Monday, September 24, 2007
More Panic than Evidence When it Comes to Sex Trafficking in the US
filed under: Strange Bedfellows by Melissa Gira
Though the US government spent over $28.5 million fighting trafficking within the United States in 2006 alone, very few victims of sex trafficking have been assisted with this money, says a blistering Washington Post feature on human trafficking. Far fewer sex trafficking victims, or trafficked persons, have been found than government estimates, and the figures on how widespread trafficking and the sex industry are have come under question, as well. Does sex trafficking exist? Of course. Is the half a billion the US has spent to combat trafficking doing much to advance human rights? Well.
For this to be coming so contrary on the heels New York Times op-ed columnist Bob Herbert’s one, not two, but three pieces on an anti-prostitution activist’s recent publication, Prostitution & Trafficking in Nevada: Making The Connections? Which attempts to make the case that the sex industry is trafficking? This could just be the beginning of a dent made in the Bush administration’s “prostitution = human rights abuse” rhetoric.
(And has any book only available at Lulu.com ever gotten three favorable editorial columns about it in the Times before? Let me know in the comments, please do.)
(via Bound, Not Gagged, with many more resources on how supposed anti-sex trafficking policies translate on the ground)
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