WASHINGTON — A new regulatory rule that went into effect May 13 modified a policy of President George W. Bush that barred U.S. international aid for organizations that supported either prostitution or sex trafficking.
The new rule does not drop the funding restrictions, which are required by federal law, but the change allows “affiliated entities” — including a separate part of the organization receiving federal funds — to conduct actions in support of prostitution or sex trafficking.
Anti-human trafficking leaders in Congress and some feminists are concerned about the new Obama administration rule.
“Prostitution and sex trafficking are degrading to women and minors, and we should not be in the business of funding organizations that support it,” said Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., at a Capitol Hill press conference on the day the new rule became effective.
Like other trafficking opponents, Chris Smith, R-N.J., co-chairman of the Congressional Human Trafficking Caucus, said the new rules would allow “loopholes” in the congressionally mandated funding ban by allowing overseas groups that receive federal taxpayer funds to share facilities, for instance, with organizations that support trafficking and prostitution.
Smith, who authored a sweeping anti-trafficking law in 2000, wrote the Obama administration opposing the rule and is considering legal action to reverse it.
“The Obama administration is enabling sex trafficking and prostitution by this action,” Smith said.
The new rule has raised concerns among some feminist groups, such as Equality Now, which does not oppose it but has urged careful monitoring of its implementation.
“It is critical that the U.S. government monitor the groups [that receive funding] and make sure they don’t enter into any activity that advocates for the legalization of prostitution or trafficking,” said Taina Bien-Aime, executive director of Equality Now.
Catholic leaders, including members of the Coalition of Catholic Organizations Against Human Trafficking, which is led by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, generally declined to comment on the new regulatory rules but emphasized that more efforts are needed to combat trafficking in America and overseas.
“This is a problem that is very significant but is largely unseen,” said Todd Scribner, education outreach coordinator for the Migration and Refugee Services at the bishops’ conference. “Because human trafficking is a direct affront to human dignity, it is important that we work to eliminate it.”
The conference has provided a nationwide network of support services to about 2,000 women and girls who have escaped trafficking over the last two years. The State Department estimates that 600,000 to 800,000 men, women and children are trafficked across international borders each year, and approximately 14,500 to 17,500 of them are trafficked into the U.S. annually.
Additionally, more than 300,000 U.S. children are in danger of becoming trafficking victims because of vulnerable circumstances, according to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000.
Trafficking Profile Expands
The rule change comes as more advocates of controlling both sex trafficking and prostitution view the two activities as both inherently linked and requiring a new approach to resolve.
“Demand for prostitution fuels sex trafficking,” said actress Demi Moore during a May forum on trafficking in the U.S. Capitol Building. “We need to focus on how we can make the Johns more accountable.” She used the slang term referring to male patrons of prostitutes.
Moore launched a foundation with her husband, actor Ashton Kutcher, in January to fight sex trafficking. She is one of a growing number of anti-trafficking advocates who see a clear link between adult prostitution and the domestic and international trafficking of unwilling women and girls for sex. She and other secular opponents of both trafficking and prostitution have begun to urge federal, state and local governments to focus on both the prosecution of sex buyers and preventive education for men and boys.
“Any comprehensive education campaign would have to address the demand side of the trafficking equation,” agreed Scribner from the bishops’ conference.
A growing number of researchers have become convinced of a solid connection between adult prostitution and sex trafficking. A 2003 study by London Metropolitan University of different governments’ approaches to discourage adult and child prostitution found evidence of such a connection.
“International trafficking in women and children cannot flourish without the local prostitution markets. If a local prostitution market decreases substantially, organized crime networks are likely to relocate to a more profitable location,” concluded the authors, based on data from law enforcement and social welfare agencies.
It’s a linkage that at least some victims of trafficking also see.
Shawana Blount, a 22-year-old American who was forcibly trafficked for sex beginning at age 12, said men and boys need to be taught that it is never acceptable to buy sex, even if they think they are with an adult.
“What these buyers need to understand is that they are participating in human slavery,” said Blount during the May anti-trafficking forum for congressional staff.
