January 13, 2014 • 40 mins
Since January is Human Trafficking Awareness Month, Cristen and Caroline discuss the scope of sex trafficking in the United States, its legal history and why anti-trafficking initiatives have attracted controversy in recent years.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mob Never told you From how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. And today we are talking about
sex trafficking because in two thousand eleven, President Obama actually
declared January to be National Human Trafficking Awareness Month. In
(00:26):
January eleven is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. So we
thought we'd take this opportunity and focus in on sex
trafficking because actually a few years ago we did an
episode focusing on the labor aspect of human trafficking, right, which,
when you hear human trafficking, labor trafficking actually does make
(00:47):
up a majority of what is called human trafficking, but
sex trafficking is a very terrible percentage of that. That's right. Um.
And in the United States, for instance, about two d
children are estimated to be at risk of becoming victims
of commercial sexual exploitation, which would include sex trafficking. And
(01:07):
that number is coming from the FBI, And the estimate
is that sex trafficking around the world is a ten
billion dollar a year business. Right. But what as we'll
get into later in this episode, it really is just
about estimates. It's very hard to tell exactly how many women, girls, boys,
men are in the sex trafficking industry are being basically
(01:31):
forced against their will to participate and how much money
comes from that. So before we get into those estimates
into the murkier territory of sex trafficking, let's talk about
what we do know about human and sex trafficking. Well,
we do have a legal definition of it um according
to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which was passed by
(01:53):
Congress back in two thousands. To summarize it is basically
the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person
for the purpose of a commercial sex act and they're
basically being forced into it um. And human trafficking, also
known as human trafficking in persons, is a modern day
form of slavery. You hear that a lot, that it
(02:14):
is our modern day version of slavery. Yeah, And even
though trafficking seems to indicate that you are moving people
around under that federal definition, you don't actually have to
move people in order to be trafficking them in some way.
And when we're talking about miners who are involved in
(02:35):
sex trafficking, because that is where this becomes such a
really big problem is for kids who are under eighteen
who are victims of sex trafficking, and that occurs when
any resident of the US under the age of eighteen
is commercially sexually exploited. So, for instance, children can be
commercially sexually exploited through prostitution, pornography, and or erotic entertainment.
(02:59):
And because of the nature of this conversation, UM, we
should put a warning out there for parents who might
be listening with younger kids that there will be some
sensitive information, UM, any trigger warnings that we need to issue.
Here it is and we're not going to get into
any gruesome details, but this is gonna be a challenging
(03:20):
topic to discuss, right and speaking of as far as minors,
speaking of victims, the victims of sex trafficking can really
be almost anyone. This is coming from the Polaris Project,
which focuses a lot on human trafficking. And you know,
people who are sex trafficked can be men, women, adults, children,
They can be from foreign countries or they can be
(03:41):
U S citizens. And this is not just an issue
of you know, people from poorer neighborhoods being trafficked or
being forced to have sex against their will. Sometimes these
individuals are well educated, while others might not have any
formal education. But there are also certain populations that are
going to be especially vulnerable to trafficking include undocumented immigrants,
(04:01):
a runaway and homeless youth, especially oppressed, marginalized, and or
impoverished groups and individuals. And we have to talk about
gender as well, because according to Victims of Crime dot Org,
ninety four per cent of the sex trafficking victims in
cases that have been investigated by federally funded task forces
(04:23):
or female. Well, so we mentioned that, you know, prostitution
is definitely a part of this commercial sex trafficking of
miners and Richard J. S d S and Neil Allen
Weener did a study into the ages of children who
are part of the sex trafficking industry and they found
at the average age at which girls first become victims
of prostitution is twelve to fourteen. Boys and transgender youth
(04:45):
have or inner into prostitution between the ages of eleven
and thirteen on average, which is just horrifying. Yeah, because
you're you're hearing a lot more stories about how these
task forces are focusing specifically on miners who are being
trafficked because they're becoming such prominent targets for these criminal rings.
(05:07):
And even though again the number of people who are
involved is hard to pin down because of the nature
of the crime, we do know demographic wise who the
traffickers are, who the people who would want to commercially
sexually exploit men, women and children. Um. And the thing
(05:27):
is a lot of times you'd probably think that, especially
when it comes to sex trafficking and forced prostitution, that
it's going to be men who are running the show.
But actually there are a lot of women who are
running established rings as well. In fact, according to an
article in The Daily Beast from August two thousand thirteen,
(05:48):
which was citing research from Northeastern University and the Urban Institute,
thirty percent of traffickers are women. Yeah, that was pretty
surprising to me. I mean, especially when you take into
a consideration, just like the stereotypes, the ideas you have
in your head of who is running prostitution rings and
things like that. But these women don't just come into
play individually. I mean, they can be part of families
(06:11):
who are trafficking people, couples, um. Sharon Butch Binder was
talking to The Daily Beast and she was looking at
four hundred and seventy news releases from Immigration and Customs
Enforcement from two thousand eight through July one hundred and
sixty of which were specifically related to human trafficking for
either sex or labor. And she broke it down into
(06:32):
a chart. And keep in mind, you know, she points
out that this is not like a scientific, very precise study,
but she looked at the percentages of gender, whether it's
an individual, a family, a couple, and women. The number
of women involved, like being prosecuted for these things is
on the rise. Yeah, it is on the rise. And Caroline,
when I was reading about sex trafficking and specifically the
(06:54):
stories that past victims were telling, the ones that were
the most horrifying to were instances when girls were being
trafficked by like friends, mother like friends, mothers, and or
even their own mothers or stepmothers. It's it's disturbing to
think of women getting other women into such a horrible
(07:19):
type of existence. And but a lot of times these
women too have been victims of sex trafficking themselves. When
you break down who these women are, a lot of
times they're around ten years older than their victims, And
they were former victims of sex trafficking who, instead of escaping,
decided to go into the same business, maybe because that's
all they know, Maybe because they don't know how to
(07:41):
get out of that criminal underworld. Right, And as Butch
Binder pointed out in that Daily Beast article, I mean,
you've got to make a living somehow. And if you
have spent your entire young and adult life being abused,
being neglected, being drugged, you know, all of these terrible things.
Maybe you know, you don't exactly have a huge skills set.
So maybe if you kind of feel comfortable in that
(08:03):
line of work that you know you've been working in
for however many years, you're just going to end up
going into that same line of work and abusing girls yourself.
And one thing that Butch Bynerd points out is that, um,
you know, our society does not expect women to be predatory.
You know, just like you said that you were so
surprised to hear about mothers of friends, you know, taking
(08:25):
advantage of these young girls. Our society just doesn't think like, oh, well,
this mother figure is going to you know, I can
I can stay with her it's safe, she won't do
anything to harm me. But the fact too that a
lot of these women were formally trafficked themselves also speaks
to a resource gap for getting women or whoever you are,
(08:46):
getting people out of trafficking and into more normalized society,
because if that's the only thing that they know, if
that's the only option, that says a lot about what
needs to be done on the other side of not
just arresting people who are doing this, but also making
sure that there are rehabilitation resources available to them. Right,
And it seems so it does seem so complicated and scary.
(09:10):
I mean, I can't imagine being in that life and
not having any way out. You know, you feel like, well,
I'm just going to get killed. If I try to
get out of this, someone might kill me. And so, yeah,
they're there. I feel like I didn't we read something
where the authorities were saying that like the newest way
they're trying to reach these girls is through texting, you know,
like putting phone numbers up in bathrooms or something like
(09:31):
text if you're in trouble, and that way, it's not
like you're running away and risking you know, getting beat
up by your pimp or your John or whoever, but
actually trying to text the authorities. I've read that in
one of our sources. Yeah, I remember reading that as well.
And and it might seem so simple to say, oh, well,
someone can just go and make a text and then
(09:52):
they can go get rescued, or they can just walk
out and go to the police if they need to.
