Leading a worldwide effort to eradicate sexual slavery...one life at a time
by SHI Staff
Linda Smith’s Testimony to the House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security.
This Testimony is entitled “Domestic Sex Trafficking: the prostitution of America’s children.”
House Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security
by SHI Staff
Full of hopes and aspirations, thousands of women and children end up trafficked into the United States each year by false promises of a better opportunity, school or the fulfillment of a vocational dream, only to later realize that they have been forced into sex slavery. This is a story we hear too often, but what legal action has been put in place to prevent these foreign victims from being trafficked? The Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) has helped numerous trafficking victims, domestically and internationally, however, I believe this Act could be revised to generate more aid and programs for international trafficking victims. The TVPA allows immigrant women and children to report crimes committed against them to law enforcement and grants political asylum to victims of trafficking through a temporary T-VISA. This T-VISA allows the trafficked persons to receive aid from the Federal government. There are several limitations within the TVPA that facilitate the revolving door for trafficking victims; when they are deported it is most likely they will inevitably be subjected to human trafficking and sexual exploitation again in their home country.
The most prevalent critiques of the TVPA are:
1. Victims must qualify as a, “victim of severe trafficking.”
2. The victims must testify against their traffickers to receive asylum.
3. If the victim is not deemed eligible for the T-VISA they receive no protection, safe housing, and are ultimately deported.
To be considered a victim of severe trafficking, adult victims must prove they were coerced by fraud or force into sex trafficking. Language and education barriers prevent many trafficked victims from being able to convey their specific situation. The Honorable Mark P. Lagon states the specific shortfall of the differentiation between severely trafficked victims and trafficked women in the hearing before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Out of the Shadows: The Global Fight Against Human Trafficking. Lagon asserts, “Despite global trafficking foci and flashpoints, there are no “lesser” victims of trafficking. Since TIP’s essence is groups denied equal dignity, let us not in our anti-TIP policy privilege some victims over others. They are all of equal value in humankind.”
Testifying for trafficking victims can be dangerous. In most circumstances traffickers threaten to kill victims’ families if they tell authorities about their captivity, so most remain silent. This also draws a clear distinction between international victims and domestic victims in that they are unable to receive assistance for their sexual exploitation through organizations who provide safe housing, protection from traffickers, medical and psychological attention, and training so victims can become functioning members of society.
When a victim of human trafficking has been determined a “severe trafficking victim,” or a prostitute, the care provided is drastically different. If a victim is unwilling to cooperate with the prosecution of the trafficker or is determined a prostitute by the Attorney General only after cooperating with federal and local law enforcement officials, deportation is most often their fate. But at what point does a victim of severe trafficking and prostitution cross? Is it only minors that are victims of trafficking?
During the “Out of the Shadows” hearing Mark Lagon states, “First of all, if lured into the sex trade as a minor, does it suddenly become a choice the day someone turns 18? Moreover, we know that numerous adult females in the global sex trade are subject to force, fraud, or coercion – including subtle psychological terror and trickery – making them trafficking victims even under the strict standards of the Palermo Protocol.” Yet this standard does not extend to the TVPA.
Ambassador at large, Luis CdeBaca, from the Office to Monitor & Combat Trafficking in Persons of the U.S. State Department, declares the Office’s goal is to, “Strengthen trafficking victims’ protection and assistance by encouraging cooperation between governments and NGOs, and enhancing the capacity of civil society organizations so they might provide comprehensive services that fully address the needs of victims. We will support evidence-based research to evaluate the impact of our programs and fill core data gaps. We will partner with the private sector to leverage resources and expertise to develop innovative solutions to this age old problem.” To echo the advice of CdeBaca, Lagon also insists the utilization of services such as, “NGOs and more efficacious international organizations – like the International Organization of Migration (IOM)” to aid in the support and protection of sex trafficking victims.
To mirror the suggestions of the anti-sex trafficking movement, there needs to be more services available to victims of this tragedy. Turning away victims because they do not fit into specific criteria is counter-productive. The greatest majority of women and children do not choose this life; they are virtually always thrown into this situation by force, coercion, or economic disparities they cannot overcome. Currently, political asylum is not the rule it is the exception; this should be altered so we treat every sexually exploited human as a victim.
by Guest
by Linda Smith, President and Founder, Shared Hope International
Recent news reports have highlighted the role of Craigslist in facilitating commercial sex involving minors – domestic minor sex trafficking. However, as we advocate for the closure of Craigslist’s adult services web page, we must acknowledge that for the lucrative business of online classifieds for “adult services” will continue to exist as long as the fuel that keeps this seemingly endless problem alive exists – DEMAND.
