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Are you part of that special 1%?
Right now more than ever the hottest trend topic sending Americans into a "hysterical panic" has to be that of sex trafficking. After all, the idea of "modern day slavery" is enough to make the average person's head spin and their wallets open. Organizations fighting trafficking bring in big bucks by spreading misinformation and false statistics based on their own biased research. While sex trafficking is abhorrent in any form, the main problem with anti-trafficking organizations is they aim to take down this whole industry, believing that nobody could choose to do this type of work. We've seen it here in IL with the passage of the End Demand laws (which aren't over yet- they're coming to CO and TX) and other propaganda such as plays and bogus research studies that try to address the 'demand' for paid sexual services.
Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the anti-trafficking movement is the abundance of organizations seeking to raise money to help trafficking victims that are somehow profiting off this overinflated hysteria over "young girls and women" being sold for sex. There's no doubt this does happen and these people need to be helped, but how many of these organizations are actually helping victims with the money they raise? And how really do you help someone who may have had no other options for employment before they became involved in sex work? These orgs cite statistics such as "the average age if entry into prostitution is 12 years old" and "100% of all prostitutes have been beaten, kicked, or punched". The most disgusting example of this was a website for a proposed reality television series called "Sex Trafficking Teenage Girls An American Nightmare", which cites in large print on its website "100,000 to 300,000 teenage girls in America each year." Really dude? Are you kidding? It's hard to say where these stats come from, but I can guarantee an inflated statistic like that is sure to cause the average American parent to lock the doors and never let their little girls roam free in the big bad world.
Then there was the interview today I heard on the Tavis Smiley show with Norma Ramos, the director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women. Tavis' line of questioning actually seemed well-informed and recognizing that women could actually choose to work for themselves in this industry without being pimped out of trafficked until Norma shot him done with "for argument's sake, we'll give you about 1%." Really? 1%? Where would she come up with a statistic like that? Only one percent of the women in this industry do it by choice according to her lies and at the end of his show Tavis claims to agree with "95%" of what lies Norma managed to feed him in the short segment. Let's hope her "1%" quote was part of the 5% he didn't believe.
A few months back, I created a video addressing the trafficking issue and how sex workers and clients are the ones most equipped to fight trafficking. It got a lot of attention, but it was specifically addressing anti-trafficking organizations that conflate all sex work with trafficking, causing a huge disservice to consenting and non-consenting workers. This issue is going to keep growing as the organizations gain more notoriety and funding, aiming to stomp on all of our livelihoods in the process.
So I ask are you part of that 1% who chooses this work without coercion of any sort? There's such a small number of us that I'm thinking we're a very exclusive club. Or most likely, somebody is making up numbers and passing them off as "research" as a way to gain attention for her organization.
Listen to the radio broadcast below and tell me what you think...
Website: http://www.tavissmileyradio.com/031111/norma_
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