The link has led many secular advocates to urge a common approach to both problems that replaces prosecution of the woman or girl with prosecution of the buyers. Additionally, educational outreach can teach men and boys who have never bought prostitutes or sexually trafficked women and girls about the damage the sex trade does to the sellers.
The approach is popularly known as the Swedish model because that country was among the first to implement it nationwide. In 1999, Sweden decriminalized the sale of sex but made it a crime to buy sex, while launching a nationwide education campaign about the damage women suffer under commercial sex. The resulting arrests of sex buyers, not prostitutes, led to demand dropping, as well as reduced trafficking in Sweden.
Similar — but more limited — efforts have begun in the United States, where several states toughened laws against Johns, pimps and traffickers. This focus would reverse the long-standing practice of arresting prostitutes, while male customers are routinely let go. Smith, who authored the 2000 law that deemed all girls and boys caught in prostitution arrests trafficked victims, said he has been disappointed in the years since with the low priority that federal prosecutors have given to pursuing cases against men buying and pimping such girls.
Additionally, men who are leaders in the anti-trafficking movement have begun to urge male pop-culture figures like Kutcher to combat the abuse of women through prostitution by speaking out and standing up against popular myths that the use of prostitutes is healthy for either party. The ability of men to shatter the glorification of paying for sex, according to sex-trade opponents, is the most effective way to reduce demand that drives sex trafficking and prostitution in general.
Rich Daly writes from Washington.
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I have been looking all through the Department of State and PEPFAR websites to find these new regulations but haven’t located anything. Can anyone give me some help finding them? Thanks.
Methinks the author of this article does not understand that there is a HUGE difference between prostitution and sex trafficking. No one in the sex worker rights movement supports sex trafficking. I am a happily married woman but I do not support 8 year old girls being married off to 50 year old men. I would hope that Catholics who also support marriage do not support forced child marriage…even if it is between a male and female.
In a system where prostitution is not illegal, sex workers can turn in those who violate our rights just as any other workers can. The fact that brothels hire prostitutes does not mean they buy trafficked victims anymore than a garment factory hiring people to sew clothes does not mean they buy victims of trafficking either. If and when adults are allowed to engage in sex work without fear of being arrested, I think you will see many of them turning in those people they know to be engaging in trafficking!
Stop hiding behind the Cross and look at the reality of what sex work is. It has been around for thousands of years, and whether or not Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, the fact is that the Bible does NOT condemn prostitution or prostitutes- and many Biblical Prostitutes helped the Israelites and were praised for it.
I am not a fan of our president, but the fact that he endorses an end to the hypocritical funding oath does not mean he supports sex slavery. What an uneducated, ignorant thing to say!
Prostitution in the Bible IS CONDEMNED, YES!
Two different kinds of prostitute are found in biblical stories. First are those who offered to have sex with men to earn money or to get some personal favor. Some women may have become prostitutes as a way to survive when they no longer were under the protection or care of a husband, father, or other family members. Prostitutes wore fancy clothes and jewels to attract men (Ezek 16:8-26). One prostitute named Rahab is best known for helping Joshua’s spies escape from Jericho after they had sneaked into the city (Josh 2).
A second kind of prostitute, often called a “sacred” or “temple” prostitute, was a female or a male who had sex with worshipers of a god or goddess in a temple. Many of these gods or goddesses were thought to make the land and its people fertile. In Canaan, there were pairs of such gods: Baal and Asherah, and later, Osiris and Isis. The prophet Hosea seems to be warning the people of Israel against having sex with temple prostitutes in rituals honoring these Canaanite fertility gods (Hos 4:10-19). Some time later, Judah’s King Josiah (639–609 B.C.) tore down buildings that housed “male prostitutes” (2 Kgs 23:7) who may have served in the worship of Canaanite gods. In the Jewish Scriptures (Old Testament), Israel’s unfaithfulness is often compared with being a prostitute or chasing after prostitutes (Isa 23:16; Jer 3:6; Ezek 16; Nah 3:4). In the New Testament, the writer of Revelation calls Babylon, meaning the Roman Empire, a shameless prostitute who tempts people and nations into relations with her (Rev 17).
