Hype and Horror in Human Trafficking

The migration of sex workers has been confused with trafficking, and trafficking has been confused with prostitution. The campaign succeeds by making connections that are simply not there. In the end, by obscuring the real issues, it hurts those it claims to help.

MICHAEL GOODYEAR

Halifax, Canada

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A larger point needs to be made about human trafficking in America:

Domestic sex trafficking involves some of our most vulnerable girls. Girls Educational & Mentoring Services (GEMS) of New York asserts that the average age of entry into prostitution is 12 and that 90 percent of young women involved in prostitution were sexually abused as children.

Whether or not these numbers are correct, GEMS does provide services to sexually exploited young women ages 12 to 21. One sexually exploited young girl is one too many.

DAN BROOK

Alexandria

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The real problem with inflated numbers for trafficking victims is that they create pressure for a quick policy fix. But human trafficking is intertwined with larger issues of immigration policy, poverty reduction, access to education, workers' rights (on farms, in restaurants and as domestic help), women's rights, and official corruption. Rather than tackle this briar patch, the tendency has been to call it all "sex trafficking" and stage splashy raids on brothels.

Such "rescues" not only fail to stop human trafficking, they also sweep up and demonize sex workers who have entered the trade on their own, driving them underground and closing off the opportunity to recruit them as allies against trafficking.

SAPNA PATEL

Staff Attorney

Sex Workers Project

Urban Justice Center

New York