Human Trafficking Essay

The Inextricable Correlation between Human Trafficking and Prostitution

Despite ongoing efforts by the international community, human trafficking remains a global problem today. Tens of thousands of men, women and children are routinely exploited by human traffickers each year, and the practice generates billions of dollars in criminal proceeds at home and abroad. In fact, after drugs and gun-running, sex trafficking is the largest source of money for criminal organizations in the United States. Given the enormity of the problem and the vast sums of money that are involved, it is not surprising that the international community has not been successful in eliminating this practice. To determine the facts, this paper provides an analysis of the relevant literature concerning the correlation between prostitution and human trafficking to demonstrate that the two have an inextricable but difficult to quantify effect on each other. A summary of the research and important findings concerning human trafficking and prostitution are provided in the conclusion.

There are dichotomous views about prostitution and how it correlates with human trafficking. According to definition provided by Article 3, paragraph (a) of the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, human trafficking is “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons” through “the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation,” including sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or similar practices servitude or the removal of organs. As shown in Table 1 below, the constituent elements of human trafficking are all for the purposes of some type of exploitation, including prostitution and sexual exploitation:

Table 1. Elements of Human Trafficking

Act

Means

Purpose

Recruitment

Threat or use of force

Exploitation, including

Transport

Coercion

Prostitution of others

Transfer

Abduction

Sexual exploitation

Harboring

Fraud

Forced labor

Receipt of persons

Deception

Slavery or similar practices

Abuse of power or vulnerability

Removal of organs

Giving payments or benefits

Other types of exploitation

Source: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime at http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/what-is-human-trafficking.html

One school of thought holds that prostitution is a normal part of the human condition that allows otherwise unskilled workers to earn a living. This view is congruent with the definition provided by Black’s Law Dictionary which states that prostitution is “engaging in, or agreeing or offering to engage in sexual contact with another person under a free arrangement with that person or any other person.” In this context, the term prostitute applies to both males and females. This view is also congruent with the position adopted by many female advocates who argue that sex work is a socially acceptable practice that satisfies a need while providing gainful employment to millions of women worldwide. For instance, Brock advises that, “Sex work is a malleable and fluid, yet constituent, element of the material reality of people's lives, rather than an aberrant feature of social order.”

From this perspective, in those cases where the sex worker is an adult and is exercising free will, prostitution is a free market exchange that takes place between consenting adults who are aware of the implications and risks. This view treats prostitution within a country as a victimless crime that is fundamentally incomparable to human sex trafficking which involves transnational abductions and violent means of coercion. A growing number of experts, though, argue that domestic prostitution and human sex trafficking are essentially the same thing. Moreover, law enforcement authorities are also beginning to adopt this view and have increasingly targeted pimps as traffickers and customers while providing social assistance for the prostitutes involved. In fact, some analysts maintain that sex trafficking and prostitution must be viewed as completely separate institutions that demand different responses. For instance, according to Martina Vandenberg, an attorney with the Washington law firm Jenner & Block and a former Human Rights Watch researcher, “The 'abolitionists' truly believe all prostitution is trafficking, and if a woman says she did enter it voluntarily, she's mistaken. It's the conflating of trafficking and prostitution (emphasis added).”

This view has also translated into increasingly restrictive domestic laws that have implications for all citizens. In this regard, Brock emphasizes that, “As a result, human trafficking is used as a rationale to tighten boarders and implement ever more restrictive immigration laws, and to criminalize or otherwise punish the very people who anti-trafficking advocates purport to protect.” Notwithstanding the social assistance that prostitutes receive in the process, the fact remains that their primary source of income is disrupted when law enforcement authorities crack down on prostitution. Indeed, Brock points out that, “Much of what is pursued in the name of a war on trafficking has troubling consequences for poor people around the world. Women are of course disproportionally represented among the poor.”