Shared Hope International’s research has demonstrated the connection between increased access and increased demand for paid sexual services. More men and boys are receiving unsolicited Internet advertising for pornography – this explosion in the amount of pornography is causing an unprecedented demand for commercial sex with a female who looks young and healthy – this female is too often a girl. Thriving demand has led to the migration of criminal ventures to the anonymous world of the Internet.
Perusing the local street corner turns into a virtual experience
In the 1980’s, we decimated the pornography industry by focusing on its primary distribution system, the postal service. Today we are faced with a pornography industry a thousand times more pervasive as it utilizes the anonymity and accessibility of the Internet. The dissemination of pornography and access to commercial sex through computers brings the market directly into your home.
Today, anyone can go online to a number of classified services websites and purchase sex with a minor. Where ten years ago these prostituted youth – victims of sex trafficking – might have been forced to stand on a busy street corner, fulfilling a nightly quota for their controlling pimp, today they are more likely to be standing on the virtual street corner of Craigslist, out of sight from those not looking for them but easily accessible for the shopper in the mall of human product.
Craig, the most successful pimp in the world
Craigslist is the giant in the nascent online classifieds industry. Ever the opportunists, child predators have spotted the potential of Craigslist’s “adult services” page and the website has become a bustling marketplace for the buying and selling of our kids for sex.
A new slavery block has been created on Craigslist and many other online classified web pages, and the modern-day slave is an American child under 18 years of age being recruited and ensnared through manipulation and violence by predators who sell them for sex in their own towns and cities across the U.S.
Craigslist has been under attack for facilitating the trafficking of women and children for sex by not preventing it from occurring on their web pages. Sadly, this has made Craig America’s most successful pimp, bringing in an estimated $36 million in profit from the posting of adult services ads last year.
In a 2009 lawsuit filed by the Cook County, Illinois Sheriff against Craigslist for creating a public nuisance through its provision of a forum for prostitution services, the judge said, “We cannot treat Craigslist as if it did create those ads.” While technically true that Craigslist is not creating the ads, shouldn’t they have a responsibility to their customers to refrain from posting them? Is the claim by Craigslist that they monitor the ads and remove those that suggest exploitation sufficient when we know from the mouths of survivors of domestic minor sex trafficking that they have all been marketed on Craigslist?
A minimal response
Craigslist states that the “criminal misuse of the site is quite rare,” and that the site is “one of the few bright spots” when it comes to fighting against child exploitation because the company manually screens each adult services advertisement to filter out those advertising prostitution. In addition, Craigslist claims to assist and be a tool for law enforcement in investigations because it provides phone numbers used in the ad posting and created a victim search interface. But it is clear that neither Craigslist nor any other online classified service can keep an adult service page clean and there can never be enough law enforcement or staff to enforce it. Craigslist claims to have screened hundreds of thousands of ads submitted for posting to the adult services web page, but has only reported 109 of the rejected ads to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for investigation into the potential of an exploited child in the ad. It is encouraging that Craigslist is cooperating with law enforcement and we commend the efforts and successes of law enforcement to investigate these heinous crimes, but maintaining the website for the purpose of corralling buyers and sellers of sex with children is inexcusable. Craigslist and similar online classified services are creating a marketplace and increasing sales as a result of the access.
Craigslist argues that if we close these web pages down in America, then this activity will simply move to Internet sites hosted in other countries – let it! This excuse for failing to prevent exploitation of children through online advertising of prostitution is not convincing to those Americans living with the effects of advertised sexual exploitation on their city streets, draining law enforcement capacity and most important, putting their children and families at risk.
One exploited girl is too many – legislators must respond
“Craigslist is making money misery by misery while we are left to rescue and restore the victims one life at a time,” explained Linda Smith, Founder and President of Shared Hope International.
Almost every girl who survives sex trafficking reports having been sold through Craigslist to ten or more men every day, sometimes forced to post the ad themselves – the conduit to their repeated sexual exploitation. Many girls don’t survive to tell. A conservative calculation reveals that a child victim of prostitution is raped more than one thousand times by as many different men over the course of one year enslaved.
While regulators, legislators and courts wrangle over the ability to control the content and outline the responsibilities of online classified businesses, we must put a stop to this 21st century slave market that permits Craigslist to profit from the demand for commercial sex with our children.
Although Craigslist adult services must be shut down, so too must the demand. If there were no demand for commercial sex with women and children, the market disappears. We cannot turn our backs on the rising demand for commercial sex with our women and children. Shutting down Craigslist adult services, and all those online classified businesses like it, is certainly a necessary step to stop the exploitation, but let’s be certain not to lose sight of the problem of demand.
by SHI Staff
The Swedish Approach to Prostitution: Could it work in the U.S.?
