Imprisoned women in the US are being trafficked into sexual slavery

[ResistanceIsNecessary]

Guardian article: www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/jun/29/revealed-how-us-sex-traffickers-recruit-jailed-women-for-prostitution-the-trap

TL;DR: Pimps and traffickers are using online information to identify women in prison for prostitution offences, bailing the women out and using the debt to force the women into sexual slavery.

So, tell me again how prostitution is "empowering" and "just another job". For every person in the vanishingly small minority who choose to do it and make money out of it and enjoy their choice, there are many more women who are not in that position. Who have "chosen" prostitution because they are desperate for money, because their lack of education or background limits their chances to escape poverty, because they have been coerced and groomed by a pimp, because they have been trafficked...

The voices of the privileged few, drown out the voices of the exploited many.

Stop blaming women for pimps and traffickers.

If you really cared you'd protest against these, and the prison authorities who are in no way unaware of this, instead of aiming to engineer a woman-bashing conversation.

Are The Guardian going to campaign against this? 🙄

Are The Guardian going to campaign against this?

I doubt it. Women feature very low on their list of priorities these days - behind the word salad of "gender identities", behind Saint Jeremy and his cult of personality, behind refugees and migrants, behind veganism, behind environmental issues...

All worthy and interesting subjects, but it rather feels like women only get a look in if there is a slow news day and none of the other subjects have any new developments.

Plus it doesn't tally with their woke credentials and Brooke Magnanti-style embrace of paid-for sex being "work". Trafficked women clearly must have brought it on themselves somehow.

Stop blaming women for pimps and traffickers

If you really cared you'd protest against these, and the prison authorities who are in no way unaware of this, instead of aiming to engineer a woman-bashing conversation

I don't think the article was doing any of those things. So far as organising a campaign against this issue, the Guardian has its faults but what are you expecting a UK newspaper to do about an entirely US problem?

Sorry wrong thread

If women weren't prosecuted for prostitution they would not be at risk of this particular type of exploitation.

If only that were true. It isnt. Trafficking happens where prostitution happens.

Prostitution is itself a form of exploitation.

Legalisation of prostitution in countries which have decriminalised it, has led to far greater problems with trafficking. The Nordic model - where the prostitute is not criminalised but the person buying sex is - should be applied. Legalisation is not good for women - it leads to further problems because it gives traffickers countries to aim for - supply and demand. Keeping it local and looking at those places within Europe:

Austria - proximity to Eastern Europe makes it a gateway destination for trafficked women and children, either to be based there or for onwards transit.
Germany - The home of the "mega brothel"; huge factory style brothels which house hundreds of women. As a result trafficking has become a massive issue.

Greece - issues with migrants and refugees being trafficked into sexual slavery.
Hungary - as above. There are few services aimed at victims of trafficking.
Latvia - a source country for women to be forced into sexual slavery, which is incentivised by the fact that it has become increasingly popular for sex tourism as it's also a cheap holiday destination.
Switzerland - services for victims of trafficking are improving, but this has led to an increase in the number of cases being reported as there wasn't sufficient visibility of them before.
The Netherlands - is in the process of reversing much of its previous legalisation stance, Amsterdam in particular having become a sex tourism destination and consequently a hot-spot for trafficked women.
Turkey - home to professional gangs who specialise in conning parents of children, often based in Syria, that they can be given a better life in Turkey. Cultural and religious norms mean that marriage at a young age is accepted and parents and given a "dowry" price for the child. Once in Turkey they can be sold into a forced marriage, domestic slavery or sexual slavery.

Even if you feel prostitution should be illegal - and that is a more complicated debate - that still doesn't mean that women should be prosecuted for prosecution. In fact, prosecution and a criminal record makes it harder, not easier, for women to escape prosecution.

Prosecuted for prostitution

Sorry for the typo

Worth noting that the US Department of State issues an annual report on Trafficking in Persons which analyses the attitudes, resources and criminal justice approach to trafficking cases, by country.

Each country is assigned a "tier":
Tier one = meets the minimum standards;
Tier two = not fully compliant but is making efforts to become so;
Tier three = not fully compliant and no effort being made towards improving anti-trafficking measures.

Only four out of the eight European countries in my previous post, were designated tier one in the 2018 report. It's also worth noting that tier one does not mean there is no room for improvement. As an example the recommendations for Germany include a review of the sentencing guidelines for traffickers - as few serve any custodial sentences. One of the most common punishments is a fine. No prizes for guessing how payment of that will be funded - the trafficker carries on trapping people, the government makes money from the fines levied and meanwhile the women being enslaved pay for the privilege...

Nobody is saying women should be criminalised for prostitution. What we are saying is that legalising prostitution would make trafficking worse, not better. Hence the strong support amongst feminists for the Nordic model.

Even if you feel prostitution should be illegal - and that is a more complicated debate - that still doesn't mean that women should be prosecuted for prostitution

It isn't that complicated- it's very easy actually.

No one on here supports prosecution just for being a prostitution.

I have reservations about extending that to activities such as soliciting which have an adverse impact on other people who have no involvement in prostitution.

I have also had to deal with a situation where other tenants in a block of flats were being adversely affected by the fact a prostitute was working out of one of the flats.

My impression is that the vast majority of posters on this board (myself included) favour the Nordic model, where pimps and punters are criminalised and prostitutes themselves are decriminalised

Nordic model dammit. Under the Nordic Model, the women would not even have been in jail and the pimps would be still be prosecutable if they tried to recruit women in jail for other offences this way.