Sex for Sale~Prostitution, Pornography and the Sex Industry (59 page)

SEX TRAFFICKING: FACTS AND FICTIONS

trafficking differ substantively; prostitution is a type of work, migration and trafficking involve relocation to access a market. Both empirically and con-ceptually, it is inappropriate to fuse prostitution and trafficking.41 Furthermore, to do so obscures other types of trafficking, such as for work in agriculture, construction, and domestic service.

Claim 2: Violence is omnipresent in prostitution and trafficking

Prostitution is defined as a form of violence against women, categorically and universally, and the same claim is made for sex trafficking. Antiprostitution activists have consistently tried to erase the distinction between coercive trafficking and voluntary migration to work in the sex industry, and insist that victimization is the hallmark of all sex work.

The claim that violence is pervasive in prostitution and trafficking cannot be confirmed. Since no study uses a random sample because the population of sex workers is unknown, and all rely instead on convenience samples of persons researchers manage to access, all figures on the incidence of violence are questionable.42 Thus, the frequent assertion that victimization is pervasive violates a fundamental scientific canon—namely, that generalizations cannot be based on unrepresentative samples. The well-known danger of generalizing from small convenience samples and anecdotal stories is routinely ignored by abolitionist writers.43

It is important to treat coercion as a
variable
rather than a constant. Some traffickers believe that they can win compliance from the individuals they relocate by the use of persuasion rather than overt violence. In fact, one study of traffickers found considerable variation in their methods, and suggested that there has been a recent trend toward the reduction of coercion, precisely because traffickers see it as being in their interest to do so—in reducing the chances of escape, maximizing profits, or avoiding law enforcement attention.44 The use of coercion is even less salient for intermediaries who assist workers with the latter’s full knowledge and consent.

Claim 3: Sex workers lack agency

The denial of agency is evident in the crusade’s very framing of the problem as one involving “prostituted women,” “trafficking,” and “sexual slavery”—

terms that are frequently used by abolitionists. The central claim is that workers do not actively make choices to enter or remain in prostitution. The notion of consent is deemed irrelevant, and activists have pressed governments to criminalize all sex work, whether consensual or not: “Legislation must not
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allow traffickers to use the consent of the victim as a defense against trafficking,” argue Raymond and Hughes.45 This crusade rejects the very concept of benign migration for the purpose of sex work, since prostitution is defined as inherently exploitative and oppressive. Instead, the more nefarious term “sex trafficking” is applied to every instance of relocation to a destination where the individual sells sex.

Research on the sex industry highlights variation, rather than uniformity, in the degree to which workers feel exploited vs. empowered and in control of their working conditions.46 Workers do not necessarily see themselves as

“prostituted” victims lacking agency and instead have made conscious decisions to enter the trade. These workers are invisible in the discourse of the antiprostitution crusade precisely because their accounts clash with abolitionist goals.

Regarding sex trafficking, it is impossible to measure the ratio of agency to victimization—i.e., voluntarily vs. involuntary migration. Although a significant number of migrants have made conscious and informed decisions to relocate, as discussed earlier in the chapter, the crusade presents only the worst cases and universalizes them. Traffickers are vilified as predators, rapists, and kidnappers involved in organized crime and sexual slavery. And clients are equated with traffickers. A leading coalition member, Michael Horowitz of the conservative Hudson Institute, says of traffickers and clients, “We want to drive a stake through the heart of these venal criminals. This is pure evil.”47 Donna Hughes wrote, “Men who purchase sex acts do not respect women, nor do they want to respect women.”48 These depictions have influenced programming: Shared Hope International started a “Predator Project” to focus on “profiling and punishing those who prey on and profit from exploiting vulnerable women and children.”49 Again, these characterizations are apt for some actors involved in sex trafficking but the crusade’s sweeping claims are caricatures.

Moral crusades typically report anecdotal horror stories in order to demonstrate the gravity of a targeted evil. This strategy is abundantly evident in the discourse of antitrafficking forces and of the U.S. government. Typically, the testimonials of a few “rescued” victims are presented as evidence. Horror stories and photos of young victims are prominently displayed in government publications and websites. Such depictions dramatize human suffering and are designed to cause alarm and outrage, and this strategy can be quite effective.

For example, several members of Congress—including the sponsors of trafficking legislation—have stated that they became interested in trafficking only after hearing a particular victim’s testimony.50 And the official discourse repeatedly invokes “women and children” victims. Claims about threatened children are a staple of many moral crusades.

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SEX TRAFFICKING: FACTS AND FICTIONS

Claim 4: Sex trafficking is prevalent and increasing, now at

epidemic levels

The size of a social problem matters in attracting media coverage, donor funding, and attention from policymakers. Moral crusades therefore have an interest in inflating the magnitude of a problem, and their figures are typically unverifiable and/or very elastic. The antitrafficking crusade claims that there are “hundreds of thousands” of victims,51 and that trafficking has reached

“epidemic” proportions worldwide. Shared Hope International, for example, claims that trafficking is “a huge problem, and it’s continuing to grow.”52

SAGE director Norma Hotaling recently claimed that “there are thousands of trafficked women in San Francisco”—a vague figure presented with no documentation.53

When concrete numbers are presented, they vary and fluctuate dramatically. Although a report by a CIA analyst acknowledged in 2000 that “no one U.S. or international agency is compiling accurate statistics,” the report then claimed that “700,000 to 2 million women and children are trafficked globally each year.”54 In 2003, State’s maximum figure had grown to 4

million, but 2 years later it inexplicably fell to 600,000–800,000 victims of all types of trafficking, of which “hundreds of thousands” were said to be trafficked into prostitution.55 No explanation has been given for the huge fluctuations from year to year in the official figures. Similarly, it is frequently asserted by several agencies that 80% of all trafficking victims are women and 50% children—figures that are, again, unverifiable given the clandestine nature of the trade.