But there are established hierarchies in these organizations to make
sure that the victims will stay put. For instance, a
lot of times you have almost a flow chart in
a way, like an organizational chart, where the victims are
(10:14):
at the very bottom, and then you have other people
who might have been trafficked as well, but who have
been involved for a longer period of time, who were
like a next year up, and then the next year up,
and then finally you get to the person who might
be masterminding the whole thing. Yeah, and there are these
people called bottoms in the organization who are victims who
(10:34):
have been with the trafficker for so long that they've
earned his trust, his or her trust or their trust
um and ends up collecting money from the other girls,
disciplining them, seducing unwinning youth into trafficking and hand basically
handling the business, serving as kind of a secretary for
the trafficker. UM. But I mean it's not always necessarily
a hierarchy. They might traffickers might have a solo operation
(10:55):
or be part of a local, national, or international organization.
It kind of runs the gamut. On top of fear
and intimidation that these people will use, it's very common
for them to use physical violence, uh, drugs and financial
methods in order to to keep these people from being
able to leave even physically. I mean, if they keep
(11:17):
them drugged up all the time, they don't even have
the wherewithal to leave and can really only do the
traffickers bidding. And then there's a lot of horrifying blackmail
that goes on, especially for UM women abroad, undocumented immigrants
who might be trafficked, where they get them to they
get them a compromising positions. Essentially, if they're being sex
(11:38):
traffic there are like naked photographs of them taken, for instance,
and they'll say, oh, well, if you want to leave,
we're gonna show these to your parents and you're gonna
be completely shamed and you'll be ostracized. And so it's
just it's a kind of horrifying web of just tactics
that they use to keep these people down right. And
a lot of times, I mean, if you're a woman
(11:59):
in another country and you have no money in your
family has no money, and you want to make it
to the West and earn more money and have that
earning potential, you will believe someone who is kind to
you and promises love and affection and just says, well,
let me hold on to your passport and your identification
and your money and I'll get you over to that
country where you can get a job and have everything
you know that you expect. And then they end up
(12:20):
kind of going down in that spiral. Yeah, I mean,
And there are even cases of out and out fraud
where someone will set up a website saying, oh, hey,
this is a hospitality school. You can come to the
United States for X amount of dollars and then we
will get you a job, and the people will go
over there and of course, lo and behold, it's not
actually a school but a trafficking ring. Um. But speaking
(12:45):
though of women in other countries, um, of course, a
lot of the focus that we hear about these days
in the US is of the trafficking going on within
our borders, but a majority of sex trafficking is international
and for non US citizens. And that's even including trafficking
within the United States, right, And so victims end up
(13:05):
being taken from places like South and Southeast Asia, the
former Soviet Union, Central and South America, and other less
developed areas and moved to more developed ones including Asia,
the Middle East, Western Europe, and North America. And factors
that contribute to making it so bad internationally are those
factors that we've talked about, including poverty, corruption, gender inequality,
(13:25):
and oppressive cultural norms. Yeah. For example, there is an
article in Forbes published late in two thousand thirteen about
how in Cambodia the subordination of the women there isn't
just a result of too few resources or a broken
civil society, but also this belief that women and girls
(13:46):
should be subordinate. They don't have access to education, um
and because of this, they're more likely to suffer the
effects of poverty. And from that you also see stemming
a horrible problem with sex trafficking in countries like that
and others. Yeah, a lot of times it does go
back to those resources, women and girls not having greater
(14:07):
resources at their disposal, not having the education or even
just the general knowledge of how to do something different.
And so it was so great about Somali Mom's column
for Forbes. She was talking about her organization over in
Cambodia setting up these basically beauty schools so that young
women and girls can go learn marketable skills and they
(14:30):
are taught how to do any number of things from
doing nails to hair to you know, general beauty stuff.
But that sets them up to be financially independent, to
be educated, to have enough knowledge and strength to kind
of avoid that otherwise horrible lifestyle. Yeah. Um. New York
Times columnists Nicholas Kristov actually talks a lot about the
(14:53):
issues of sex trafficking in East Asia, and one of
the platforms that he all so champions is education four
girls in developing countries because those two issues are so
closely connected. But even when we move into the United States,
between two thousand seven and two thousand twelve, the National
(15:15):
Human Trafficking Resource Center in the US recorded more than
nine thousand cases of potential human trafficking. And that's the
umbrella term with the labor and sex trafficking involved, but
still the top three victim nationalities were Mexican, Chinese, in Filipino.
So even within our borders, it's not like the United
States is somehow immune from these issues of poverty, the
(15:39):
subordination of women, gender inequity, et cetera. And while we've
talked about who the victims are and who the traffickers
are in these situations, we haven't mentioned who the johns are.
The john's being the individuals who are actually purchasing these
people for sex. Turns out, according to an article in
Vanity Fairy they link the in depth article looking at
(16:01):
sex trafficking, the average John is married, employed, and in
his late thirties. He's not just some random creepy guy
from off the street. So, with this collected information of
what we know in terms of who is most at risk,
where trafficking victims might be coming from outside the United States,
(16:21):
who's in the market for someone who has been sex trafficked, etcetera,
there's been a lot more attention focused on sex trafficking,
especially sex trafficking of minors in the United States from
a criminal justice standpoint. And in July two thousand thirteen,
something called Operation Cross Country took place, and it was
(16:44):
the largest sex trafficking bust in US history and one
reason why maybe last year you might have heard a
lot about this issue. Right. They recovered one hundred and
five juveniles and got one hundred and fifty pence in
seventy six cities. That is a ton. The largest number
of children found in one sweep, twelve were recovered in
(17:05):
San Francisco, and the arrest of the most alleged pimp,
eighteen came in Detroit. And this huge nationwide operation involved local, state,
and federal law enforcement agencies partnering with groups who often
look into sex trafficking issues. And in addition to these
national level initiatives like Operation Cross Country, you have a
(17:25):
lot of state level cases that have been popping up
as well. I know that here in Atlanta, I hear
a lot about sex trafficking, especially because Hartsfield Jackson Airport
is here, the largest airport in the world, and because
of that, Atlanta is unfortunately a hot spot for this
kind of activity because you have that major transportation hub there. Um.
(17:48):
But there were also big stories coming out of New Jersey, Colorado, Alaska,
and Florida last year, along with state level initiatives to
pass and modify ex trafficking laws to actually get laws
on the books first of all to punish people, but
also there have been debates on reformatting trafficking laws so
(18:11):
as to not put victims behind bars who don't need
to be there, right right, And I mean a lot
of people see this as a growing, multiplying problem in
our country and worldwide. And one of the venues that
authorities focus on when they want to combat sex trafficking
and human trafficking in general is the Super Bowl and
(18:32):
other large sporting events. Um A lot of headlines come
out about sex trafficking around the Super Bowl and inven
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott called it the single largest
human trafficking incident in the United States, and Stephanie Kilper,
who's a representative for Operation Freedom Task Force in Akron, Ohio,
said it's not so much that you become a victim
(18:53):
at the super Bowl, but that many victims are brought
in to be used for all the men at the
super Bowl. Yeah, And according to reporting at Forbes, in
two thousand ten, ten thousand prostitutes were brought to Miami,
and in two thousand eleven, more than one underage arrests
for prostitution were made in Dallas, and Arizona, which is
hosting the Super Bowl, has already set up a task
(19:16):
force to address this problem. But what does the NFL say? Hey,
they say, no, this is actually not a problem. And
a spokesman for the NFL called it, quote unquote pulp fiction,
that this is actually a problem. And while some would
take issue with Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott's statement that
(19:39):
is the single largest human trafficking incident in the United
States and that in the scope of this issue, as
we will get into in just a minute, but just
brushing it off and saying that it doesn't exist whatsoever,
is it's irresponsible to me on the NFL's part. Because
this is something that also comes up with the World Cup.
