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Prostitution and the Global Slave Trade

Combating the Massive Modern-Day Sex Trafficking Industry

by Mark DeYoung

Many people think of slavery as a thing of the past; an outdated, medieval practice that is more or less abolished and under control. Yet the number of human slaves in the world today (29 million) exceeds the entire population of the state of Texas. Of that number, over 90% are enslaved as prostitutes.

With a decades-long debate raging on how best to control prostitution (and thus curb human trafficking), there are many models that have been tested and proposed for regulating the “sex business.” Advocates tend to fall in two opposing camps. There are those who demand regulation or decriminalization of prostitution, and those who favor criminalizing or making it illegal. While each side can produce evidence to justify their approach, the latest studies suggest a clear frontrunner when it comes to curbing prostitution and reducing the slave trade.

The liberal country of Sweden has seen a remarkable shift in street prostitution and human trafficking in recent years. In 1999, they passed legislation that criminalizes the buying of sex and the brokering of sexual services, mandating fines and prison time for men who get caught soliciting prostitutes, as well as steep fines and imprisonment for pimps. According to government literature, the law is based on the idea that prostitution is “a form of exploitation of women and children and constitutes a significant social problem” and that “gender equality will remain unattainable so long as men buy, sell and exploit women and children by prostituting them.” This approach, which also provides effective social services to former prostitutes, has seen dramatic results. Street prostitution all but evaporated, with only 100 prostitutes remaining in all of Stockholm (compared to 5,000 in Norway’s capital of Oslo). Human trafficking has also reached an all time low. There are between 200 to 400 women trafficked into Sweden for prostitution every year, while neighboring Finland (with 40% fewer inhabitants than Sweden), where prostitution is legal, acknowledges 15,000 to 17,000 people trafficked annually.

In contrast, countries with laws that accommodate and justify the sex trade have all seen dramatic detrimental results over time. The Netherlands (known for its liberal policies on the drug and sex trade) is a haven for aggressive sex traffickers. In two decades, the number of humans trafficked for prostitution increased by more than 1200%, with more than 30,000 brought in every year. In Denmark, sex trafficking increased ten-fold over a decade, and in Austria, the number of sex slaves increased by 800% in the same time period. In New Zealand, where prostitution was recently decriminalized, some studies suggest a 400% increase in street prostitutes in its largest city, Auckland, and the U.S. state department says the country has a significant problem with “trafficking of women and children for commercial sexual exploitation.” Similar results can be found in many other countries where prostitution is legal.

As a result of this overwhelming evidence, many European countries are now considering the Swedish approach, and even a city in Illinois is experimenting with similar tactics (the United States has approximately 15,000 people trafficked into its borders every year). The government of Scotland recently took the initiative to fund an extensive study carried out by the University of London, which looked at the prostitution laws and subsequent outcomes in four countries. The conclusions of the study are very clear.

Legalization and/or regulation of prostitution led to:

• a dramatic increase in all facets of the sex industry,
• a dramatic increase in the involvement of organized crime in the sex industry,
• a dramatic increase in child prostitution,
• an explosion in the number of foreign women and girls trafficked into the region, and
• indications of an increase in violence against women.

Despite the preponderance of evidence, there are many organizations, governments and UN agencies that continue to push for legitimization and legalization of “sex work.” In Germany, where prostitution is afforded status as normal, unionized work, women have been threatened with losing unemployment benefits if they don’t consider job opportunities in brothels. The Gates Foundation, the largest private foundation in the world, has funded prostitution labor unions. And in recent years, even the United Nations Children’s Fund (whose purpose is to defend and further children’s rights) called for legalization and unionization of prostitution. Clearly there are many powerful institutions and individuals who foster and promote the idea that regulating and legalizing prostitution makes life safer for women and children.

The world’s largest abortion provider, International Planned Parenthood Federation, captures this flawed position in its latest statement on sexual rights:

Sex workers have the right to safe working conditions, access to health services, and the support and protection necessary to be able to insist on safer sex practices with all partners and clients.

Any policy that seeks to normalize an inherently exploitative practice will always result in more abuses and violence, as is clearly evident from the most recent data. Sweden truly has the most courageous and effective approach. Women and children who work as prostitutes are always victims.

Pope Benedict XVI brought attention to the “sex tourism” problem in his recent encyclical Caritas in Veritate, reminding us that “human beings are sacrificed even at a tender age,” and often “with the support of local governments, with silence from those in the tourists’ countries of origin, and with the complicity of many of the [tourist agencies].”

While our current administration has come out strongly against human trafficking, it is unclear what specific strategies it proposes in terms of the sex trade. We must insist on policies that always treat prostitution as a grave violation of human dignity. It’s the right thing to do. And it works.

 

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(The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Headline Bistro or the Knights of Columbus.)