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Caged Birds
How Demand Creates Sex Slaves
By Marielena Zuniga
He wears a clean white shirt, is 40-something and paces outside the massage parlor in a seedier part of Toronto, Canada. He could be any man. A neighbor. A brother. A co-worker.
"Hello, sweetie," the Thai girl greets him from the doorway, as she's been taught. She has a quota to meet. If she doesn't, she'll be beaten or scorched with an iron by the madam running this brothel.
The "John," as these men are called, has no way of knowing—nor does he care—that this girl was trafficked into Canada by one of the Vietnamese and Chinese mafias that bring anywhere from 8,000 to 15,000 women and children into the country each year. He also doesn't know or care that this girl is guarded by a man with a gun at all times, is not allowed to speak to others, and is drawn, malnourished and exhausted.
The John peeks inside. Dim lights. Plenty of girls. What he can't see are the squalid living conditions upstairs, the fetid room with mattresses on the floor, the medication to induce abortions, the drugs to numb the emotional and physical pain of sexual trauma.
"C'mon in," she invites him, wondering that if this John has a daughter would he want her far away from home, tricked into prostitution by promise of a good job. The girl forces a smile, takes him by the hand and ushers him inside. She is only 15 years old.
Canada. The United States. Japan. The Netherlands. Germany. Name any country in the world and somewhere a John is purchasing a sex act. He is one of the major players driving the demand for women and girls trafficked into prostitution and sexual exploitation. And while governments, NGOs and religious/faith groups have focused on providing services and help to the victims and survivors of the global sex trade, only recently have advocates begun to address the demand side.
The words of convicted racketeer Ludwig Fainberg speak clearly to this demand. "You can buy a woman for $10,000 and you can make your money back in a week if she is pretty and young. Then everything else is profit," the trafficker told author Victor Malarek in his book The Natashas.
As with other forms of trafficking, sex trafficking is a triangle of activity—supply, demand and distribution—says Laura J. Lederer, senior advisor on trafficking, the U.S. Department of State <www.state.gov/g/tip/>. A good deal of time was spent on "supply," she says, creating services for trafficking victims, as well as on "distribution"—the investigation, arrest, prosecution and successful conviction of traffickers. But the demand side has been a latecomer.
"Once we had services in place we realized that attacking just one corner of this triangle of activity wasn't going to help us eradicate human trafficking," Lederer says. "So there was a sort of sitting down in order to discuss what needed to be done to combat this in a comprehensive way."
Even though it's important to understand the supply side of trafficking, it can inadvertently become a form of victim blaming, says Donna M. Hughes. "The people responsible for the global sex trade are the perpetrators and they are the ones who must be held accountable," says the professor of women's studies at the University of Rhode Island and expert in sex trafficking <www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes>.
While the Johns are the most important part of demand as major buyers of sex acts from trafficked women and girls, other demand factors drive this human-rights atrocity, Hughes says. These include the exploiters who make up the sex industry; the destination countries; and the culture that tolerates or promotes sexual exploitation.
Modern-day slavery
Human trafficking is a global phenomenon fueled by poverty and gender discrimination. Many impoverished and vulnerable women and girls are trapped into trafficking when they apply for advertised jobs as waitresses, dancers, nannies, babysitters and other types of work, and find themselves forced to meet the high demand for commercial sex and cheap labor.
"Usually the traffickers lead the person to believe that he or she is applying for a legitimate job, when in fact, they cross the border, only to become involved with illegal activities," Lederer says.
Often working with corrupt government officials, traffickers will process travel documents and seize victims' passports upon arrival. But the international and U.S. definitions of human trafficking do not require transportation across any international borders. Victims can be either nationals or foreign nationals. Many victims are trafficked and enslaved entirely within their own countries.
Because of its underground nature, data is hard to gauge, but around the world, the United Nations (UN) estimates that 2.5 million people at any given time are recruited, entrapped, transported and exploited. The UN also reports that the total market value of illicit human trafficking at $32 billion.