The Law of Moses (Lev 19:29) forbade prostitution, and those found guilty could be killed by crushing them with stones (Deut 22:21). A priest’s daughter who became a prostitute was to be burned to death (Lev 21:9). No money earned by prostitutes was to be accepted as a gift to the temple (Deut 23:18).
http://www.americanbible.org/brcpages/ProstitutionintheBible
ALSO:
What are prostitutes like? It’s in the Bible, Proverbs 9:13-18, TLB. “A prostitute is loud and brash, and never has enough of lust and shame. She sits at the door of her house or stands at the street corners of the city, whispering to men going by, and to those minding their own business. ‘Come home with me,’ she urges simpletons. ‘Stolen melons are the sweetest; stolen apples taste the best!’ But they don?t realize that her former guests are now citizens of hell.”
God forbids involvement with prostitutes. It’s in the Bible, Proverbs 5:3-14, TLB. “For the lips of a prostitute are as sweet as honey, and smooth flattery is her stock in trade. But afterwards only a bitter conscience is left to you, sharp as a double-edged sword. She leads you down to death and hell. For she does not know the path to life. She staggers down a crooked trail, and doesn’t even realize where it leads. Young men, listen to me, and never forget what I’m about to say: Run from her! Don’t go near her house, lest you fall to her temptation and lose your honor, and give the remainder of your life to the cruel and merciless, lest strangers obtain your wealth, and you become a slave of foreigners. Lest afterwards you groan in anguish and in shame, when syphilis consumers your body, and you say, ‘Oh, if only I had listened! If only I had not demanded my own way! Oh, why wouldn’t I take advice? Why was I so stupid? For now I must face public disgrace.”
God’s desire is that we stay sexually pure. It’s in the Bible, I Thessalonians 4:3, NIV. “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality. Exodus 20 14, NIV says, “You shall not commit adultery.”
God offers salvation and forgiveness and acceptance to prostitutes. It’s in the Bible, Matthew 21:31-32, TEV. “Jesus said to them, ‘The tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the Kingdom of God ahead of you. For John the Baptist came to you showing you the right path to take, and you would not believe him; but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him.”
God includes the prostitute Rahab among those saved. It’s in the Bible, Hebrews 11:31, TLB. “By faith—because she believed in God and His power—Rahab the harlot did not die with all the others in her city when they refused to obey God.”
http://www.bibleinfo.com/en/topics/prostitution
The numbers of sex trafficking sex slaves:
There is a lot of controversy over the numbers of adult woman who are forced sex slaves. The real factual answer is that no one knows. There is hard evidence that the sex slavery/sex trafficking issue continues to report false information and is greatly exaggerated by politicians, the media, and aid groups, feminist and religious organizations that receive funds from the government, The estimate of adult women who become new sex slaves ranges anywhere from 40 million a year to 5,000 per year all of which appear to be much too high. They have no evidence to back up these numbers, and no one questions them about it. Their sources have no sources, and are made up numbers. In fact if some of these numbers are to believed which have either not changed or have been increased each year for the past twenty years, all woman on earth would currently be sex slaves. Yet, very few real forced against their will sex slaves have been found.
“If media reports on sex trafficking in Nepal are to be believed, there would be no young girls left in Nepal at this time”
It is not easy for criminals to engage in this acitvity:
Sex trafficking is illegal and the pentities are very severe. It is very difficult to force someone to be a sex slave, they would have to have 24 hour guards posted and be watched 365 days a year, 24 hours per day. Have the threat of violence if they refused, and have no one notice and complain to the authorities or police. They would need to hide from the general public yet still manage to see customers from the general public. They would need to provide them with medical care, food, shelter, and have all their basic needs met. They would need to have the sex slaves put on a fake front that they enjoyed what they were doing, act flirtatious and do their job well. They would have to deal with the authorities looking for the missing women, and hide any money they may make, since it comes from illegal activity. They must do all of this while constantly trying to prevent the sex slaves from escaping and reporting them to the police. This is extremely difficult to do, which makes this activity rare. These criminals would be breaking dozens of major laws not just one. Kidnapping itself is a serious crime. There are many laws against this. If someone is behind it, they will be breaking many serious laws and be in big trouble.
