Few people explain how trafficking situations actually work: not the lurid, sensationalistic stories told by crusading rescuers but the more banal crappy stories. In Everybody Loves A Sob Story, Serpent Libertine describes how an inexperienced woman who was trying to make money selling sex was manipulated by people calling themselves an escort agency.
. . . I was dealing with a young girl who had been working for an escort agency out of Des Moines, Iowa. She called our hotline from the lobby of a motel and said the agency had flown her in from out of town with the promise they would pay her travel expenses back home. She’d been taking calls at the motel all week and after each client left, a gofer for the agency would come and collect all the money, leaving a small amount for small expenses like meals. She had told them earlier in the day that she was ready to return home, but they stopped taking her calls and refused to bring her the money she was owed or provider her with funds to get transportation home. Yeah, it was a fishy situation, but the agency seemed to prey on young girls with very little experience in the industry, who didn’t know any better about how a decent escort agency would be run. She’d never worked independently before, didn’t know how to advertise for herself. When she finally got someone from the agency on the phone, they said they planned to “pick her up and drive her to another city to work.” These people basically had a mini-trafficking operation being run through several states and one look at their website (a free WordPress blog, no less) showed what kind of creeps they really were. . . Over the course of two days, with a lot of help from others in this community, we had gotten the agencies website pulled, their Paypal account frozen, and got this girl on a bus back home. Regretfully, it was a loooong two days for this girl, who ended up placing a lot of hotline calls but finding virtually very little resources for a trafficking victim in a smaller Midwestern city. And it made me think back to my agency days where I worked for people who promised the world, but instead played games with your livelihood. . .
This story points up the important role life experience plays in situations that can be called trafficking or not, as you like, but that depend on a worker who isn’t able to evaluate offers made by agents. The problem here, according to the sex worker, is not the sex nor the clients – it’s the intermediary. And despite what anti-prostitution fundamentalists might say, all intermediaries are not evil monsters by definition.
For that matter, I got into trouble myself this way once by going along with some cute guy’s proposition to go with him to a party, for god’s sake. I ended up somewhere I knew nothing about, surrounded by people who had unsavoury plans for me. I talked my way out of it but it was a close call. And I wasn’t a kid, either.
– Laura Agustín, the Naked Anthropologist
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That’s not a typical case at all. Nope. I just happen to be an expert, having analyzed all 800,000 children who suddenly disappeared in the last year, so I can say with absolute certainty that all trafficked women are 12 years old and are physically restrained by iron ankle cuffs and chains. They are kept in a room with a cash register outside the door where some neanderthal collects $20 from a long line of clients, usually corporate CEOs, patiently waiting their turn. At the end of the day, after 18 hours and 300 clients, the victim is given a bowl of soup and a dime to spend any way she wishes. She is then given a narcotic to help her get to sleep and told she will get another shot the following night, but only if she behaves. When they are worn out, the women are stacked next to the dumpster outside the hotel and the city hauls them away as a public service. Meanwhile, 400,000 mothers wander up and down the streets of the city calling out the name of their missing daughters while another 400,000 never noticed their daughters disappeared.
And what makes this all possible? Yep. You guessed it. Craigslist.
I have just started doing a lot of research on the topic of trafficking and am really appaled by the above comment, although I know it is true. Where, if you don’t mind me asking, do you get these figures and facts from? I presume the majority of these girls are abducted/lured from eastern Europe?
I can’t understand how a 12yr old child in a developing country would have access to a computer let alone craigslist?
My comment was intentionally sarcastic, but the point I was making is simply that rescuers have become masters at the manipulation of statistics, using questionable research methods (at least they seem questionable to me), and conflating statistics about labor trafficking in general with with statistics about child prostitution to exaggerate the the problem.
My comment was a parody on a couple of statements I have recently blogged about. The 800,000 comes from the NCMEC website:
“An estimated 800,000 children are reported missing each year – more than 2,000 children every day. An estimated 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 10 boys will be sexually victimized before age 18.”
