What’s in a word: “Prostitution”

The FBI's recent recovery of 16 juveniles in a joint operation targeting commercial sex trafficking in New Jersey around the Super Bowl demonstrates law enforcement's vigilance and effectiveness in combating the sexual exploitation of children. However, it also conjures a somewhat misleading image of juvenile victim's experience in the commercial sex trade. 

IOFA program development intern, Alexa Schnieders, shares her thoughts on "child prostitution" and how our terminology reflects the identity we impose on a subject: 

I sat in on a discussion recently that began with, “Sex trafficking should be called rape trafficking.” Others in the room cringed over the harsh four-letter word. All innocuous and/or glamorous connotations of the sex trade disappeared as the reality of violence and exploitation took their place. Does semantics wield that much power? When speaking about sex trafficking, misuse of the term “prostitution” has the ability to strip sexually exploited women and men of all victimhood.

Prostitution is generally defined as “the act of engaging in sex acts for hire,” necessitating both consensual sex and received payment. According to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), victims of sex trafficking engage in sexual acts under “force, threat or coercion.” This definition of sex trafficking aligns with rape, i.e. victimhood, however in sex trafficking situations there is the added element of rape for the profit of someone other than the survivor/victim.

The word “prostitution” becomes further problematic when it is partnered with the word “child.” Just as the TVPA informs us that someone forced to engage in sexual acts under force, fraud, or coercion is a survivor/victim of trafficking, so too does it state that any child under the age of 18 who engages in a commercial sex act is the survivor/victim of sex trafficking. Based on this legislation, a “child prostitute” simply cannot exist.

While the difference between the terms “survivor/victim of child sex trafficking” (also correctly referred to as “commercially exploited children”) and “child prostitute” may sound like a matter of political correctness, it is much more than that. Using the correct terminology signifies that children are the survivors or victims of a heinous, brutal crime. “Child prostitutes,” on the other hand, are young criminals. While the term “child prostitute” may more effectively grab the attention of a public who responds to sensational language, calling exploited children “prostitutes” perpetuates incorrect notions that these children willingly engage in sex (to which they are too young to consent) and that they are to blame for a choice (that they did not make).

This difference must be understood by all of us, including partners in the field. As advocates, learning and employing the appropriate terminology is our first step towards making change. Our language conveys our understanding of the issue as well as our intentions in our work. While we adopt language that correctly describes the population of survivors and victims we serve, it is our responsibility to encourage our partners to do the same. As the anti-trafficking movement uses this language more consistently, it is our hope that it will begin to affect the language used by those around us as well and that, little by little, the larger paradigm will shift towards one in which survivors of child trafficking are recognized as just that – survivors.

Human Trafficking and the Super Bowl

As sports fans prepare for a showdown between the Broncos and the Seahawks just outside of New York City, conversation about human trafficking is heating up. There is a lot of discourse about a peak in human trafficking surrounding the Super Bowl, but as our partners at the Sex Worker Project and the Urban Justice Center explain, that may be just a myth:

While we commend efforts to raise awareness about human trafficking, allegations that large sporting events, like the Super Bowl, increase the number of persons trafficked into prostitution are simply unfounded. Investigations from past Olympics, World Cups, and Superbowls, have not found large numbers of persons trafficked to these locations by force to engage in commercial sex. These claims can lead to raids and police harassment of adult sex workers, increasing danger for this population. This is a misuse of scarce resources better aimed at preventing human trafficking.

While it is critically important to understand and tackle the root causes of human trafficking and provide resources to those who are currently in trafficking situations or who are survivors, erroneous links to sporting events are not helpful toward these ends. They also distract from real issues surrounding large sporting events that do deserve our attention and are often under-reported, including instances of unsafe labor conditions for construction workers who build sports arenas, and the large scale trafficking and deaths of migrant workers.

The media’s fixation on trafficking into the sex trade has led to an unfortunate misperception about human trafficking, and missed opportunities to halt human rights abuses. We encourage journalists and members of the public to support more just working conditions in all labor sectors where trafficking exists, including restaurants, private homes, landscaping, construction, and agriculture; this will help us recognize and assist victims in need.



