July 26, 2010

What Happened?

Nicholas Kristof wrote a new editorial that has meaning for all of us.

This editorial has stirred us up again.

The fact that you haven't heard from us for a while does not mean that we have "finished" our work on Sexual Trafficking and Sexual Slavery. On the contrary, we are continuing to be involved in India with Prajwala and planning our return work on-site in Hyderabad in October/November. This work will most likely not be finished in our lifetimes.

Since we sent you our last reflection there has been even more media coverage of the topic. This has hopefully increased the awareness of Americans that it isn't just about "those girls and women over there." Recently, Nicholas Kristof wrote an editorial focusing on the hundreds of American-born girls and women trapped in Sexual Slavery.

Here is what Kristof had to say:

Against all odds, this year's publishing sensation is a trio of thrillers by a dead Swede relating tangentially to human trafficking and sexual abuse.

"The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" series tops the best-seller lists. More than 150 years ago,"Uncle Tom's Cabin" helped lay the groundwork for the end of slavery. Let's hope that these novels help build pressure on trafficking as a modern echo of slavery.

Human trafficking tends to get ignored because it is an indelicate, sordid topic, with troubled victims who don't make great poster children for family values.

Because trafficking gets ignored, it rarely is a top priority for law enforcement officials -- so it seems to be growing. Various reports and studies, none of them particularly reliable, suggest that between 100,000 and 600,000 children may be involved in prostitution in the United States, with the numbers increasing.

Just last month, police freed a 12-year-old girl who they said had been imprisoned in a Knights Inn hotel in Laurel, Md. The police charged a 42-year-old man, Derwin Smith, with human trafficking and false imprisonment in connection with the case.

The Anne Arundel County Police Department said that Mr. Smith met the girl in a seedy area, had sex with her and then transported her back and forth from Washington, D.C., to Atlantic City, N.J., while prostituting her.

"The juvenile advised that all of the money made was collected and kept by the suspect," the police department said in a statement. "At one point, the victim conveyed to the suspect that she wanted to return home, but he held her against her will."

Just two days later, the same police force freed three other young women from a Garden Inn about a block away. They were 16, 19 and 23, and police officials accused a 23-year-old man, Gabriel Dreke-Hernandez, of pimping them.

Police said that Mr. Dreke-Hernandez had kidnapped the 19-year-old from a party and had taken her to a hotel room. "Once at the hotel," the police statement said, Mr. Dreke-Hernandez allegedly "grabbed her around the throat and began to choke her. Hernandez then pushed her head against the wall several times before placing a knife to her throat and demanding that she follow his commands.

"The female further advised that all of the money made was collected and kept by the suspect. At one point, she indicated that she would not prostitute any longer and the suspect subsequently pulled her into the bathroom and threatened her again with a knife."

Police officials did not release details about the 16-year-old and 23-year-old, though they said customers for the teenager had been sought on the Internet.

There's a misperception in America that "sex trafficking" is mostly about foreigners smuggled into the U.S. That exists. But I've concluded that the biggest problem and worst abuses involve not foreign women but home-grown runaway kids.

In a typical case, a rebellious 13-year-old girl runs away from a home where her mother's boyfriend is hitting on her. She is angry and doesn't trust the police. She goes to the bus station in hopes of getting out of town -- and the only person on the lookout for girls like her is a pimp, who buys her a meal, offers her a place to stay and tells her he loves her.

The next thing she knows, she's having sex with four men a night and all the money is going to her "boyfriend." If she voices reservations, he puts a gun in her mouth and threatens to blow her head off.

Her customers, often recruited on the Internet, may have no inkling that her actions are not completely voluntary. Some mix of fear, love, hopelessness and shattered self-esteem keep her from trying to run away.

No strategy has worked particularly well against human trafficking, and commercial sex may well exist 1,000 years from now. But a starting point is for law enforcement to go after pimps rather than the girls. That's the only way to break the business model of forced prostitution.

Sweden offers us not only the summer's top beach paperbacks, but also a useful strategy for dealing with trafficking. The Swedish model, adopted in 1999, is to prosecute the men who purchase sex, while treating the women who sell it as victims who merit social services.

Prosecution of johns has reduced demand for prostitution in Sweden, which in turn reduces market prices. That reduces the incentives for trafficking into Sweden, and the number of prostitutes seems to have declined there. A growing number of countries are concluding that the Swedish model works better than any other, and it would be wise for American states to experiment with it as well. It's not a panacea, but cracking down on demand seems a useful way to chip away at 21st-century slavery.

NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, July 14, 2010, New York Times

Tim's Learnings

Actually I have two to share. First are the economics and sociology of Sexual Slavery. Most children and women who are kidnapped or sold by their families are living in desperate situations. Extreme poverty, fear of being molested by a family member plus feelings of no self-worth seem to be the most frequent reasons girls become victims. For the perpetrators, this is about big money. And from their point of view, the death or disease that comes to the victims is simply an expected cost of doing business.

Second are my feelings about solution. Law enforcement and public opinion in this area remind me a lot of our approach to illegal immigration. We look for the victims and find ways to punish them. The Swedish government has part of the solution - severely punish the users and treat the victims as victims. But there is much more to do: Raise awareness of people everywhere about the dimensions of this tragedy so that there becomes an outrage and sensitivity about de-valuing human life.

Please join us in crying out to the world about this tragedy.

Carol's Learnings

It is often easier for me to become angry when reading about this issue than to become thoughtful. I believe that people do under stand that sexual trafficking is going on all over the US and throughout the world. Sexual trafficking is happening now in Nebraska, Colorado, Arizona, wherever my words are being read at any one moment. But, we humans have a way of convincing ourselves such ugly, harmful, life-threatening action is not really happening. Not on our "watch."

There is more fear of a truly diverse neighborhood or of not having enough money to send children to a private school than fear of what sexual trafficking means about our own society. There are people who are not willing to speak up or speak out about sexual trafficking and sexual slavery. There are people who prefer to believe that the young women who are forced into sexual slavery are full of sin and making a choice, rather than accept that these young girls and women are truly victims being held against their will for fear of death.

No woman or girl chooses to have her body used against her will by different perpetrators. It is only sick movies and sick books that show this as some sordid desire by a woman. It is the pimp who threatens her life and keeps her as his prisoner plus the men who use her, who are the villains.

There are religions that teach that women are secondary creatures behind men. There are men who claim to be religious who use women and girls as sexual trophies AKA sexual slaves. We must admit and face the truth and then make changes where we can to stop this dehumanization of girls and women.

People are crying out about health care issues, about the economy, about the weather! What will it take for people like you and me to cry out and work with every ounce of our human caring to stop sexual trafficking and sexual slavery in this country and all over the world?

First, we have to admit to ourselves that it is happening. Second, we have to care.