Are anti-trafficking organizations really anti-sex worker organizationsin disguise?

[archerships]

First of all, let me state that I find coerced labor of any kind abhorrent. It's part of the reason I'm so enthusiastic about open immigration. To the extent that coerced labor exists, it is made possible in large part because those coerced are often immigrants, who fear that if they leave their jobs, they will be turned into the police and deported. See, for example, this story:

http://www.state.gov/m/ds/rls/130528.htm

However, I'm convinced that many of the organizations theoretically fighting coerced labor/trafficking are really anti-sexworker organizations in disguise.

A friend of mine recently posted a link to an event entitled "Panel on Human Trafficking" sponsored by the San Francisco Women’s Political Committee, in collaboration with San Francisco’s Collaborative Against Human Trafficking and in honor of Human Trafficking Awareness Month. The first speaker listed on their panel is Melissa Farley, Executive Director of Prostitution Research and Education. Follow the link, and you'll see that PEN is a virulently anti-sexworkers organization. They claim that prostitution is an intrinsically abusive institution, and that 60% of all prostitutes are literal slaves.

You will also find that another trafficking organization, "The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women" (CATW), submitted an amicus curie brief in support of Thomas Dart, Sheriff of Cook County Illinois, when he sued Craigslist, Inc. for pimping and trafficking of women and children on its "Adult Services" and "Erotic Services" sections of its advertising website.

Go to their website, and you will see that CTAW bluntly states All prostitution exploits women, regardless of women's consent.

So PEN and CATW, at least, have been actively working to limit the free speech rights and sexual choices of both women and men.

I haven't investigated this issue in great depth. There probably are organizations that are actually fighting against coerced labor without being anti-sex worker. But a surface review of some of the organizations involved suggest that their primary agenda is stopping sex work, not trafficking.

Posted via email from crasch's posterous

Comments

[pasquin.livejournal.com]

Spot on.

These organizations are thinly veiled rehashes of white slavery stories. Somebody, somewhere, is having uncontrolled sex, and dammit, that must be stopped.

[istar.livejournal.com]

Blech. I don't think these two ridiculous organizations represent anything near a feminist viewpoint. CATW in particular, according to their Wikipedia page, was founded by leaders of the notorious Women Against Pornography group, who gained a lot of traction with the Christian Right in the 1980s-1990s due to their vicious anti-porn, anti-pleasure stance.

Attacking prostitutes, johns, or sex work is missing the point entirely. It also trivializes men's experiences (men are victims of trafficking too) and criminalizes people who are victims of a broken system. The traffickers are the ones who ought to be punished here. IMHO, continuing to keep sex work illegal and criminalized only makes it easier for the real wrongdoers to keep abusing people. :(

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

I think they're highly related but tangential.

For example, I don't think that the various gun control groups are opposed to self defense as a concept in itself. However, by taking away access to firearms, they rob law-abiding citizens of the most effective tool they have to defend themselves. In effect, the gun control groups are pro-criminal, although they would dispute this hotly.

In the same way, I don't think that these groups are opposed to sex in the context of a socially sanctioned relationship. I do agree that their interests are fundamentally opposed to those of sex workers, who want not merely legality but labor law protections for their honored work.

[adam--selene.livejournal.com]

I've noticed this very much too, but instead by the U.S. Department of State. They publish reports about human trafficking that get picked up by the media and reported in a hugely misleading way.

For example, every time the State Department report comes out, there are articles mentioning Costa Rica as a moderate problem country in human trafficking, along with some statistics.

See: http://search.freefind.com/find.html?id=32056044&pid=r&mode=ALL&query=human+trafficking

What the statistics don't explain (I'm not even sure if you even read the full report if they break it out)... is that their definition of human trafficking is so broad and politically biased it is an absolutely meaningless statistic as an aggregate.

Human trafficking, as reported by the U.S. Department of State, includes:

Every foreigner who engages in "adult" services. So every Colombian, Nicaraguan, Eastern European (etc) woman who works in a strip club, message parlor, or picks up tourists in the hotel bar in Costa Rica is counted in these so-called human trafficking statistics; despite the fact they bought themselves a ticket and came here intentionally and independently, for purposes of vacation, making more money than at home and not being in any risk of running into their fathers, brothers and friends.

It also includes every immigrant who paid someone to get across the border illegally.

One is left without any knowledge that there exists any real human trafficking what-so-ever.

Prostitution is a legal profession in most the free world.