Like the global numbers, domestic figures have changed drastically and inexplicably in a short period of time. In 2000, the CIA report mentioned earlier claimed that 45,000–50,000 persons were trafficked into the United States annually. This figure was totally unreliable, based largely on extrapolations from foreign newspaper clippings by one CIA analyst.56 Yet the figure was cited in the 2000
Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act
(TVPA) as justification for the new law, which states unequivocally that

“Congress finds that . . . approximately 50,000 women and children are trafficked into the United States each year” (TVPA, §102[b1]). The State Department’s
Trafficking in Persons
report repeated the figure in 2002, but just 1 year later, State’s figure fell to 18,000–20,000 (a 60% drop) and the 2004

and 2005
Trafficking in Persons
reports reduced the number to 14,500–17,500

a year. By then, the legislation and enforcement machinery were firmly in place.

Severe sex trafficking
is defined in the TVPA as the use of “force, fraud, or coercion” to induce an adult to perform a commercial sex act, or inducing a
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person under age 18 to perform a commercial sex act, regardless of whether force or fraud is used. This definition does not apply to adults who willingly travel, with some kind of assistance, in search of employment in the sex industry. However, the figures presented by advocates and officials often lump the latter kind of migration into the trafficking category, which inflates the number of victims, and some agencies treat all sex workers as trafficked.57

Leading members of Congress and the Bush administration accepted these numbers uncritically, but some have recently questioned even of the lower figures. The Justice Department appears skeptical: Most importantly, the government must address the incongruity between the estimated number of victims trafficked into the United States—between 14,500

and 17,500 [annually]—and the number of victims found—only 611 in the last four years [2001–2004]. . . . The stark difference between the two figures means that U.S. government efforts are still not enough. In addition, the estimate should be evaluated to assure that it is accurate and reflects the number of actual victims.58

A recent General Accountability Office (GAO) evaluation was very critical of the prevailing figures, which it found to be based on “methodological weaknesses, gaps in data, and numerical discrepancies.” The GAO concluded that (1) “country data are generally not available, reliable, or comparable,” (2) the “U.S. government has not yet established an effective mechanism for estimating the number of victims,” and (3) the same is true for international NGOs working in the trafficking area.59

The 2008
Trafficking in Persons
report states that 1379 trafficking victims were identified between 2001 and mid-2008, but this figure remains but a fraction of the number of persons allegedly trafficked into the U.S. during this time period (using the official conservative figure: 14,500 x 7.5 years =

108,750).60 This report, for the first time, provided no number of persons trafficked into the United States but instead used the vague term “thousands”: The United States is a destination country for thousands of men, women, and children trafficked largely from East Asia, Mexico, and Central America for the purposes of sexual and labor exploitation. A majority [63%] of foreign victims identified during the year [FY 2007] were victims of trafficking for forced labor.61

Notably, almost two-thirds of identified victims were trafficked for labor rather than the sex trade.

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SEX TRAFFICKING: FACTS AND FICTIONS

Some scholars uncritically accept these crusade claims. Kathryn Farr, for example, boldly asserts, “The sex trafficking industry is voluminous, and it is expanding at an ever-accelerating rate. . . . Over 1 million are trafficked into the sex industry, and the volume just keeps increasing.”62 Her sources are activists and American government agencies—precisely the sources that critics find highly dubious.

In fact,
there are no reliable statistics on the magnitude of the problem
, and the figures can only be described as guesswork. Even ballpark estimates are dubious, given the clandestine and stigmatized nature of the sex trade. The high numbers have not gone unchallenged. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Bangkok office suggests that most of the statistics being circulated are probably “false” or “spurious:”

“When it comes to statistics, trafficking of girls and women is one of several highly emotive issues which seem to overwhelm critical faculties.”63

Researchers have criticized the national, regional, and international statistics proffered by activists, organizations, and governments for their “lack of methodological transparency” and source documentation,64 for being extrapolated from a few cases of identified victims (who are unrepresentative of the victim population),65 and for the lack of a standard definition of “victims” as a basis for estimates of the magnitude of the problem.66

It is also claimed that the sex industry is
expanding
at an unprecedented rate, increasing the market for trafficked workers, and that the number of victims is steadily increasing. The director of the evangelical International Justice Mission, for example, refers to “the growing trafficking nightmare,”

and CATW proclaims that “local and global sex industries are systematically violating women’s rights on an ever-increasing scale.”67

Internationally, it is clear that sex trafficking has increased in
some
parts of the world, especially from the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe. The breakup of the Soviet empire and declining living standards for many of its inhabitants has made such migration both much easier and more compell-ing than in the past.68 But an increase in trafficking since the demise of the Soviet Union does not mean that trafficking is growing now. Instead, it may have leveled off. A report by the International Organization for Migration points to this very possibility: the number of trafficked persons in south-eastern Europe that were identified and assisted remained virtually the same (declining slightly) between 2003 and 2004.69

In short, given the underground nature of this trade, estimates of both its current magnitude and changes over time are highly dubious, which means that claims regarding a growing worldwide epidemic cannot be confirmed.

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Claim 5: Legalization would make the situation far worse

than it is at present

The crusade considers legal prostitution detrimental in two respects: practically (by magnifying all the problems associated with prostitution, and by increasing the amount of trafficking) and symbolically (by giving the state’s blessing to a despicable institution and condoning men’s exploitation of women). Antiprostitution forces often express concern about what they perceive as the “normalization” of prostitution in various parts of the world.