The issue of human trafficking is complex, with international groups drawing distinctions between victims of human trafficking—those brought in for forced labor and those brought in for sexual exploitation. But data collected by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) shows that about 80 percent of the victims of human trafficking are women and young girls forced into prostitution. The bottom line, experts say, it's all modern-day slavery.
Men create the demand
When looking at the demand side of trafficking in women and girls, first look at the men, Hughes says. If it weren't for them, there would be no demand. These men are usually invisible. Nobody thinks of them. But they are the ultimate consumers of victims, she says.
Lederer adds, "When we speak of demand in sex trafficking, it's the average John on the street who is purchasing at a place of prostitution or as a sex tourist. Either way, it's two sides of the same coin. Either you're trafficking women and children to men, so that men can buy them in a country, or men traveling as sex tourists to a country and purchasing there."
Misconceptions and myths exist about these men, Hughes says. "Many believe they are lonely—that they don't have sex partners, therefore, they have to buy sex in order to meet their needs. But research shows a different story. Many are married, and many, when asked, say they are satisfied with their relationships, that they feel entitled to buy, and to buy something more."
Norma Hotaling knows too well that there is no one "typical man" who purchases sex acts. A former prostitute, she is the founder and director of the San Francisco-based The SAGE (Standing Against Global Exploitation) Project, Inc., <www.sagesf.org> and its John School, a first offenders' educational program.
"It could be the people you work with," she says. "We've seen politicians, government officials, policy makers ... they are paying money one dollar at a time. A man decides to buy a human being with his expendable or not-so expendable income."
Some question the link between prostitution and trafficking, but experts agree the two can't be separated. "The women who are trafficked aren't trafficked in to bake brownies. How can there be a disconnect?" asks Lisa Thompson, liaison for the Abolition of Sexual Trafficking of the Salvation Army USA, National Headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia <www.salvationarmyusa.org/trafficking>. "I like to make the example between the demand for prostitution and trafficking like the relationship of rocket fuel to the space shuttle. It's the stuff that makes it go."
The fact that people are trafficked for use in a particular industry clearly links the phenomenon with that industry, in this case, the "sex industry," Thompson adds. She describes it as the "sexual gulag," a global system made up of millions of brothels, bars, strip clubs and street corners where people are sold for sex. "This sexual gulag entraps and exploits women, turning them into sexual commodities," she says.
The sex industry is "founded on the buying, selling and marketing of the bodies of women and children for the sexual pleasure of men," concurs Dorchen A. Leidholdt, founding board member of The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women <www.catwinternational.org>.
"The truth is what we call sex trafficking is nothing more or less than globalized prostitution," Leidholdt says. "Sex industry profiteers transport girls and women across national borders and Ôturn them out' into prostitution in locations in which their victims are least able to resist and where there is the greatest demand for them."
Where prostitution is flourishing, pimps can't recruit enough local women and girls to fill brothels, Hughes adds. "So the trafficking process begins when men and pimps create the demand for women and girls to be used for prostitution."
Profiting from
trafficked women/girls
The profiteers make up the second demand factor. These can include traffickers, pimps, the people running the brothels and all those who assist in recruiting and transporting victims, including organized crime.
"There are many different types of organizations involved in trafficking," Hughes says. "Some could be seen as the domestic pimp in the U.S. who operates by himself and recruits several women, to families and mom-and-pop organizations. You see a number of traffickers in Mexico and Central America bringing victims into the U.S. who are all members of the same family. Then you can look at some of the Asian, Russian or Albanian trafficking rings and then you're getting into a much more sophisticated level of organizations, what we would call organized crime."
Human trafficking is frequently said to be the third largest moneymaker for organized crime, following the trade in drugs and arms, at an estimated $7 billion. The higher the standard of living in the destination country, the more money traffickers make from each victim.
From organized crime to the taxi cab driver who gets a kick-back from driving a John to a brothel, all feed off the sex industry. States are complicit in that industry, Hughes adds, pointing to another demand aspect. The more countries regulate prostitution and derive tax revenue from it, the more actively they become part of the demand for victims, she says.
According to various reports:
- The sex industries of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines account for 2 to 14 percent of the Gross Domestic Product of those countries.