The other school of thought concerning prostitution maintains that irrespective of how well off women may believe they are as prostitutes, the profession is inherently exploitive in insidious ways that place it on the level of human trafficking. For example, according to Chicago-based lawyer Catherine Longkumer who works with trafficking victims to help them restore their lives, “We've got this idea of an ideal victim - someone who is physically locked in a room, chained up and who makes no money. Certainly that classic example of the locked-up trafficking victim exists on our shores, too.” Likewise, some prostitutes in the United States have been lured into the profession using less violent but still effective coercive methods that prevent them from quitting. In this regard, Irvine points out that, “While it's not always obvious to the outside world, intimidation and drug addiction become tools for control. The reality is that traffickers are very smart. You can use a lot of psychological coercion to keep a person bonded, things like threats, or, ‘If you try to leave, you'll be deported, or your family will be harmed.’”

Moreover, there are other issues involved in the conceptualization of victimhood when applied to prostitution. For example, a trafficking expert and clinical professor of law at the University of Michigan, Bridget Carr, argues, “Can people be ‘victims’ if they sell their bodies for sex - and keep some of that money or trade it for drugs? Are they victims if a pimp provides cell phones, buys them clothes, or even cars, or places to stay? In some instances, a prostitute might even have children with her pimp.” Given these tendencies, it is little wonder that some people view prostitution as satisfying the legal definition of a free arrangement between consenting adults with no victimization involved. As a result, even some members of the law enforcement community may have problems conceptualizing prostitutes as being “victims,” even in those situations where they are young. Nevertheless, when children are forced into prostitution, even advocates have trouble supporting the institution.

A number of factors have been cited concerning why children in some countries throughout the world continue to be victims of sex trafficking, and although these reasons differ from country to country, there is a common denominator of exploitation involved. According to Mathews, “The common variable for all victims is that they are exploited, whether by a family member, their community, or even a corrupt government. How and why this exploitation permeates young lives is found in varying explanations in countries around the world.” For example, some researchers have maintained that the lack of a universal definition for "child" has contributed to the problem of human trafficking because without a common definition, it is not possible to identify who is being victimized.

Indeed, although the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child provides a working definition for “child” as being an individual under the age of 18 years and therefore, child sex trafficking laws should protect children age 17 years and under, some countries may consider the age a person can consent to sexual activity to be less than 18 years and the respective country's laws assume precedence over the international conventions. This problem is further exacerbated in countries where births are not recorded officially or where a false identification card is readily obtainable on the black market. Therefore, to the extent that countries are unable to even agree on who qualifies as a child is likely the extent to which a significant percentage of human trafficking victims remain unidentified and unprotected. Furthermore, as Kuo (2000) points out, “The fear of criminal arrest needlessly pushes many abused women to the underground sector, where the cycle of abuse is even more unaccountable and hence even more brutal.”

Because there is a lot of money to be made in sex trafficking and countries that have the practice fully entrenched in their culture have elaborate infrastructures in place to ensure their continued operations. Consequently, the relationship between prostitution and human trafficking becomes even more complex. For instance, according to Mathews:

Victims are often unable to support themselves and have no means to escape their plight, thus making them easy prey for traffickers. Although these victims become the property of brothel owners, their basic needs of survival are being met. On the flip side, patrons from wealthy nations have the ability to travel to countries where laws to protect children from sex crimes do not exist, or are not enforced. These perpetrators also can afford to change venues if a country begins to enact or exercise child sexual exploitation laws.

The increasing gap between developed and emerging nations further exacerbates the problem of human trafficking and its relationship to prostitution. The economic disparity between developing and developed nations leads to the victimization of children from poorer countries by actors from more affluent countries. Moreover, some economically unstable countries victimize groups of their own people to receive some of the wealth from developed nations. Indeed, Leuchtang emphasizes that, “Despite laws against slavery in practically every country, an estimated twenty-seven million people live as slaves. These include indentured servants, persons held in hereditary bondage, child slaves who pick plantation crops, child soldiers, and adults and children trafficked and sold into sex slavery.”

While poverty contributes to the human trafficking problem, it is only one factor. The governments of some desperately poor countries are complying fully with the provisions of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 minimal standards for eliminating sex trafficking at the national level but the system frequently breaks down at the local level. For example, Mathews, “Trafficking prospers when local law enforcement condones it, whether implicitly or explicitly. Traffickers cannot conduct their activities in private--customers must also know where to go to access victims. It only stands to reason that if customers know where the brothels are, local police must also know.” There are two basic reasons who trafficking flourishes in these types of environments:

Law enforcement is overwhelmed, and lacking in resources, and police corruption has led to involvement of officers in the sex ring;

Trafficking is especially prevalent in countries involved in armed conflict or civil unrest due to instability because it displaces women, and children become victims under corrupt or powerless governments.

