“I lived in Cisinau, Moldavia and had the chance of a lifetime: I was told I could become a dancer. It was something I had always dreamed about. The organization I dealt with had a good name and everything seemed in order. They promised me that I could get an Italian passport as soon as I arrived. But, I ended up in Kosovo. It was only then that I realized . . . I was property.”
Elena later was re-sold to several pimps. When she came to her last pimp, the torture began. “It was painful, dirty and sick. Six men took turns. They didn’t pay any attention to the damage they were doing,” she said. “They didn’t care about the tears or the pleas for mercy. They just laughed at me. They were animals.”
In a capitalistic world, where supply and demand rule, Elena became little more than the supply to meet a demand.
Prostitution financially and socially empowers women like Debbie, who we’ve quoted in our previous articles on the topic of legal sex work, but the flip side of the coin is that prostitution imprisons women who are not in such protected conditions.
The crime called by the United Nations “trafficking in persons” is the process of placing or holding a person against his or her will in sexual or socio-economic exploitation, including prostitution, forced labor, slavery and even for the removal of organs for sale without his or her consent. Each country defines trafficking differently in legislation, but the idea remains the same: Trafficking is slavery.
Trafficking is a silent and invisible crime. A number for murder victims can be determined by a body count, but victims of trafficking cannot be accurately counted because of the underground nature of the crime. Despite these problems, sources estimate the number of trafficking victims ranges from 18,000 to 20,000 in the United States and 700,000 to 900,000 worldwide.
People are always shocked to learn slavery still exists, that this basic infringement on human rights was not eradicated in the 19th century. Why would a modern world adhere to a process that dehumanizes people?
The answer is supply and demand.
People want to buy sex, and other people find the supply to meet that demand. People who sell others into prostitution want to make a buck, and they choose a very lucrative endeavor. Trafficking in persons generates profits of around 10 billion Euro a year, bringing in nearly as much money for members of organized crime groups and their cooperating governments as the international drug trade. The victims never see the enormous amounts of money made from their labor, but those who enslave them benefit from the “capitalism” involved.
In the same way that traffickers want money, so do those who are trafficked, but not being paid or allowed to leave their work steals their ability to control the labor they produce and their very lives. Poverty and the lack of economic opportunity in one country puts people in the position of being trafficked to another, in search of an opportunity of their own.
The problem is not one for another country, or even the federal government, to deal with. Global problems must be dealt with in international and relative terms, because the world’s wealth is not evenly distributed. Poverty-stricken countries in Latin America, Western Europe, Asia, and Africa are fruitful climates for trafficking, and other countries with more resources must work with them to solve the issue.
But, those richer countries – including the United States – cannot ignore their part in the problem. America may be powerful, rich and influential, but it still deals with trafficking on national and local levels. Texas, for example, has one of the highest reported rates of identified human trafficking victims in the country.
In response to this fact, on Sept. 1, 2003, Texas became the third state to create a law that makes illegal the transportation of a person for the purpose of compelling them to perform prostitution or other forced labor.
Two years later, on Aug. 12, 2005, police raided 12 bathhouses and massage parlors in the Dallas area and arrested 44 people for participation in the sale and compulsion of sex work. Dallas Chief of Police David Kunkle said, “We’re looking at issues of prostitution, money laundering and human trafficking.” The investigation started in December 2004 on prostitution allegations, but authorities found evidence of what Texas legislation calls “compelled prostitution” and acted under the 2003 legislation against trafficking in persons.
Nearly all of the 44 people arrested in the bathhouses and massage parlors were living illegally in the United States and were detained by police so they could be interrogated by Immigration. We have been unable to find information about what happened to them since. It is unlikely we ever will.
What happened to these people? If their fates depend upon their illegal status in this country and the illegal status of prostitution, what does it say about America’s current approaches to prostitution and immigration?
Could legalizing prostitution help control the abuse of supply and demand in the form of trafficking and help people like those 44? If not, is there a better idea?
Mallory Harwood and Heather Neale studied and researched prostitution in Amsterdam for five weeks under the Richter International Fellowship, sponsored by the University Honors Program.This series will run every Tuesday and Wednesday.