Since 1999, Sweden has taken a unique approach to prostitution. In Sweden, it’s a crime to pay for sex. Prostitutes (mostly women and children) are referred to government funded programs aimed at getting them out of prostitution while customers (mostly men) who are paying for sex are charged and prosecuted.
Would that approach work here in the United States? What if we made it a crime to buy sex, and focused our attention on stopping the demand? What if instead of charging prostituted women and children with soliciting, we copied Sweden: investing in support services to help them leave prostitution, and charging the person who is paying for sex?
Obviously, the US and Sweden are different countries. So what are our differences in approaching prostitution?
The 1999 law makes it clear that Sweden sees prostitution as a women’s issue, and as a form of violence against women and children. This is very different from our current view in the U.S.
While both countries recognize women’s rights, Sweden has often led the U.S. in terms of timing. Women in Sweden were given the right to vote in all municipal elections in 1909; in the United States, women gained the right to vote in 1920. Sweden outlawed rape in marriage in 1965; in the U.S., marital rape was finally outlawed in all fifty states in 1994, when Texas enacted a law. Sweden also has more women in government than the U.S. For several years, Sweden led the world with the highest female representation in government (close to 50%). And the female politicians were vocal supporters of Sweden’s legislation. To contrast Sweden and the U.S., at the end of 2009, Sweden had 46.4% women in government (second highest in the world); the U.S. had only 16.8% in the House of Reps; and 15.3% in the Senate.[i]
Perhaps the biggest difference between our two countries is our view of prostitution. Here in the United States, prostitution is not seen as violence against women or children; and we do not view or treat prostituted persons as victims, even when the prostituted person is a child well under the age of consent. As for the customers or “johns” who pay for sex, here in the US they remain largely faceless and outside the law.
Sweden is taking a fundamentally different view. By looking at the whole situation, Sweden sees a larger picture where the customer who is paying for sex is the criminal and the prostituted woman or child is the victim. Here in the U.S., we’re not seeing that bigger picture. Our focus is solely on the prostitute, whether woman, man or child. The nature of the exploitation isn’t named; and the person who is paying for sex (“customer”,“john”) remains largely outside our view.
There is no reason we couldn’t borrow from Sweden’s law and introduce legislation in the U.S. that shifts the crime from the prostituted child or woman to the person paying for sex. But to change our legislation, we need to change the hearts and minds of our legislators. Changing our view to the bigger picture is a good way to start.
[i] Source: Women in National Parliaments. Info compiled by the Inter Parliamentary Union, based on information provided by National Parliaments as of Dec. 31, 2009 available at http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm
by SHI Staff
For the past eleven years, Sweden has taken a unique approach to prostitution. In 1999, the Swedish government passed a law making it a crime to pay for sex. The selling of sex remains legal but people who pay for sex are charged with a crime.
The Swedish perception of prostitution as an aspect of male violence against women and children led to this unique approach to the issue. The Swedish government “officially acknowledged [prostitution] as a form of exploitation of women and children and…a significant social problem,” saying that gender equality would remain “unattainable as long as men buy, sell and exploit women and children by prostituting them.” By making it illegal to pay for sex, Sweden targeted the demand side of the commercial sex industry.
How is it working in Sweden?
Initially, there were very few arrests because police officers were reluctant to arrest people. Once the officers received in-depth training, however, things quickly changed. A study conducted in 2004, just five years after the legislation came into force, found that Swedish brothels and massage parlors had disappeared, and street prostitution had been reduced by two thirds. An article published in Sweden’s The Local newspaper in 2008 noted that Stockholm no longer has a red light district, and law enforcement officials now express strong support for the law because it has allowed them to tackle organized crime, which is often associated with prostitution.
Some supporters don’t feel the law goes far enough. The law allows for men to be fined and serve up to six months in jail but as of 2008, no man had gone to jail and only 500 men (50 per year) had been convicted and fined. Several legislators want tougher penalties and are calling for “more teeth” in the law. This is concerning for anti-trafficking advocates who see victims of sex trafficking mixed with the victims of prostitution in practice. Men who buy sex from a trafficking victim should be subject to much steeper penalties and the victim rescued and provided restorative services.
Some opponents criticize the law for failing to take into account sex workers’ opinions on this issue. Some sex workers’ organizations believe women have a right to choose prostitution as a life and work choice, and they resent the government’s interference in this business of prostitution. Other opponents say that Sweden’s law hasn’t really reduced demand but has simply pushed prostitution underground – onto the Internet and into women’s homes- making it more dangerous for prostitutes.
Regardless of the debate, a recent study showed that support remains high among the Swedish people, with 80% continuing to support the legislation. Other countries, including Finland, Norway, Scotland and Britain have been influenced by Sweden’s approach, considering or passing legislation that makes it illegal to pay for sex.
