Prostituted vs. Trafficked
Some would have us believe that prostitution and trafficking are two separate animals, that one is uglier than the other, that one is more deserving of assistance than the other, that one is by choice and the other by force. This supposition is not only unfair; it is dangerous. Life is rarely so cut and dried; rather it is often a mix of things at times leaving the picture somewhat cloudy. This is certainly the case in this modern day Madonna – whore complex. Let’s look at the facts:
70 – 90% of the women and children who have been prostituted have a history of childhood sexual abuse, which often ends only when that child escapes the situation thinking anything would be better than living with the abuse. That escape often leads to homelessness and economic destitution. Perhaps it is the “training” of child sexual abuse or the desperate need for love and acceptance that leaves these young women vulnerable to the wiles of pimps and gangs looking to make a buck, either way, they are an easy mark. Internationally trafficked women and children are sold off or seek to escape socio-economic destitution for a life that they imagine must be better than the one in which they live. They are often surprised to find themselves in the hands of a cruel and merciless captor. In either case the child or young woman may be a sacrifice for family survival through the secrecy of abuse or the outright sale of the child unwittingly or not to a sexual profiteer.
Pimps, perpetrators of childhood abuse and traffickers all benefit at the cost of the victim. The dynamics of power and control are consistent in all three cases. All are lured in and broken leaving them devoid of identity, dignity, bodily integrity and a sense of self. Women and children who are trafficked domestically (prostituted) or internationally are both subject to beatings, rapes, torture, alienation from family, physical and psychological trauma, sexually transmitted diseases, substance abuse and addiction, fear for their lives and the lives of their families, daily quotas, assault for attempted escape and for the woman with a history of child sexual abuse this exploitation is a cruel reenactment of her historical pain.
The U.S. law that defines human trafficking, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), defines sex trafficking as “a commercial act induced by force, fraud or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not yet attained 18 years of age.” The TVPA recognizes psychological coercion and goes on to say that “a victim need not be physically transported from one location to another in order for the crime to fall within these definitions.” The Polaris Project makes an effort to bust the myths of trafficking being only across borders and trafficking victims being only foreign nationals. They emphasize that both the United Nations protocol and U.S. federal law use definitions of trafficking in persons that do not require crossing of international or state borders.
It would seem then, that there is very little difference between international and domestic trafficking, both being horrific assaults on women and children. In emphasizing separation between the two we are protecting business as usual for those who would sexually exploit vulnerable women and children through prostitution, escort services, strip clubs, massage parlors, CraigsList, MySpace and so on. In turn, this may again, as it has in Germany and the Netherlands, pave the way for legalization of prostitution leaving criminal sanctions for the international sex traffickers alone.
Finally, this separation perpetuates the false belief that prostituted women and girls are “making a living” by choice, and that the real victims are those who are trafficked internationally; that they are deserving of assistance and not the millions of American women and children who are duped each year into sacrificing themselves on a daily basis until they are “disappeared.”
Surely, God’s grace is for all.
Written by Susan