(19:59):
There is a lot of conversation about that any kind
of major event, sporting event, especially you're you're going to
have this kind of thing happen, right, And a lot
of people came out in response to these articles being like, oh,
you know, we have to watch out for sex trafficking,
We have to rescue a lot of young women and
(20:19):
girls and be on the lookout for that. A lot
of people were coming out and saying you know, don't overreact.
A lot of the people being arrested are quote unquote
local talent. You know, it's not that all of these
women and girls are being brought in from like other
countries or other states for the purpose of prostitution. But
where I think they have a valid point is just that, um.
(20:40):
And and I mean we'll get into this too, but
there has to be a distinction between um, trafficked persons
like you know, being trafficked against their will and actual
sex workers who are making money around the Super Bowl. Absolutely, um,
And that gets us into what we really don't know
about sex trafficking, and that distinction a lot of times
(21:02):
is one of them. There have been busts that have
happened where complicit sex workers are being arrested because it
is assumed that they are either traffickers or people who
are being trafficked. Um. But before we get more into that,
one other thing that we don't know is the actual
scope of this problem. It's all estimations at this point. Um.
(21:26):
The United Nations, for instance, calls that the fastest growing
business of organized crime and is among the top three
largest criminal enterprises in the world. Yeah, that organization we
sided earlier, Polaris said that more than one hundred thousand
people are tracked in the United States loan for the
sex trade, but we don't know exact numbers. As the
(21:46):
National Institute of Justice points out that, I mean this
is an underground thing. I mean people aren't putting up billboards.
You know, we don't have we were not tracking things.
We're not sure and so um. Because of the fact
that the number of rests for estimated UM trafficking victims
is so small, it leads a lot of people to
just say, hey, hey, this is blend way out of proportion.
(22:09):
We need to be paying attention to other things and
not putting all of our federal dollars behind saving these
reported trafficking victims. Yeah, because some people would point to
the ratio of say the two thousand estimated children who
are at least at risk of being trafficked in the
United States compared to Operation Cross Country, which recovered one
(22:34):
hundred and five juveniles, I say, well, is are the
number of arrests indicative of maybe this being a much
smaller problem than it actually is. And so while no
one is pro trafficking, there have been a number of
critics of how trafficking is politicized and the way that
(22:57):
it's talked about, specifically with the large estimates of you know,
it being the this massive thing. So because of ratios
like that, and obviously that's just one that I'm kind
of tossing out there. It's not an official number, but
because they're the numbers do remain so vague. There are
(23:18):
concerns that saying that there are these hundreds of thousands
of children and adults who might be trafficked is overblowing
the problem um. And also there are people who and
I never want to say that, it's not that they
are pro trafficking. Everyone is anti trafficking. No one wants
(23:40):
this to happen. But when it comes to the racial
aspect of trafficking and the fact that women of color
are more likely to be trafficked, there's an issue with
the fact that a lot of times when we see
these huge stories in these large media outlets, like that
giant Vanity Fair piece that you referenced earlier, Caroline, the
(24:05):
faces and the stories of women that you're hearing about
are white. It's often portrayed. I remember reading one about
a girl who used to be in four H club
and she was white, and how could this possibly happen
to white girls? There's always in this focus almost solely
(24:25):
on white women. Yeah, I mean some of those those
stereotypes are just so deeply ingrained in our culture. It
seems like people are so obviously people should be afraid
of and um upset about trafficking. There's no question there,
But it seems like people are so much more upset
when it is little Susie cheerleader from down the street,
the white girl with the blonde hair, and it's almost
(24:47):
as if that portrait is being painted in order to
get people's sympathies for this, Like here's something you need
to throw your money at, because it's your little girl
next door, the blonde girl next door getting trafficked. Because
if she can get trafficked, then imagine how terrible this
must be. Not to say that little Susie cheerleader doesn't
(25:10):
matter at all, but the question is why is it
only the stories of Little Susie's that we're hearing? Um.
There is also a conversation about this coming out of
the UN as well, because they have a lot of
working groups that are focused on sex trafficking globally, and
they talked about how social marginalization and gender inequity often
(25:32):
comes up in these issues, but racial inequality is something
that they need to pay closer attention due to figure
out how that kind of racial discrimination is linked to
this problem of sex trafficking. Because um, as they write, uh,
social marginalization and racial discrimination may not only put women
more at risk of being trafficked, but it also determines
(25:54):
how they're treated wherever they end up. So it's not
only a fact of women of color being more at risk,
but at more at risk of being treated even worse
if they end up in that situation. Now, in that
Vanity Fair article that we've mentioned that looked into sex trafficking,
they talk about this this almost racial hierarchy. Basically, you
know where we mentioned that largely the face of sex
(26:17):
trafficking is a girl or a woman of color, not
necessarily the blonde, white teenager from down the street. But
in terms of that hierarchy, clinical psychologist Melissa Farley, who's
the founder of Prostitution Research and Education at San Francisco
based think tank, called it eroticized racism um where white
(26:37):
girls are called snow bunnies and they outclassed the quote
unquote ducks who are black girls. And she was saying that, um,
most of these John's request the girl next door, the blonde,
thin teenager with big breasts, and that is such evidence
and in the foulest kind of way of this racial
(27:02):
discrimination that is that is happening over and over again.
And it's not that any of these girls lives are
worth more than the other, but you have to there's
so many different layers to this issue aside from just oh,
sex trafficking that's horrible, but there's within it. If you
(27:22):
look at what is pushing people into either doing it
or why people get tangled up in it, and those
risk factors, there's a lot of those subtleties of gender
and race and class that are intertwined with it. And
if you look at the history too of trafficking laws
in the United States, there is a lot of racism
(27:45):
that's tied up with it. Um, it started out being
called white slavery. And right there off Albigett go, we
have little Susie cheerleader who is at the forefront of
our concern because we don't want any thing to happen
to her. Whereas at the same time as the man
Act a k a. The White Slave Traffic Act was
(28:06):
being enacted at that time. For instance, as we mentioned
in our History of rape culture, black women would not
have even had a legal leg to stand on if
they said that they had been sexually assaulted, right. And
I mean, this is such an interesting period in our history.
I mean we have this hysteria surrounding immigration, foreigners, um women,
(28:30):
single white women moving into urban centers looking for employment,
you know, moving away from those rural areas on their
own and getting exploited. And was there some of that
going on? Absolutely? But there when I say hysteria, I
mean there was this this idea that, um, it was
going to happen to you or your sister or your
(28:50):
friend like it was you were all all of these
young women were at such a high risk of being
basically sold into quote unquote white slavery. Yeah. We found
an article about this over at PBS and it was
linking that passage of the Man Act to Jack Johnson,
who was a really prominent boxer at the time, who
(29:13):
he was a black man who had white girlfriends and wives.
And when one of the women, I don't have all
the details right in front of me, but when one
of the women cross state lines, I believe, to either
just join him or marry him. Um. People freaked out
so much at the idea of an interracial couple. A
and the fact that this you know, precious white woman
(29:34):
was in a relationship with this black boxer, that that
was fueling part of that panic at the time, this
like terror over like white female sexuality, right, And that
punishment that Jack Johnson faced was essentially what the Man
Act ended up accomplishing. I mean, it's so rarely accomplished
(29:56):
what they said they had put it on the books for,
which was to protect women. I mean, it ended up
being a tool to basically persecute minorities. Yeah, I mean,
I think he was one of, if not the first
person who was prosecuted under the Man Act. And in
the language of that law, it made it a crime
to transport women across state lines quote for the purpose
(30:17):
of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose,
which essentially allowed them to cast such a wide net.
I'm actually side note reading a book about the evolution
of yoga in the United States called The Great Oom,
and they tie in the Man Act because there were
(30:38):
these men who were practicing yoga and we're all into
the Tan Trick movement and all the stuff. And there
were white girls who were going and joining them, and
they were prosecuted under the Man Act, even though these
women were consensually going to going to join these guys.