If you do the math, the implication is that thousands of American children disappear and hundreds are being sexually exploited every day. They don’t come out and make that claim directly, but they crafted the statement to steer the reader toward that conclusion.
The age was derived from a statistic on the Department of Justice website that is almost universally misused:
“The average age at which girls first become victims of prostitution is 12-14.”
It comes from a university study that only surveyed child prostitutes, but it is commonly applied to prostitutes in general. If your sample population is under 18, the average age is obviously going to be very low. I can point you to an excellent analysis of that single statistic if you want. I might also point out that the trailer for a new documentary about prostitution focuses on that single claim.
Even if you point out that they are in error, rescue organizations will still continue to use the same numbers. That signals a serious deficiency in ethical standards since they are using those statistics to solicit donations and funding.
Speaking of interesting claims, here one from KPBS.org:
“Investigators say roughly one in three teenage girls is lured into prostitution nationally every year — and that number is similar locally.”
Thanks for bringing attention to this, Laura. I will say this particular situation has us re-assessing our preparedness in how to deal with trafficking victims should we (sex workers) come in contact with one. We are well aware of all the trafficking hotlines that are being run by abolitionist type organizations, but we are trying to determine what the best approach is when a person in a crisis situation like this calls us. Since this happened, I’ve been made aware of a few other trafficking situations where sex workers were wanting to help out, but feared repercussions from LE should they get involved. It’s a tricky dillemma because I think sex workers and clients are the most likely to come across trafficking victims, but we are usually always left out of the conversation when it comes to anti-trafficking efforts and legislation. Right now, a few of us are working on this problem, but it seems to be an ongoing issue. Obviously there is a lot of distrust of LE is the sex work community, but if we can be assured that our own safety won’t be jeopardized, many would be more willing to help trafficking victims find help.
Long has it been that our personal and professional relationships have been most negatively impacted by criminalization, but that is the exactly the reason the ‘do gooders’ made it that way.
I think it’s indisputable that the criminalization of prostitution in the U.S. has alienated the very people who are in the best position to fight child prostitution. Sex workers are not going to be encouraged to report suspected abuse of children if, by doing so, they will have to put their own freedom and livelihood at risk.
So why aren’t the child prostitution rescue organizations clamoring for the legalization (or decriminalization, if you prefer) of adult prostitution so they can enlist help of those actually in the business to help solve the child exploitation problem? My answer to that is that the rescue industry is far less concerned with rescuing exploited children than it is in eradicating immoral or unfeminist behavior.
Wow, when I think of human trafficing I certainly don’t think of stories like that.
Legalizing prostitution certainly would help, but I don’t think it would solve the problems because poverty and lack of knowledge is what a lot of people pray on and the law can’t stop the abuse of a persons ignorance.
The story being in Idaho is amazing. We surely need more resources for people to seek help.
Serpent, what is LE? How did this particular person in trouble find you and who are ‘you’ in general? In other words, promote what you are doing if you feel like it!
Great parody, Dave, I laughed at the craigslist finale.
I’m guess LE means law enforcement.
LE= law enforcement, police
This person found us through the SWOP-Chicago hotline.
SWOP=Sex Workers Outreach Project-Chicago. Our website is at http://www.swop-chicago.org
So how did this person working somehow from Iowa know about swop’s hotline? Is the scene of this story Chicago and she could see a sticker or poster somewhere with the hotline number? Or did she manage to meet someone who told her about it? The mechanics are not only interesting but really important in terms of getting help messages to people who can use them!
Not sure how she got the number…on the internet I would imagine. We have a national SWOP hotline and local Chicago hotline. I suppose she called Chicago because it was the closest major city near where she was. The girl herself was actually from CA and had traveled to Des Moines on the promise of making big money for this agency, which had advertising going in several different cities.
We are now developing a training for hotline volunteers on how they can assist victims of trafficking better. If you can assist in any way, Laura, please let me know.