The Dartmouth Beacon

The issue has advanced some unusual political alliances. Christian groups and feminist groups worked together to support legislation prosecuting sex traffickers. But although they had some success, getting significant and comprehensive legislation passed in 2000, the coalition has since eroded.

In 2003, President George W. Bush addressed the United Nations on the issue of human trafficking, identifying sex trafficking as "a special evil," distinct from other forms of slavery. According to the Beverly LaHaye Institute, between 600,000 and 800,000 people are trafficked each year. Eighty percent of those people are women, fifty percent are children, and seventy percent of the women and children are trafficked specifically for sexual purposes. As the HIV/AIDS crisis grows worldwide, men visiting other countries seek out younger and younger prostitutes, increasing the number of children forced into this repulsive trade. Yet for many years it was an invisible issue, due in part to the vulnerability of victims; many refused to come forward.

The stories are heart wrenching. Victims of sex-trafficking, usually young women from South Asia or Eastern Europe, are intimidated and threatened. They are pulled from poverty-stricken areas, usually with the promise of a better life in the U.S. through employment or marriage. Others are sold into sexual slavery by desperate spouses or parents. Once in captivity, they are told by their captors that if they escape and go to the authorities, that they will be arrested, tortured, deported. They are often beaten or even raped to keep them in line. Trapped in a foreign country where they often do not speak the language, stripped of their passports, and ignorant of their rights (and often, their whereabouts), the victims do not come forward. Thus for years the grave problem eluded the public.
One of the first and most aggressive moves in the anti-sex trafficking crusade was the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. The bill, co-sponsored by the late Paul Wellstone (D-MN), and Sam Brownback (R-KS), had strong bipartisan support. The bill took a broad definition of trafficking, incorporating domestic trafficking under the parameters of the legislation. According to the International Rescue Committee, the legislation applies to "sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to form such an act has not attained 18 years of age", or "the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery." Such widespread, bipartisan support is especially encouraging in light of the fact that the bill was introduced before the outpouring of bipartisanship post-9/11, and the surge of pro-freedom rhetoric in the aftermath of the military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Act granted special non-immigrant visas to victims of trafficking to stay in the country while their case is being prosecuted, provided they cooperate with the prosecution of their traffickers. Some on the left have taken issue with this, claiming that it puts undue pressure on the woman to take part in the prosecution of her captors. Often, the traffickers are from the same village as the victim and they fear retribution on their families. The Act also allows to the President to set standards for other countries in their handling of traffickers, and impose sanctions on those nations who do not live up to those standards. Even this has been politicized in recent years. Instead of accepting that this might be a well-intentioned action by the President, the left views it as a way of angering countries we are already on bad terms with instead of going after the countries with the largest trafficking problems. Venezuela is cited as an example of a country we “target” despite the fact that its trafficking problem is not as large and widespread as some countries in Asia. It would seem, however, that these countries should be responding to the minimum standards established if they wish to avoid sanctions.

When I speak of the erosion of the coalition between the left and the right against sex trafficking, I refer not so much to Congress as I do to political advocacy groups. This is not to say that there are no differences to the way in which Republicans and Democrats confront the issue. Republicans, especially during the Bush Administration, have tended to support a "zero-tolerance" policy for countries that are too lenient with traffickers. Democrats, conversely, often support the legalization of prostitution as a way of minimizing the sex trade. They take issue with the fact that Bush's policies do not adequately differentiate between trafficked individuals and voluntary sex workers. There is evidence, however, that legalized prostitution does not deter black market sex industry. In fact, by driving up the prices of prostitutes, they create an even greater demand for underground sex workers, and these are the women who are trafficked. According to the U.S. State Department: "…where prostitution has been legalized or tolerated, there is an increase in the demand for sex slaves and the number of victimized foreign women"—many likely victims of human trafficking.

Some on the left have compared the US policy of insisting countries enforce stricter anti-prostitution laws to an "abstinence-only" education policy as a way of combating AIDS. This seems a bit of a stretch. While it is important to educate women in developing countries about the dangers of trafficking, and provide alternatives, we cannot accept that sex work is merely a “necessary evil” that these women must endure to ensure their survival. Such a policy would manifest itself in years of inactivity on this most pressing of issues, not to mention it would fail to address the underlying problems of poverty and poor educational resources in third world or developing nations.

It is disappointing to see partisanship creeping back into the discussions on human trafficking, an issue around which it is reasonable to expect unity. In fact, there have been claims from the left that Bush’s powerful anti sex-trafficking rhetoric is hypocritical in light of his military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. It seems to me to be a fundamental misunderstanding to claim that trafficking is the only problem. To address trafficking without addressing allegedly "voluntary" prostitution would be a tragic, disastrous mistake. How is sex work voluntary when there is no other choice? Hopefully in the future, we will be able to regain some of the bipartisanship we have lost and unite once again to protect helpless, exploited victims of modern day slavery.