While there are some women who may be true victims. I believe that this is a small rare group of people and that the numbers and scale of this crime is exaggerated. The very nature of someone pulling off a kidnapping and forced sex for profit appears to be very difficult. Since it would be difficult this makes this crime rare. Not impossible, but rare.
A key point is that on the sidelines the prostitutes themselves are not being listened to. They oppose laws against prostitution. But no one wants to listen to the prostitutites themselves. Only to the self appointed experts that make up numbers and stories many of which have never met a real forced sex slave or if they did it was only a few.
The Sex Trafficking/Slavery idea is a attempt to outlaw all prostitution around the world by saying that all women are victims even if they do it willing. This hurts any real victims because it labels all sex workers as victims. Everything I heard about this problem was Americans complaining about it, but I never heard from the so-called victims themselves complaining about it. Why is that? Many of the self appointed experts complaining about this have never even met or seen a real forced against their will victim.
The problems I see with the sex traffic idea is that suppose some of the women were not forced into this type of prostitution, but were willing and wanted to do this type of work, and went out of their way to do this type of work. (It is a lot of fast easy money, they don’t need a degree, or a green card.) All they have to do is lie and say that someone forced them into it. In order to receive victim benefits. When perhaps, no one did. While there are some women who may be true victims. This is a small rare group of people.
What hard evidence does the police have that these women were forced slaves? Were all the women that the police saw in fact slaves? Did the police prove without a doubt due to hard concrete evidence that the women were victims of being slaves and forced against their will? Did they account for all the benefits they would receive if they lied?
I find it very hard to believe that most women in this business are forced against their will to do it. It would just be too difficult. There may be some exceptions but, I believe this is an attempt to over inflate an issue in order to get more government money to these organizations. As a tax payer, voter, and resident I don’t want the government to mislead me.
== In the United Kingdom ==
In October, 2009 - The biggest ever investigation of sex trafficking failed to find a single person who had forced anybody into prostitution in spite of hundreds of raids on sex workers in a six-month campaign by government departments, specialist agencies and every police force in the country. The failure has been disclosed by a Guardian investigation which also suggests that the scale of and nature of sex trafficking into the UK has been exaggerated by politicians and media.
Nick Davis of the Guardian newspaper writes:
Current and former ministers have claimed that thousands of women have been imported into the UK and forced to work as sex slaves, but most of these statements were either based on distortions of quoted sources or fabrications without any source at all.
== World Cup 2006 ==
Politicians, religious and aid groups, still repeat the media story that 40,000 prostitutes were trafficked into Germany for the 2006 world cup – long after leaked police documents revealed there was no truth at all in the tale. A baseless claim of 25,000 trafficking victims is still being quoted, recently, for example, by the Salvation Army in written evidence to the home affairs select committee, in which they added: “Other studies done by media have suggested much higher numbers.” Which has been proven by the German police to be completely false. Yet people still talk about these false numbers as if it were fact.
== In the USA ==
On August 5, 2008
U.S. Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine uncovered discrepancies in a program dedicated to cracking down on human trafficking, McClatchy Newspapers report. Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales spent millions of dollars on combating the international trafficking of indentured servants and sex slaves, including by creating task forces across the U.S. that identified and helped victims. Over four years, the department paid $50 million to the task forces and other groups. Conservative groups, who pressured the administration to go after sex trafficking more aggressively, applauded his efforts.
Critics have questioned whether the problem was being hyped. Fine found in an audit issued that the task forces and other groups set up to help were ‘significantly’ overstating the number of victims they served. By examining a sampling of cases, Fine found the task forces had exaggerated by as much as 165 percent. Making matters worse, the inflated numbers were included in annual reports to Congress.
