1. What is sex trafficking

Sex trafficking is a subset of human trafficking and has been defined by the 2013 Trafficking in Persons Report as a “severe form” of trafficking in which “a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion.”

Sex slavery is the second largest form of organized crime in the world (behind the sale of drugs). Globally speaking, most of human slavery is debt slavery. But in the United States, the trafficking of US women and children is almost entirely for the purposes of sex.

2. How big is the problem?

Big!

Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children conservatively estimates there are at least 100,000 US children per year used for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation.

Steve Wagner, former director of the Human Trafficking Program at the US Department of Health and Human Services, estimates this number is closer to a quarter of a million kids per year. “The only way not to find this problem in any city,” says Allen,” is simply not to look for it.”

3. Is there a link between porn and sex trafficking?

Indeed there is. To quote Laura Lederer, former Senior Advisor on Trafficking in Persons for the U.S. State Department, “Pornography is a brilliant social marketing campaign for commercial sexual exploitation.”

Porn is marketing for sex trafficking both directly and indirectly: directly because online and offline hubs for trafficking use pornographic images to draw the buyers, indirectly because of porn’s influence on the culture.

A key ingredient to the success of commercial sex is the belief that people (women especially) are sexual commodities, and Internet pornography is the ideal vehicle to teach and train this belief.

Catherine MacKinnon of Harvard Law says, “consuming pornography is an experience of bought sex” and thus it creates a hunger to continue to purchase and objectify, and act out what is seen. For some, this means objectifying their wife, girlfriend, or acquaintances. For others, this means turning to the world of commercial sex.

4. Is porn a form of sex trafficking?

Much can be said (and has been said) about pornography as a form of trafficking itself.

Many former porn actresses have shared their horrific stories of how they were victims of “force, fraud, or coercion” in the production of the photos and films in which they participated. It would be a stretch to say that all forms of pornography are essentially sex trafficking.

There is a very big difference between a woman who is forced to have sex, and a woman who chooses to be in porn. That said, Many pornographic actresses echo the sentiment of famous Deep Throat star Linda “Lovelace” Boreman, when she stated, “every time someone watches that film, they are watching me being raped.”

Harvard Law professor Catherine A. MacKinnon insightfully states:

As with all prostitution, the women and children in pornography are, in the main, not there by choice but because of a lack of choices.

They usually “consent” only in a degraded and demented sense of the word (common also to the law of rape) in which a person who despairs at stopping what is happening, sees no escape, has no real alternative, was often sexually abused before as a child, may be addicted to drugs, is homeless, hopeless, is often trying to avoid being beaten or killed, is almost always economically desperate, acquiesces in being sexually abused for payment, even if, in most instances, the payment is made to someone else.

5. What can I do to help fight sex trafficking?

Here are three simple action steps you can take immediately to begin fighting sex trafficking:

1. Get serious about overcoming your own tendency to sexually objectify others through pornography. Learn the steps to take now.
theporneffect.com/blog/posts/5-things-most-peop...