It was such an outrage. Yeah, And I mean, you've
gotta lot, You've gotta love the Industrial Revolution period. I mean,
(30:58):
everybody's just so scar hear it about the changing society, urbanization.
You know, people coming from all sorts of different countries
and not sounding like you, not looking like you, and
the the changing role of women induce so much anxiety
among people. And so you have these evolving social morays
and and people start to just draw assumptions about things
(31:19):
where they don't exist. Yeah. I mean, it's that kind
of paternalistic arm of the law. Um. But in nine
the u n adopts the Convention for the Suppression of
traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution
of Others, And so it's sort of like a broader
type of Man Act, and it's an anti trafficking law. Um.
(31:42):
But it makes no distinction between free enforced prostitution. And
this is something that is still an issue with sex
trafficking today is the question of is this free or
forced prostitution? Um. Because then in the nineteen eighties you
have second way feminists who helped coin the term sex trafficking,
(32:05):
and at the same time you have sex workers starting
to organize saying, hey, we are actually consensually doing this work.
This is our livelihood. Don't mess this up. We are
not pro trafficking at all. We're all working on the
same team, but don't get us arrested. Yeah, I mean,
I think it's very interesting that the terms sex trafficking
(32:25):
and sex worker come out at about the same time, Um,
that that women were, you know, definitely trying to draw
those lines between the two and say not everybody, you know,
not everybody's in this for the same in goal. I
guess yeah, because you you also have these riffs within
the feminist movement of women who are oncent across the
(32:47):
board anti prostitution, and so you do have those sex
work activists claiming that term sex work and trying to
legitimize what they're doing. Um. And it's really up until
when dozens of trafficked labor workers were found in New
(33:08):
York that trafficking even took on any kind of non
sex connotation. Up until then, any kind of trafficking was
considered sex trafficking, and the victims were almost always considered women. Right.
And it is around this time too that we do
get the legal distinction made between free enforced prostitution. And
(33:29):
so what this brings us up to today is that
we know that it's a problem. As we've ran through
in the first half of the podcast, this is happening. Yes,
there are victims, Yes, there are people who are criminals
who are doing horrible things. Yes, but there's still there's
(33:50):
still a lot of ambiguity because you have things like
that law passed by Congress in two thousand, the Trafficking
Law that that puts the definition of trafficking into legal terms.
But when it comes to the day to day work
the there there's some who would say that we pay
(34:11):
so much attention to sex trafficking because this is more
of a sex panic. Yeah. I mean, there were a
lot of columns that we that we saw that talked
about kind of kind of what I mentioned earlier, you know,
like people saying you're putting way too much money into
this is trafficking, bad yes, is it awful? Yes? Are
there girls and women and boys and men who need
to be saved? Yes, But watch your language that kind
(34:33):
of thing, you know, watch the way that you as
authorities or people or the media, just watch how you
frame the way you're talking about it, because not everybody
has gotten into sex work the same way. And um,
I think a lot of advocates out there for sex
workers are saying that, you know, the lines need to
(34:54):
be clearer and there need to be better resources on
both sides, right, I mean, because the problem on for
UH consensual sex worker with the kinds of laws that
have come down is that it pushes sex work even
more underground, so it's making their working conditions even more dangerous.
(35:14):
Because the thing is, no matter how many laws you
have in the books, prostitution is gonna happen. It's just
gonna happen. Um And there are people who make their
livelihoods by that and are happy to do so. UM.
So by the same coin, though, there need to be
more resources beyond just laws to help people get out
of trafficking. Because there was one UH nonprofit who that
(35:38):
has a shelter set up almost as a halfway house
for UM victims of sex trafficking who have who have
been rescued, but they only have like eight beds or something,
and I think it's in New York and and that
you know, that small number of beds can only clearly
house a fraction of people who need it. So what
(35:59):
are what are the they're people going to do? Right?
And so I think you know, we mentioned Smalley Mom
in UM Cambodia, who has that group UM that educates
young girls and women, And you know, I would love
to see more things like that, And you know, I'm
sure there's so much that we haven't even touched on.
And maybe our listeners know of some resources like that,
(36:20):
some organizations out there who can actually help. So, if
at all possible, even though this isn't the most pleasant
of topics, I'd like to end the podcast on a
positive note. And as we often stay on the podcast,
if we educate ourselves, then maybe we can educate other
people and hopefully through education and awareness and paying attention
(36:42):
to facts rather than any kind of panicked portrayals, we
can make a more equitable society together. Yeah, And I
mean that's what we try to do, you know, present
facts and stats UM and you know, try to make
it clear that you know, we're not We're not UM
try to promote any sort of panic either, but uh
(37:03):
we we sort of gave you a a broad brush
overview of this very important topic. And if you want
to learn more, I encourage you to go to Polaris's
website UM where they have a lot of information about
like state by state information. They they have basically tiers
tiers one, two, and three of states who are doing
(37:23):
a lot to protect people from the sex trafficking industry. Yeah,
and if you're someone who might be working with a
nonprofit like Polarists, or if you are a sex worker
or work with any kind of sex worker advocacy group
that has UM a different kind of perspective on this
issue as well. We want to hear from everybody about
(37:45):
this topic. So you can write to us mom stuff
at Discovery dot com, or you can tweet us a
mom Stuff podcast, or send us a message over on Facebook.
And we've got a couple of messages to share with
you when we get right back from a quick break
and now back to our letters. Well, we have some
messages here in response to our pie episode, our Delicious
(38:09):
Delicious episode on Pie and Kate wrote to us. She
said she's from San Diego, California. She says, I'm writing
too about your recent episode about pies. Unlike both of
your families, the cooking duties in my parents household tend
to be pretty much equally distributed. In fact, it is
my dad who does most of the holiday cooking, with
pies as his particular specialty. This year at Thanksgiving he
(38:31):
made pumpkin apple pecan oh, she says, pronounced by us
as peacan, not pecan, and pomegranate meringue pies. He says
his work as a chemistry professor makes him uniquely qualified
for baking, and my mother happily agrees. I just thought
i'd share how proud I am of my fair minded daddy,
who raised me and my sister to be strong women
(38:52):
who also appreciate the art of baking delicious Pie and Kristen,
She adds, thank you so much for the work you
do on the podcast. I of having the two of
you in my ears as I'm walking to class. I
also want to tell you how much I enjoyed the
YouTube channel. The her Story episodes are my particular favorite.
They make me laugh and laugh so thank you for
listening and watching Kate. Yeah, thank you, Kate. Well, I've
(39:14):
got an email here from Patrick's subject line, I'm a
guy who bakes pies. Hey, Kristen and Caroline. He writes,
I'm a man thirty years old now who was expected
to make pies whenever I come to extended family gatherings.
It started years ago when I asked what I should
bring for Thanksgiving and I was told to bring pie.
So I broke out the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook
(39:35):
and made an apple pie from scratch, Yes, even the crust.
It's impressive. It took a few tries the first time,
but I did it, and I took the pie. It
was a hit. Thus it came to pass that whenever
I'm in by a two Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter, I'm
expected to make and bring pie. Though I will agree
with what you said about the lattice work being too
(39:55):
much of a pain. That's why I go for the
French apple pie topping, which is more of a crumbled
topping made out of flour, brown sugar, and butter, So
much easier than lattice, and everyone loves brown sugar. I
can't agree. Well, thanks to Patrick and Kate and everybody
else who has written in to us. Mom Stuff at
(40:16):
Discovery dot com is where you can send us your letters.