- In Japan, where prostitution is not legal but widely tolerated, the sex industry is estimated to make $83 billion. There are an estimated 150,000 foreign women in the sex industry, many of them trafficked from the Philippines, Korea, Russia and Latin America each year.
- In Germany, where prostitution and brothels are legal, an estimated 400,000 prostitutes serve 1.2 million men a day in an industry with an annual turnover of
$18 billion.
- In The Netherlands, the sex industry is estimated to make $1 billion each year.
"It's certainly true there are a number of countries and cities benefiting from the sex industry," Hughes says. "Right now the tourists' association in Bulgaria has proposed legalizing prostitution as a way of increasing tourist trade, and it has a good chance of passing."
Thompson adds, "Countries that have de facto sex industries and aren't doing anything to curtail that growth, countries that jump on the band wagon and say, ÔLet's legalize prostitution and regulate it and tax it' are nothing more than state pimps."
Driving demand
Although trafficking is usually associated with poverty, wealthier nations often create demand for victims for their sex industries. Japan is considered the largest market for Asian women trafficked for sex, according to the CATW. In addition, a recent report by the UNODC identified Thailand, Israel, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Turkey and the U.S. as common destinations. That same report pointed to Thailand, China, Nigeria, Albania, Bulgaria, Belarus, Muldova and the Ukraine among the countries as the greatest sources of trafficked persons.
Today's culture also drives demand. Thompson recounts the story of an Atlanta club that recently had a "pimp and ho" party. This type of event, she says, glamorizes pimps and objectifies and dehumanizes women, and is only one of the many ways the culture normalizes prostitution and the sex industry.
Hughes adds that the culture has become one of euphemisms, such as gentlemen's clubs, escort services, spas or massage parlors. "But most are fronts for prostitution. Everybody knows it, but everybody chooses to look the other way because they assume it's consensual activity and that there are no victims ... the culture has really bought into this myth," she says.
Attacking demand on many fronts
With the demand side of trafficking so overwhelming, is there any hope? Experts say yes. Groups are mobilizing into action and point to recent efforts. A 2006 Commission on Human Rights report written by the UN's special rapporteur on the human rights aspects of victims of trafficking states that a broad look at the demand side places responsibilities not just on traffickers, but also on "the economic, social, political, institutional and cultural conditions which oppress women and children throughout the world."
In addition, the first international treaty to address the demand side of trafficking was adopted in Vienna in 2000. The UN's Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children makes human trafficking a crime and defines trafficking as the "recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons by improper means, such as force, abduction, fraud or coercion, for an improper purpose, like forced labor, servitude, slavery or sexual exploitation."
The Protocol specifically calls for states to discourage the demand that creates a need for victims, by adopting or strengthening "legislative or other measures, such as educational, social or cultural measures ... to discourage the demand that fosters all forms
of exploitation of persons, especially women and children, that leads to trafficking."
In the United States, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act became law in 2006, and includes the End Demand for Sex Trafficking Act. That provision targets purchasers of illegal sex acts and the traffickers who exploit victims domestically. It authorizes federal funds for programs to establish model law enforcement programs for prosecution of purchasers of commercial sex, pimps and traffickers.
The Salvation Army continues its work to address trafficking issues, while the CATW works with public policy issues and legislative advocacy at all levels.
"The CATW supports anti-demand projects in Eastern Europe and Latin America," Leidholdt explains. "In Latin America and Asia we have developed a video called 'First Time" that critiques the coming-of-age rite in which teenaged boys are encouraged to have their first sexual experience with a prostitute. We're also developing an educational manual for teachers, written in Spanish, that challenges the concept of masculinity centered around sexual violence and exploitation."
But speaking out or learning about a problem are not enough, Thompson says. With knowledge comes responsibility and the duty to take action. In testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, she told members about a plaque on the wall where she works at the Salvation Army's national headquarters. The first line by founder General William Booth reads: "While women weep as they do now, I'll fight."
"I agree with Booth," she told the committee. "While women and children are captive to the sexual gulag, I'll fight. Will you?"
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