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I've been exposed to more human trafficking topics through two ways: making fun of QAnon conspiracy theories, and reading about mysterious disappearances. I think both of those are pretty off-the-rails in their theories, but at the same time I recognize that there's more legit news and research about human trafficking. I don't want to downplay the actual serious issue, but I also fear that there's a lot of inaccurate/disproportionate attention, vested interests, and general moral panic obscuring the real issue. I have a number of overarching questions for the smart folks here who know way more than I do. I realize that for some of these you could just say "go google it" but I think it's more effective for hundreds of curious D&D readers to get an intelligent summary rather than each one of us privately do hours of googling trying to suss out the scholarly consensus. So here are my general questions: -- How would you, in one paragraph, summarize "here's what's fact and what's fiction about human trafficking"? -- What are the worst examples of pure moral panic distracting from the real issue? Reading r/UnresolvedMysteries and the like, there's a faction of people that jump to "human trafficking" to explain every disappeared woman. I'm totally open to being corrected, but is there really any evidence that when Suzy Soccermom disappears on her way to yoga, that she's been kidnapped by organized crime and forced to work in a brothel? That seems really economically inefficient to steal someone whose disappearance is going to get a lot of attention, and is going to be very unwilling to do sex work and will take every possible chance to escape. One of the rebuttals is "white blonde women are worth so much more" but there are a butt-ton of impoverished pale blonde Moldovans/Romanians/Russians you could traffic just by bringing them over on fake work visas, so that doesn't seem to check out. Is this just taking a real problem, but then projecting it onto "people Americans actually care about" in an attempt to make it relevant to the public? -- The emphasis/emotion on human trafficking among Americans seems to be 99% focused on women being forced into sexwork. What is the actual proportion of trafficked sexworkers in developed countries vs. trafficking for other purposes? What's the breakdown of planned uses of trafficked people? -- What are the differences in human trafficking between people trafficked from less-developed countries to developed ones, as opposed to people being trafficked internally within a developed country? Like Brits being trafficked in Britain, Americans in the US, etc? Is there much reality to the allegation that the reverse happens, like the claims that white American children are being trafficked south to Latin America for some reason, or that elites in the UAE have harems of kidnapped California high school cheerleaders? -- At the risk of sounding like I'm victim-blaming, what proportion of human trafficking is blatant fraud vs. somewhat consensual agreements? Like I'm sure a chunk of trafficking is "we're bringing you over on a work visa to be a waitress... surprise, you're a prostitute" or "we're bringing you over to lay cement... surprise we're not actually paying you." But what proportion is "hey, you're poor, do you want to go to the US for a month and bounce to different hotels while listed on escort websites?" or "you can either keep selling car stereos to afford my heroin, or you can hook for me and I promise you you'll never be jonesing"? -- It seems a lot of people think of trafficked sexworkers as being chained to a wall or followed 24/7, but do those cases really measure up to more subtle forms of coercion like being exploited by your drug supplier, being a runaway and exposure would send you back to your abusive family, having relationship/emotional ties to your exploiter and being unwilling to leave them, debts hanging over you, or being an illegal immigrant who would be deported? Given an open door, a phone, and an hour head-start, would any significant portion of trafficked people jump at the chance, or are most being held in more complex ways? Thanks for any clarity, since this issue is becoming so prominent in the public eye, but it really seems to be stirring up a moral panic that obscures the actual issue. TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Jun 8, 2018 |
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Jun 8, 2018 21:24
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Wow, that's a hell of a title.
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Jun 9, 2018 05:18
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