You can also reach us though on Twitter at mom
Stuff Podcasts, or you can message us on Facebook. And
if you want to go find all things stuff mom
never told you, there's only one place now on the Internet,
and it's www. Dot stuff mom never told you dot
com book market and come back often for more on
(40:43):
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
works dot com
Welcome to Stuff Mob Never told you From how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. And today we are talking about
sex trafficking because in two thousand eleven, President Obama actually
declared January to be National Human Trafficking Awareness Month. In
(00:26):
January eleven is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. So we
thought we'd take this opportunity and focus in on sex
trafficking because actually a few years ago we did an
episode focusing on the labor aspect of human trafficking, right, which,
when you hear human trafficking, labor trafficking actually does make
(00:47):
up a majority of what is called human trafficking, but
sex trafficking is a very terrible percentage of that. That's right. Um.
And in the United States, for instance, about two d
children are estimated to be at risk of becoming victims
of commercial sexual exploitation, which would include sex trafficking. And
(01:07):
that number is coming from the FBI, And the estimate
is that sex trafficking around the world is a ten
billion dollar a year business. Right. But what as we'll
get into later in this episode, it really is just
about estimates. It's very hard to tell exactly how many women, girls, boys,
men are in the sex trafficking industry are being basically
(01:31):
forced against their will to participate and how much money
comes from that. So before we get into those estimates
into the murkier territory of sex trafficking, let's talk about
what we do know about human and sex trafficking. Well,
we do have a legal definition of it um according
to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which was passed by
(01:53):
Congress back in two thousands. To summarize it is basically
the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person
for the purpose of a commercial sex act and they're
basically being forced into it um. And human trafficking, also
known as human trafficking in persons, is a modern day
form of slavery. You hear that a lot, that it
(02:14):
is our modern day version of slavery. Yeah, And even
though trafficking seems to indicate that you are moving people
around under that federal definition, you don't actually have to
move people in order to be trafficking them in some way.
And when we're talking about miners who are involved in
(02:35):
sex trafficking, because that is where this becomes such a
really big problem is for kids who are under eighteen
who are victims of sex trafficking, and that occurs when
any resident of the US under the age of eighteen
is commercially sexually exploited. So, for instance, children can be
commercially sexually exploited through prostitution, pornography, and or erotic entertainment.
(02:59):
And because of the nature of this conversation, UM, we
should put a warning out there for parents who might
be listening with younger kids that there will be some
sensitive information, UM, any trigger warnings that we need to issue.
Here it is and we're not going to get into
any gruesome details, but this is gonna be a challenging
(03:20):
topic to discuss, right and speaking of as far as minors,
speaking of victims, the victims of sex trafficking can really
be almost anyone. This is coming from the Polaris Project,
which focuses a lot on human trafficking. And you know,
people who are sex trafficked can be men, women, adults, children,
They can be from foreign countries or they can be
(03:41):
U S citizens. And this is not just an issue
of you know, people from poorer neighborhoods being trafficked or
being forced to have sex against their will. Sometimes these
individuals are well educated, while others might not have any
formal education. But there are also certain populations that are
going to be especially vulnerable to trafficking include undocumented immigrants,
(04:01):
a runaway and homeless youth, especially oppressed, marginalized, and or
impoverished groups and individuals. And we have to talk about
gender as well, because according to Victims of Crime dot Org,
ninety four per cent of the sex trafficking victims in
cases that have been investigated by federally funded task forces
(04:23):
or female. Well, so we mentioned that, you know, prostitution
is definitely a part of this commercial sex trafficking of
miners and Richard J. S d S and Neil Allen
Weener did a study into the ages of children who
are part of the sex trafficking industry and they found
at the average age at which girls first become victims
of prostitution is twelve to fourteen. Boys and transgender youth
(04:45):
have or inner into prostitution between the ages of eleven
and thirteen on average, which is just horrifying. Yeah, because
you're you're hearing a lot more stories about how these
task forces are focusing specifically on miners who are being
trafficked because they're becoming such prominent targets for these criminal rings.
(05:07):
And even though again the number of people who are
involved is hard to pin down because of the nature
of the crime, we do know demographic wise who the
traffickers are, who the people who would want to commercially
sexually exploit men, women and children. Um. And the thing
(05:27):
is a lot of times you'd probably think that, especially
when it comes to sex trafficking and forced prostitution, that
it's going to be men who are running the show.
But actually there are a lot of women who are
running established rings as well. In fact, according to an
article in The Daily Beast from August two thousand thirteen,
(05:48):
which was citing research from Northeastern University and the Urban Institute,
thirty percent of traffickers are women. Yeah, that was pretty
surprising to me. I mean, especially when you take into
a consideration, just like the stereotypes, the ideas you have
in your head of who is running prostitution rings and
things like that. But these women don't just come into
play individually. I mean, they can be part of families
(06:11):
who are trafficking people, couples, um. Sharon Butch Binder was
talking to The Daily Beast and she was looking at
four hundred and seventy news releases from Immigration and Customs
Enforcement from two thousand eight through July one hundred and
sixty of which were specifically related to human trafficking for
either sex or labor. And she broke it down into
(06:32):
a chart. And keep in mind, you know, she points
out that this is not like a scientific, very precise study,
but she looked at the percentages of gender, whether it's
an individual, a family, a couple, and women. The number
of women involved, like being prosecuted for these things is
on the rise. Yeah, it is on the rise. And Caroline,
when I was reading about sex trafficking and specifically the
(06:54):
stories that past victims were telling, the ones that were
the most horrifying to were instances when girls were being
trafficked by like friends, mother like friends, mothers, and or
even their own mothers or stepmothers. It's it's disturbing to
think of women getting other women into such a horrible
(07:19):
type of existence. And but a lot of times these
women too have been victims of sex trafficking themselves. When
you break down who these women are, a lot of
times they're around ten years older than their victims, And
they were former victims of sex trafficking who, instead of escaping,
decided to go into the same business, maybe because that's
all they know, Maybe because they don't know how to
(07:41):
get out of that criminal underworld. Right, And as Butch
Binder pointed out in that Daily Beast article, I mean,
you've got to make a living somehow. And if you
have spent your entire young and adult life being abused,
being neglected, being drugged, you know, all of these terrible things.
Maybe you know, you don't exactly have a huge skills set.
So maybe if you kind of feel comfortable in that
(08:03):
line of work that you know you've been working in
for however many years, you're just going to end up
going into that same line of work and abusing girls yourself.
And one thing that Butch Bynerd points out is that, um,
you know, our society does not expect women to be predatory.
You know, just like you said that you were so
surprised to hear about mothers of friends, you know, taking
(08:25):
advantage of these young girls. Our society just doesn't think like, oh, well,
this mother figure is going to you know, I can
I can stay with her it's safe, she won't do
anything to harm me. But the fact too that a
lot of these women were formally trafficked themselves also speaks
to a resource gap for getting women or whoever you are,
(08:46):
getting people out of trafficking and into more normalized society,
because if that's the only thing that they know, if
that's the only option, that says a lot about what
needs to be done on the other side of not
just arresting people who are doing this, but also making
sure that there are rehabilitation resources available to them. Right,
And it seems so it does seem so complicated and scary.
(09:10):
I mean, I can't imagine being in that life and
not having any way out. You know, you feel like, well,
I'm just going to get killed. If I try to
get out of this, someone might kill me. And so, yeah,
they're there. I feel like I didn't we read something
where the authorities were saying that like the newest way
they're trying to reach these girls is through texting, you know,
like putting phone numbers up in bathrooms or something like
(09:31):
text if you're in trouble, and that way, it's not
like you're running away and risking you know, getting beat
up by your pimp or your John or whoever, but
actually trying to text the authorities. I've read that in
one of our sources. Yeah, I remember reading that as well.
And and it might seem so simple to say, oh, well,
someone can just go and make a text and then
(09:52):
they can go get rescued, or they can just walk
out and go to the police if they need to.