A study of trafficked women published in the Journal of Sex Research identified several factors that have specifically contributed to the worldwide increase in human trafficking in recent years

Under economic policies of globalization, many services that used to be state-supported, such as education, health care, and social welfare, are now being transferred to private hands, increasing the economic burden on families who must pay for these services.

The sex industry is becoming more globalized, with recruitment and transport being conducted in larger and more sophisticated trafficking networks. Sex industry advertising is accomplished over the internet, offering further opportunities to provide international sex business.

The male demand for sex services is a hard market to saturate, suggesting that the way in which sex has been tolerated as a male right in a commodity culture is all part of this demand.

The social structure in most of the world is built on women's inequality and economic dependence on fathers and husbands and male relatives. This inequality has allowed an almost endless supply of women who are desperate to earn money, particularly in developing countries and emerging industrialized countries.

The commodification of women's bodies as sexual objects, and therefore for sale, is common.

Child sexual abuse, in particular, puts young women in a vulnerable state that may be exploited in order to pressure women to work in prostitution.

The stereotype that the exotic is the erotic has fueled the demand for foreign women to enter prostitution, further inflating the demand for trafficked women. This has been a traditional marketing angle in the sex industry, dating back to Roman times when the hetaerae, or foreign women, commanded the highest prices for sexual services. Today, there is an even broader selection of source countries for recruitment.

War or a military conflict has fueled the demand for women to be brought to places of conflict so they can provide sexual services for troops. Where a permanent military presence is established, there are always brothels and prostitutes in the vicinity and places for the troops to rest, relax, and be entertained.

Restrictive immigration policies do not offer working opportunities with legitimate travel documents for those who want to work in non-professional jobs.

Furthermore, because of the enormous amounts of money involved, it is also not surprising that organized crime has become a major player in many countries where sex trafficking is taking place today. Where corruption is rife, criminal organizations are able to engage in sex trafficking with no interference from the law enforcement community and in some cases they are even assisted in the process. The United Nations defines organized criminal groups as “associations of three or more people, existing for some time with the goal of committing a serious crime for financial or material gain.” Because of the enormous sums of money involved, sex trafficking has become the third-largest source of income for organized crime groups today. Unlike the more nebulous views about victimhood and domestic prostitution, the relationship between prostitution and human trafficking in organized crime is abundantly apparent.

More troubling still, organized criminal organizations are active in countries where sex trafficking originates as well as in the destination countries. These criminal syndicates have been likened to drug cartels based on their proven ability to apply sophisticated information technologies to their operations and their ability to defeat international border protections. These attributes have facilitated sex trafficking in general and sex trafficking of children in particular. For instance, Mathews reports that, “The increase in human trafficking among children has also increased partially because of porous borders and increasing technological capacities; further, billions of dollars are involved in the trafficking industry in countries where there is a relatively low risk of being arrested.” Further, rampant corruption in many countries means that even if there are laws against sex trafficking, they are not enforced. Indeed, in some jurisdictions, sex trafficking victims are actually prosecuted for illegal sex acts while the sex trafficking perpetrators are untouched.

Finally, the sex trafficking of children has also been influenced by warped misperceptions concerning their apparent supernatural ability to actually cure HIV/AIDS or the likelihood that they will not be infected by the disease. Despite the fact that sex trafficked children have a high incidence of the disease, these misperceptions have contributed to domestic as well as sex tourism. In this regard, O’Grady emphasizes that, “Although there is a high incidence of HIV/AIDS infection within the community of trafficked children, misconception about the disease actually leads some people to feel safer sexually abusing young children. Some tourists believe children are less likely to be infected with AIDS and are therefore safe sex partners.” Likewise, virgins are viewed as being a cure for HIV/AIDS in some cultures, increasing the demand for this category of sex trafficking. Nevertheless, simply because a given culture embraces a casual attitude that trafficking in children is fine and dandy does not necessarily make it morally acceptable to the rest of the international community. Indeed, Article 34 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child clearly stipulates that children around the world have the right to be protected from sexual exploitation.