Written by: Sienna Baskin, Esq. Co-Director Sex Workers Project Urban Justice Center www.sexworkersproject.org

To learn more about the intersection of human trafficking and large sporting events, please see these sources:

Trafficking in Human Beings and the 2006 World Cup in Germany, Migration Research Series no. 29 , International Organization for Migration (2007), (stating that “the estimate of 40,000 women expected to be trafficked [in Germany surrounding the World Cup] was unfounded and unrealistic”).

What’s the Cost of a Rumour? A guide to sorting out the myths and the facts about sporting events and trafficking, Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (2011).

Urban Legends and Hoaxes: How Hyperbole Hurts Trafficking Victims, Huffington Post, Rachel Lloyd, (2012), (stating that while “there have definitely been some reported cases, the statistics just don’t bear out this claim.”).

Global Human Trafficking: How Migrants Are Impacted

Migrant women are at an increased risk for becoming targets of human trafficking perpetrators. It is estimated that 27 million people are trafficked for labor and sex trafficking  globally. Women comprise 80-98% of those who are sexually exploited across the world. United Nations reports that of those who are trafficked,  95% experienced physical and/or sexual abuse while being trafficked. Migrant women who lack support structures in  their destination country and come with low funds, can find themselves coerced into being trafficked. Whether they came under the guise of a job or continued education, or met a trafficker who befriended them with one goal in mind, migrant women can find themselves in a triple bind. They are poor, female, and undocumented while being trafficked in a foreign country. The Inter Press Agency (IPS)states that “migrant women who get involved in the commercial sex trade face multiple challenges. These include “insecurity in relation to the immigration status (such as) the potential breach of immigration law on top of prostitution-related law; criminalisation by the state; isolation and lack of friends; disorientation from the constant movements around brothels in different towns; vulnerability to extortion and blackmail; control by pimps and advertisers and lack of medical care (apart from certain clinics for sexually transmitted diseases).”   

Not only do these women suffer  the dehumanizing treatment of being victims of trafficking, they also lack access to health and medical care. As a result, many women attain a variety of illnesses that go untreated and further erode trafficking victims lives. Migrant families also face job discrimination whether they enter a new country through legalized routes, as asylum seekers, or as undocumented families. Women, who are still globally denied basic human rights, face extreme barriers to finding work in a new country and can fall into stereotypical gender roles which pay low and demand long hours (IPS). Thirty-two percent of trafficking  victims are forced into economic exploitation, over half of this population is female. Global profits for human trafficking is around 32 billion dollars and climbing. Worldwide, prostitution is an act which women and girls, due to severely oppressive factors, can become imprisoned.

 Migrant men also face great circumstances and make up a large number of those found in the forced labor market. The Solidarity Network writes that migrant is a person who leaves a country in pursuit of work. In North America, there are 18 million migrant workers. The migrant worker population, which usually consists of domestic workers, construction workers, contract laborers, low-skilled service sector workers, agricultural workers, and export production factory workers. Often, those who possess these jobs have left countries to find the work in which they are engaging. The need for work, puts this group in a precarious position and makes them vulnerable to being exploited through lowered wages, unlawful working hours, and other forms of abuse. Here too, a lack of proper documentation gives traffickers further power over the lives of migrant families. To be a migrant family, asylum seeker, or refugee in a new country is to be presented with unique problems. Those seeking the ability to provide for family members, those needing an economic boost, or those fleeing prosecution should not be subjected to further disempowerment, discrimination, or undue hardship. What can be done to aid migrant families and keep them from getting lost in human trafficking circles? Give us your ideas and feedback.

Resources: http://www.unglobalcompact.org/docs/issues_doc/labour/Forced_labour/HUMAN_TRAFFICKING_-_THE_FACTS_-_final.pdf

http://www.solidaritycenter.org/files/migration_factsheet3.pdf

http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/10/migrant-women-trapped-in-sex-trade/

          

Sherie Shields

Task Force Intern IOFA