But there are established hierarchies in these organizations to make
sure that the victims will stay put. For instance, a
lot of times you have almost a flow chart in
a way, like an organizational chart, where the victims are
(10:14):
at the very bottom, and then you have other people
who might have been trafficked as well, but who have
been involved for a longer period of time, who were
like a next year up, and then the next year up,
and then finally you get to the person who might
be masterminding the whole thing. Yeah, and there are these
people called bottoms in the organization who are victims who
(10:34):
have been with the trafficker for so long that they've
earned his trust, his or her trust or their trust
um and ends up collecting money from the other girls,
disciplining them, seducing unwinning youth into trafficking and hand basically
handling the business, serving as kind of a secretary for
the trafficker. UM. But I mean it's not always necessarily
a hierarchy. They might traffickers might have a solo operation
(10:55):
or be part of a local, national, or international organization.
It kind of runs the gamut. On top of fear
and intimidation that these people will use, it's very common
for them to use physical violence, uh, drugs and financial
methods in order to to keep these people from being
able to leave even physically. I mean, if they keep
(11:17):
them drugged up all the time, they don't even have
the wherewithal to leave and can really only do the
traffickers bidding. And then there's a lot of horrifying blackmail
that goes on, especially for UM women abroad, undocumented immigrants
who might be trafficked, where they get them to they
get them a compromising positions. Essentially, if they're being sex
(11:38):
traffic there are like naked photographs of them taken, for instance,
and they'll say, oh, well, if you want to leave,
we're gonna show these to your parents and you're gonna
be completely shamed and you'll be ostracized. And so it's
just it's a kind of horrifying web of just tactics
that they use to keep these people down right. And
a lot of times, I mean, if you're a woman
(11:59):
in another country and you have no money in your
family has no money, and you want to make it
to the West and earn more money and have that
earning potential, you will believe someone who is kind to
you and promises love and affection and just says, well,
let me hold on to your passport and your identification
and your money and I'll get you over to that
country where you can get a job and have everything
you know that you expect. And then they end up
(12:20):
kind of going down in that spiral. Yeah, I mean,
And there are even cases of out and out fraud
where someone will set up a website saying, oh, hey,
this is a hospitality school. You can come to the
United States for X amount of dollars and then we
will get you a job, and the people will go
over there and of course, lo and behold, it's not
actually a school but a trafficking ring. Um. But speaking
(12:45):
though of women in other countries, um, of course, a
lot of the focus that we hear about these days
in the US is of the trafficking going on within
our borders, but a majority of sex trafficking is international
and for non US citizens. And that's even including trafficking
within the United States, right, And so victims end up
(13:05):
being taken from places like South and Southeast Asia, the
former Soviet Union, Central and South America, and other less
developed areas and moved to more developed ones including Asia,
the Middle East, Western Europe, and North America. And factors
that contribute to making it so bad internationally are those
factors that we've talked about, including poverty, corruption, gender inequality,
(13:25):
and oppressive cultural norms. Yeah. For example, there is an
article in Forbes published late in two thousand thirteen about
how in Cambodia the subordination of the women there isn't
just a result of too few resources or a broken
civil society, but also this belief that women and girls
(13:46):
should be subordinate. They don't have access to education, um
and because of this, they're more likely to suffer the
effects of poverty. And from that you also see stemming
a horrible problem with sex trafficking in countries like that
and others. Yeah, a lot of times it does go
back to those resources, women and girls not having greater
(14:07):
resources at their disposal, not having the education or even
just the general knowledge of how to do something different.
And so it was so great about Somali Mom's column
for Forbes. She was talking about her organization over in
Cambodia setting up these basically beauty schools so that young
women and girls can go learn marketable skills and they
(14:30):
are taught how to do any number of things from
doing nails to hair to you know, general beauty stuff.
But that sets them up to be financially independent, to
be educated, to have enough knowledge and strength to kind
of avoid that otherwise horrible lifestyle. Yeah. Um. New York
Times columnists Nicholas Kristov actually talks a lot about the
(14:53):
issues of sex trafficking in East Asia, and one of
the platforms that he all so champions is education four
girls in developing countries because those two issues are so
closely connected. But even when we move into the United States,
between two thousand seven and two thousand twelve, the National
(15:15):
Human Trafficking Resource Center in the US recorded more than
nine thousand cases of potential human trafficking. And that's the
umbrella term with the labor and sex trafficking involved, but
still the top three victim nationalities were Mexican, Chinese, in Filipino.
So even within our borders, it's not like the United
States is somehow immune from these issues of poverty, the
(15:39):
subordination of women, gender inequity, et cetera. And while we've
talked about who the victims are and who the traffickers
are in these situations, we haven't mentioned who the johns are.
The john's being the individuals who are actually purchasing these
people for sex. Turns out, according to an article in
Vanity Fairy they link the in depth article looking at
(16:01):
sex trafficking, the average John is married, employed, and in
his late thirties. He's not just some random creepy guy
from off the street. So, with this collected information of
what we know in terms of who is most at risk,
where trafficking victims might be coming from outside the United States,
(16:21):
who's in the market for someone who has been sex trafficked, etcetera,
there's been a lot more attention focused on sex trafficking,
especially sex trafficking of minors in the United States from
a criminal justice standpoint. And in July two thousand thirteen,
something called Operation Cross Country took place, and it was
(16:44):
the largest sex trafficking bust in US history and one
reason why maybe last year you might have heard a
lot about this issue. Right. They recovered one hundred and
five juveniles and got one hundred and fifty pence in
seventy six cities. That is a ton. The largest number
of children found in one sweep, twelve were recovered in
(17:05):
San Francisco, and the arrest of the most alleged pimp,
eighteen came in Detroit. And this huge nationwide operation involved local, state,
and federal law enforcement agencies partnering with groups who often
look into sex trafficking issues. And in addition to these
national level initiatives like Operation Cross Country, you have a
(17:25):
lot of state level cases that have been popping up
as well. I know that here in Atlanta, I hear
a lot about sex trafficking, especially because Hartsfield Jackson Airport
is here, the largest airport in the world, and because
of that, Atlanta is unfortunately a hot spot for this
kind of activity because you have that major transportation hub there. Um.
(17:48):
But there were also big stories coming out of New Jersey, Colorado, Alaska,
and Florida last year, along with state level initiatives to
pass and modify ex trafficking laws to actually get laws
on the books first of all to punish people, but
also there have been debates on reformatting trafficking laws so
(18:11):
as to not put victims behind bars who don't need
to be there, right right, And I mean a lot
of people see this as a growing, multiplying problem in
our country and worldwide. And one of the venues that
authorities focus on when they want to combat sex trafficking
and human trafficking in general is the Super Bowl and
(18:32):
other large sporting events. Um A lot of headlines come
out about sex trafficking around the Super Bowl and inven
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott called it the single largest
human trafficking incident in the United States, and Stephanie Kilper,
who's a representative for Operation Freedom Task Force in Akron, Ohio,
said it's not so much that you become a victim
(18:53):
at the super Bowl, but that many victims are brought
in to be used for all the men at the
super Bowl. Yeah, And according to reporting at Forbes, in
two thousand ten, ten thousand prostitutes were brought to Miami,
and in two thousand eleven, more than one underage arrests
for prostitution were made in Dallas, and Arizona, which is
hosting the Super Bowl, has already set up a task
(19:16):
force to address this problem. But what does the NFL say? Hey,
they say, no, this is actually not a problem. And
a spokesman for the NFL called it, quote unquote pulp fiction,
that this is actually a problem. And while some would
take issue with Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott's statement that
(19:39):
is the single largest human trafficking incident in the United
States and that in the scope of this issue, as
we will get into in just a minute, but just
brushing it off and saying that it doesn't exist whatsoever,
is it's irresponsible to me on the NFL's part. Because
this is something that also comes up with the World Cup.
