruited into Slavery
Trafficking victims can often be recruited into the sex trade by someone they know, lured in by
promises of money, drugs or attention. Victims may misinterpret the lifestyle as glamorous at
first, before realizing they are unable to escape their situation.
Dan Emr, the executive director of Worthwhile Wear, an organization working to help victims of
sex trafficking in Bucks and Montgomery Counties, added that women may enter the industry
unknowingly.
"Sometimes, women will accept what they think is a legitimate job position, whether it's as a
maid or something similar," he said. "By the time they realize the true nature of their work, it's
too late for them to do anything about it—they are enslaved."
Victims can be recruited online, according to the ICJIA's 2013 report. Traffickers may use
social media sites to initiate contact with victims and slowly gain their trust. Women are also
recruited through misleading classified advertisements online.
Human trafficking is fluid, adaptable and under the radar. The secrecy and invisibility of
the trafficking trade largely contributes to its success and growth.
Nationally, lawmakers are working to end the trade by giving it more attention and providing
law enforcement with greater resources to prevent and halt the problem, Fitzpatrick said.
In a proclamation issued by President Barack Obama Dec. 30, he officially declared January
2014 to be National Slavery and Human Trafficking [Prevention] Month and outlined the
necessity for addressing and ending this problem.
"Over a century and a half after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation
Proclamation, millions remain in bondage—children forced to take part in armed conflict or
sold to brothels by their destitute families, men and women who toil for little or no pay, who are
threatened and beaten if they try to escape," reads the proclamation. "Slavery tears at our
social fabric, fuels violence and organized crime, and debases our common humanity. During
National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, we renew our commitment to
ending this scourge in all its forms."
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