===In India and Nepal===
If media reports are to be believed, there would be no young girls left in Nepal. Oft-quoted figures such as 5,000-7,000 Nepali girls being trafficked across the border to India every year and 150,000-200,000 Nepali women and girls being trapped in brothels in various Indian cities, were first disseminated in 1986, and have remained unaltered over the next two decades. The report that first quoted these statistics was from the Indian Health Association, Mumbai, written by AIDS Society of India secretary general, Dr. I S Gilada, and presented in a workshop in 1986. Subsequently, a version of this report was published as an article in The Times of India on January 2, 1989. To date, the source of this figure remains a mystery. Unfortunately, such a lack of clarity is more the norm than the exception when it comes to reporting on trafficking in women and girls.
The Sex Trafficking/Slavery idea is a attempt to outlaw all prostitution around the world by saying that all women are victims even if they do it willing. This hurts any real victims because it labels all sex workers as victims.
This is done by the media, aid groups, feminists, politicians and religious organizations that receive funds from the government. There are very strong groups who promote that all adult women who have sex are victims even if they are willing, enjoy it and go out of there way to get it. These groups try to get the public to believe that no adult women in their right mind would ever go into the sex business unless she was forced to do so, weather she knew it or not. They say that 100% of all sex workers are trafficking victims. They do this in order to label all men as sex offenders and wipe out all consensual prostitution. Which is what their real goal is. There is almost no one who challenges or questions them about their false beliefs. Therefore, the only voices you hear are of these extreme groups. These groups want to label all men as terrible sex offenders for seeing a willing adult sex worker.No one stands up to say this is foolish, the passive public says nothing. These groups even say that all men who marry foreign women are terrible sex predators who take advange of these “helpless foreign women wives”. This is an example of feminists and other groups exploiting the suffering of a small minority of vulnerable and abused women in order to further their own collective interests. For example, getting money from the government into their organizations. Rather than wanting to find the truth.
The following links will give you more information about this especially the Washington post article and the Guardian and BBC links.
News night BBC video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtaEdI3aiwg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rvA60zdkD8
http://mensnewsdaily.com/glennsacks/2009/10/30/more-on-the-great-sex-trafficking-scam-in-the-u-k/
Guardian newspaper:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/20/government-trafficking-enquiry-fails
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/20/trafficking-numbers-women-exaggerated
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/22/gov_proposals/print.html
Washington post article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/22/AR2007092201401.html
Human traffic website:
http://traffickingwatch.org/node/18
http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/OJP/a0826/final.pdf
India newspaper:
http://www.thehoot.org/web/home/story.php?storyid=3622&mod=1&pg=1§ionId=9&valid=true#
Other sources:
http://mensnewsdaily.com/glennsacks/2009/10/30/more-on-the-great-sex-trafficking-scam-in-the-u-k/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1227418/SPECIAL-INVESTIGATION-The-myth-Britains-foreign-sex-slaves.html
http://www.bayswan.org/traffick/Weitzer_Criminologist.pdf
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/2850/
http://bristolnoborders.wordpress.com/2009/04/30/more-evidence-that-sex-trafficking-is-a-myth/
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/michael-duffy/much-ado-about-a-small-segment-of-the-global-sex-industry/2008/06/13/1213321616701.html
http://mensnewsdaily.com/glennsacks/2009/10/30/more-on-the-great-sex-trafficking-scam-in-the-u-k/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1227418/SPECIAL-INVESTIGATION-The-myth-Britains-foreign-sex-slaves.html
to
Jeff lewis
Your views on the issue of traffiking is clear. Amazingly! the trafficking issue is been made as a means of earning money. And the real problem is being exaggerated and misleading. The Neplese NGOs have been playing vital role in such exaggeration. I appreciate the Obama Administration for such a brilliant idea. Anti trafficking activits usually work for preventing young girls from exploitations either sexual or labour. But I don’t understand why they don’t support prostitution. Prostitution prohibits under aged girls all over the world. But supporting prostitution is not a process of legalization of the commercial sex but to stop the trafficking of young girls.
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