(19:59):
There is a lot of conversation about that any kind
of major event, sporting event, especially you're you're going to
have this kind of thing happen, right, And a lot
of people came out in response to these articles being like, oh,
you know, we have to watch out for sex trafficking,
We have to rescue a lot of young women and
(20:19):
girls and be on the lookout for that. A lot
of people were coming out and saying you know, don't overreact.
A lot of the people being arrested are quote unquote
local talent. You know, it's not that all of these
women and girls are being brought in from like other
countries or other states for the purpose of prostitution. But
where I think they have a valid point is just that, um.
(20:40):
And and I mean we'll get into this too, but
there has to be a distinction between um, trafficked persons
like you know, being trafficked against their will and actual
sex workers who are making money around the Super Bowl. Absolutely, um,
And that gets us into what we really don't know
about sex trafficking, and that distinction a lot of times
(21:02):
is one of them. There have been busts that have
happened where complicit sex workers are being arrested because it
is assumed that they are either traffickers or people who
are being trafficked. Um. But before we get more into that,
one other thing that we don't know is the actual
scope of this problem. It's all estimations at this point. Um.
(21:26):
The United Nations, for instance, calls that the fastest growing
business of organized crime and is among the top three
largest criminal enterprises in the world. Yeah, that organization we
sided earlier, Polaris said that more than one hundred thousand
people are tracked in the United States loan for the
sex trade, but we don't know exact numbers. As the
(21:46):
National Institute of Justice points out that, I mean this
is an underground thing. I mean people aren't putting up billboards.
You know, we don't have we were not tracking things.
We're not sure and so um. Because of the fact
that the number of rests for estimated UM trafficking victims
is so small, it leads a lot of people to
just say, hey, hey, this is blend way out of proportion.
(22:09):
We need to be paying attention to other things and
not putting all of our federal dollars behind saving these
reported trafficking victims. Yeah, because some people would point to
the ratio of say the two thousand estimated children who
are at least at risk of being trafficked in the
United States compared to Operation Cross Country, which recovered one
(22:34):
hundred and five juveniles, I say, well, is are the
number of arrests indicative of maybe this being a much
smaller problem than it actually is. And so while no
one is pro trafficking, there have been a number of
critics of how trafficking is politicized and the way that
(22:57):
it's talked about, specifically with the large estimates of you know,
it being the this massive thing. So because of ratios
like that, and obviously that's just one that I'm kind
of tossing out there. It's not an official number, but
because they're the numbers do remain so vague. There are
(23:18):
concerns that saying that there are these hundreds of thousands
of children and adults who might be trafficked is overblowing
the problem um. And also there are people who and
I never want to say that, it's not that they
are pro trafficking. Everyone is anti trafficking. No one wants
(23:40):
this to happen. But when it comes to the racial
aspect of trafficking and the fact that women of color
are more likely to be trafficked, there's an issue with
the fact that a lot of times when we see
these huge stories in these large media outlets, like that
giant Vanity Fair piece that you referenced earlier, Caroline, the
(24:05):
faces and the stories of women that you're hearing about
are white. It's often portrayed. I remember reading one about
a girl who used to be in four H club
and she was white, and how could this possibly happen
to white girls? There's always in this focus almost solely
(24:25):
on white women. Yeah, I mean some of those those
stereotypes are just so deeply ingrained in our culture. It
seems like people are so obviously people should be afraid
of and um upset about trafficking. There's no question there,
But it seems like people are so much more upset
when it is little Susie cheerleader from down the street,
the white girl with the blonde hair, and it's almost
(24:47):
as if that portrait is being painted in order to
get people's sympathies for this, Like here's something you need
to throw your money at, because it's your little girl
next door, the blonde girl next door getting trafficked. Because
if she can get trafficked, then imagine how terrible this
must be. Not to say that little Susie cheerleader doesn't
(25:10):
matter at all, but the question is why is it
only the stories of Little Susie's that we're hearing? Um.
There is also a conversation about this coming out of
the UN as well, because they have a lot of
working groups that are focused on sex trafficking globally, and
they talked about how social marginalization and gender inequity often
(25:32):
comes up in these issues, but racial inequality is something
that they need to pay closer attention due to figure
out how that kind of racial discrimination is linked to
this problem of sex trafficking. Because um, as they write, uh,
social marginalization and racial discrimination may not only put women
more at risk of being trafficked, but it also determines
(25:54):
how they're treated wherever they end up. So it's not
only a fact of women of color being more at risk,
but at more at risk of being treated even worse
if they end up in that situation. Now, in that
Vanity Fair article that we've mentioned that looked into sex trafficking,
they talk about this this almost racial hierarchy. Basically, you
know where we mentioned that largely the face of sex
(26:17):
trafficking is a girl or a woman of color, not
necessarily the blonde, white teenager from down the street. But
in terms of that hierarchy, clinical psychologist Melissa Farley, who's
the founder of Prostitution Research and Education at San Francisco
based think tank, called it eroticized racism um where white
(26:37):
girls are called snow bunnies and they outclassed the quote
unquote ducks who are black girls. And she was saying that, um,
most of these John's request the girl next door, the blonde,
thin teenager with big breasts, and that is such evidence
and in the foulest kind of way of this racial
(27:02):
discrimination that is that is happening over and over again.
And it's not that any of these girls lives are
worth more than the other, but you have to there's
so many different layers to this issue aside from just oh,
sex trafficking that's horrible, but there's within it. If you
(27:22):
look at what is pushing people into either doing it
or why people get tangled up in it, and those
risk factors, there's a lot of those subtleties of gender
and race and class that are intertwined with it. And
if you look at the history too of trafficking laws
in the United States, there is a lot of racism
(27:45):
that's tied up with it. Um, it started out being
called white slavery. And right there off Albigett go, we
have little Susie cheerleader who is at the forefront of
our concern because we don't want any thing to happen
to her. Whereas at the same time as the man
Act a k a. The White Slave Traffic Act was
(28:06):
being enacted at that time. For instance, as we mentioned
in our History of rape culture, black women would not
have even had a legal leg to stand on if
they said that they had been sexually assaulted, right. And
I mean, this is such an interesting period in our history.
I mean we have this hysteria surrounding immigration, foreigners, um women,
(28:30):
single white women moving into urban centers looking for employment,
you know, moving away from those rural areas on their
own and getting exploited. And was there some of that
going on? Absolutely? But there when I say hysteria, I
mean there was this this idea that, um, it was
going to happen to you or your sister or your
(28:50):
friend like it was you were all all of these
young women were at such a high risk of being
basically sold into quote unquote white slavery. Yeah. We found
an article about this over at PBS and it was
linking that passage of the Man Act to Jack Johnson,
who was a really prominent boxer at the time, who
(29:13):
he was a black man who had white girlfriends and wives.
And when one of the women, I don't have all
the details right in front of me, but when one
of the women cross state lines, I believe, to either
just join him or marry him. Um. People freaked out
so much at the idea of an interracial couple. A
and the fact that this you know, precious white woman
(29:34):
was in a relationship with this black boxer, that that
was fueling part of that panic at the time, this
like terror over like white female sexuality, right, And that
punishment that Jack Johnson faced was essentially what the Man
Act ended up accomplishing. I mean, it's so rarely accomplished
(29:56):
what they said they had put it on the books for,
which was to protect women. I mean, it ended up
being a tool to basically persecute minorities. Yeah, I mean,
I think he was one of, if not the first
person who was prosecuted under the Man Act. And in
the language of that law, it made it a crime
to transport women across state lines quote for the purpose
(30:17):
of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose,
which essentially allowed them to cast such a wide net.
I'm actually side note reading a book about the evolution
of yoga in the United States called The Great Oom,
and they tie in the Man Act because there were
(30:38):
these men who were practicing yoga and we're all into
the Tan Trick movement and all the stuff. And there
were white girls who were going and joining them, and
they were prosecuted under the Man Act, even though these
women were consensually going to going to join these guys.
It was such an outrage. Yeah, And I mean, you've
gotta lot, You've gotta love the Industrial Revolution period. I mean,
(30:58):
everybody's just so scar hear it about the changing society, urbanization.
You know, people coming from all sorts of different countries
and not sounding like you, not looking like you, and
the the changing role of women induce so much anxiety
among people. And so you have these evolving social morays
and and people start to just draw assumptions about things
(31:19):
where they don't exist. Yeah. I mean, it's that kind
of paternalistic arm of the law. Um. But in nine
the u n adopts the Convention for the Suppression of
traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution
of Others, And so it's sort of like a broader
type of Man Act, and it's an anti trafficking law. Um.
(31:42):
But it makes no distinction between free enforced prostitution. And
this is something that is still an issue with sex
trafficking today is the question of is this free or
forced prostitution? Um. Because then in the nineteen eighties you
have second way feminists who helped coin the term sex trafficking,
(32:05):
and at the same time you have sex workers starting
to organize saying, hey, we are actually consensually doing this work.
This is our livelihood. Don't mess this up. We are
not pro trafficking at all. We're all working on the
same team, but don't get us arrested. Yeah, I mean,
I think it's very interesting that the terms sex trafficking
(32:25):
and sex worker come out at about the same time, Um,
that that women were, you know, definitely trying to draw
those lines between the two and say not everybody, you know,
not everybody's in this for the same in goal. I
guess yeah, because you you also have these riffs within
the feminist movement of women who are oncent across the
(32:47):
board anti prostitution, and so you do have those sex
work activists claiming that term sex work and trying to
legitimize what they're doing. Um. And it's really up until
when dozens of trafficked labor workers were found in New
(33:08):
York that trafficking even took on any kind of non
sex connotation. Up until then, any kind of trafficking was
considered sex trafficking, and the victims were almost always considered women. Right.
And it is around this time too that we do
get the legal distinction made between free enforced prostitution. And
(33:29):
so what this brings us up to today is that
we know that it's a problem. As we've ran through
in the first half of the podcast, this is happening. Yes,
there are victims, Yes, there are people who are criminals
who are doing horrible things. Yes, but there's still there's
(33:50):
still a lot of ambiguity because you have things like
that law passed by Congress in two thousand, the Trafficking
Law that that puts the definition of trafficking into legal terms.
But when it comes to the day to day work
the there there's some who would say that we pay
(34:11):
so much attention to sex trafficking because this is more
of a sex panic. Yeah. I mean, there were a
lot of columns that we that we saw that talked
about kind of kind of what I mentioned earlier, you know,
like people saying you're putting way too much money into
this is trafficking, bad yes, is it awful? Yes? Are
there girls and women and boys and men who need
to be saved? Yes, But watch your language that kind
(34:33):
of thing, you know, watch the way that you as
authorities or people or the media, just watch how you
frame the way you're talking about it, because not everybody
has gotten into sex work the same way. And um,
I think a lot of advocates out there for sex
workers are saying that, you know, the lines need to
(34:54):
be clearer and there need to be better resources on
both sides, right, I mean, because the problem on for
UH consensual sex worker with the kinds of laws that
have come down is that it pushes sex work even
more underground, so it's making their working conditions even more dangerous.
(35:14):
Because the thing is, no matter how many laws you
have in the books, prostitution is gonna happen. It's just
gonna happen. Um And there are people who make their
livelihoods by that and are happy to do so. UM.
So by the same coin, though, there need to be
more resources beyond just laws to help people get out
of trafficking. Because there was one UH nonprofit who that
(35:38):
has a shelter set up almost as a halfway house
for UM victims of sex trafficking who have who have
been rescued, but they only have like eight beds or something,
and I think it's in New York and and that
you know, that small number of beds can only clearly
house a fraction of people who need it. So what
(35:59):
are what are the they're people going to do? Right?
And so I think you know, we mentioned Smalley Mom
in UM Cambodia, who has that group UM that educates
young girls and women, And you know, I would love
to see more things like that, And you know, I'm
sure there's so much that we haven't even touched on.
And maybe our listeners know of some resources like that,
(36:20):
some organizations out there who can actually help. So, if
at all possible, even though this isn't the most pleasant
of topics, I'd like to end the podcast on a
positive note. And as we often stay on the podcast,
if we educate ourselves, then maybe we can educate other
people and hopefully through education and awareness and paying attention
(36:42):
to facts rather than any kind of panicked portrayals, we
can make a more equitable society together. Yeah, And I
mean that's what we try to do, you know, present
facts and stats UM and you know, try to make
it clear that you know, we're not We're not UM
try to promote any sort of panic either, but uh
(37:03):
we we sort of gave you a a broad brush
overview of this very important topic. And if you want
to learn more, I encourage you to go to Polaris's
website UM where they have a lot of information about
like state by state information. They they have basically tiers
tiers one, two, and three of states who are doing
(37:23):
a lot to protect people from the sex trafficking industry. Yeah,
and if you're someone who might be working with a
nonprofit like Polarists, or if you are a sex worker
or work with any kind of sex worker advocacy group
that has UM a different kind of perspective on this
issue as well. We want to hear from everybody about
(37:45):
this topic. So you can write to us mom stuff
at Discovery dot com, or you can tweet us a
mom Stuff podcast, or send us a message over on Facebook.
And we've got a couple of messages to share with
you when we get right back from a quick break
and now back to our letters. Well, we have some
messages here in response to our pie episode, our Delicious
(38:09):
Delicious episode on Pie and Kate wrote to us. She
said she's from San Diego, California. She says, I'm writing
too about your recent episode about pies. Unlike both of
your families, the cooking duties in my parents household tend
to be pretty much equally distributed. In fact, it is
my dad who does most of the holiday cooking, with
pies as his particular specialty. This year at Thanksgiving he
(38:31):
made pumpkin apple pecan oh, she says, pronounced by us
as peacan, not pecan, and pomegranate meringue pies. He says
his work as a chemistry professor makes him uniquely qualified
for baking, and my mother happily agrees. I just thought
i'd share how proud I am of my fair minded daddy,
who raised me and my sister to be strong women
(38:52):
who also appreciate the art of baking delicious Pie and Kristen,
She adds, thank you so much for the work you
do on the podcast. I of having the two of
you in my ears as I'm walking to class. I
also want to tell you how much I enjoyed the
YouTube channel. The her Story episodes are my particular favorite.
They make me laugh and laugh so thank you for
listening and watching Kate. Yeah, thank you, Kate. Well, I've
(39:14):
got an email here from Patrick's subject line, I'm a
guy who bakes pies. Hey, Kristen and Caroline. He writes,
I'm a man thirty years old now who was expected
to make pies whenever I come to extended family gatherings.
It started years ago when I asked what I should
bring for Thanksgiving and I was told to bring pie.
So I broke out the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook
(39:35):
and made an apple pie from scratch, Yes, even the crust.
It's impressive. It took a few tries the first time,
but I did it, and I took the pie. It
was a hit. Thus it came to pass that whenever
I'm in by a two Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter, I'm
expected to make and bring pie. Though I will agree
with what you said about the lattice work being too
(39:55):
much of a pain. That's why I go for the
French apple pie topping, which is more of a crumbled
topping made out of flour, brown sugar, and butter, So
much easier than lattice, and everyone loves brown sugar. I
can't agree. Well, thanks to Patrick and Kate and everybody
else who has written in to us. Mom Stuff at
(40:16):
Discovery dot com is where you can send us your letters.
You can also reach us though on Twitter at mom
Stuff Podcasts, or you can message us on Facebook. And
if you want to go find all things stuff mom
never told you, there's only one place now on the Internet,
and it's www. Dot stuff mom never told you dot
com book market and come back often for more on
(40:43):
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
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