Human Trafficing

[Turboguy]

I have always found this subject very upsetting and very sad and have seen "Human Trafficing" and a number of other programs.  I have also read a lot of articles on the subject.  I would be very interested in donating time or money to an organization like Polaris that is working to stop it and may do that. 

From what I have seen and read I don't agree with PeeWee that the USA is the biggest market.  My understanding is that Turkey, Germany and other arab and eastern European contries are where most FSU women are sent.  You also have to keep in mind that it is rampant in Thailand and often parents sell their own children into slavery there.  The Phillipines and Sri Lanka are other places where there are a lot of problems.   My impressions are that the USA is about 5% of the market.

As far as the cia report, jb, I want to read that when I can but I hope it was not written by the same person who wrote the report on weapons in Iraq prior to the war or the same one who wrote whatever basis IMBRA was created in a response to.

BC, personally I think you are off in left field with your post.  I have no problem with a gal who wants a better lifesytle and is willing to sell her body to get it.  There are lots of gals in this catagory.  Human slavery is real and it has nothing to do with what you are talking about.  I don't feel bad at all for someone who wants to sell her body but there are hundreds of thousands who don't.  Yes, perhaps once they have been caught up in human slavery they go back and do it again voluntarily.   Why not.  What do they have left.  Their lives have been destroyed.

Personally I think there is more sex slavery in the US that is not related to human trafficing and that is the gals who are enslaved by a little white powder but that is another topic and has nothing to do with what we are talking about.

[Maxx2]

The use of statistics reminds me of something I read

Based on this world view, or ideology, feminists heavily supported passage of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). However, to obtain passage of VAWA, feminist organizations like the National Organization for Women, and even secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, pelted legislators with facts and figures in the manner perfected by Hitler, and known then as "The Big Lie." Feminist "factoids," the preferred term of the 90's, included such lies as: "The leading cause of birth defects is battery during pregnancy." "In emergency rooms, twenty to thirty percent of women arrive because of physical abuse by their partner." "Family violence has killed more women in the last five years than Americans killed in the Viet Nam War." These alarming factoids, or agitprop, aren't true, of course, but as Nazi and Communist propagandists found, a lie repeated frequently enough by enough people is taken as the truth by most of the population.
For example, in January 1993, a daring group of women called a press conference in Pasadena, California. Sheila Kuhn of the California Women's Law Center made the unfounded claim that Super Bowl Sunday was the "biggest day of the year for violence against women." That stunning statement quickly appeared on Good Morning America, in the Boston Globe, and elsewhere. The Oakland Tribune would report the Super Bowl causes men to "explode like mad linemen, leaving girlfriends, wives, and children beaten."
Gelles reviewed the origin of these factoids in 1995, but a rebuttal is seldom as effective, at least initially, as the first lie. That is particularly true where the government is the source of the lie as in the case of HHS Secretary Donna Shalala. And, of course, by 1995 VAWA had already been passed into law.
In pushing for VAWA, feminist advocacy groups were able to create new bogus statistics faster than the experts were able to shoot the old ones down. And some of the agitprop — like the fiction that wife-beating soars on Super Bowl Sunday — have become American myths as durable as the story of young George Washington chopping down the cherry tree.
In the January 24, 2000, issue of U. S. News, on p. 12 John Leo writes:
"The Violence Against Women Act slipped into law in 1994 without most members of Congress quite knowing what they were passing. We have Andrea Dworkin's word on this. Dworkin is surely a contender for the North American title of most overwrought, man-hating feminist. She told the New Republic at the time that the only possible explanation for the bill's popularity in the Senate was the 'senators don't understand the meaning of the legislation that they pass.'"
In the process, Congress generously authorized $1.6 billion to fund VAWA.

In short, people who deal with emotional issues with emotion often exaggerate the statistics and "factoids" to achieve their aim. Sure this is a serious problem but we here in the USA are not getting 400,000+ sex slaves per year. In 20 years that would amount to 8 million people or 2.66% of the population of the United States!   

Maxx

[jb]

That the southern US border is porous beyond belief is a well known fact.  We have some where between 15 and 20 million (depending on who you read and believe), illegals living in this country.  That, BTW, is roughly 10% of the entire population of Mexico.  Of that very large number we can wonder how many are engaged in the sex trade, but we don't have to wonder if they are slaves.  They sneak across the border in the dead of night all by themselves, many even pay big bucks to a professional smuggler, a "coyote", for the purpose of getting here. Most of the illegals, "Mojados", are males, only about 1 in 7 are female. These Latina women are not kidnapped somewhere in Mexico or Latin America and brought here for the purpose of increasing the census numbers of whore houses.  Many of the females crossing the border are already pregnant and are in the final days of their term, and they come for the sole purpose to have an "anchor" baby in the Emergency Room of an American hospital.

Our other border ports of entry, POEs, are very heavily regulated.  No visa, no entry.  Visa applications are screened carefully prior to issuance of a tourist visa to ensure against young women entering the USA for the purpose of practicing the world's oldest profession.  Whenever I see another newbie whine about not being able to get his MOB on-line sweetie a tourist visa, that thought crosses my mind, but because I'm a sensitive guy and wouldn't want to hurt his feelings, I don't say the obvious.

However, I surly do wish the quality of US hookers could somehow be upgraded to that of eastern Europe.  Most of the home grown whores you see walking the streets are butt ugly crack addicts, while the ones I've seen working the hotels in Moscow were knock-your-socks-off, take-her-home-to-meet-yer-momma, movie-star, beautiful. 

In short, Peewee, I don't believe your numbers are anywhere close to being correct for how many women are brought annually to the USA as sex slaves.  Offhand, I'd venture to say the actual number would be a very small one.  For your numbers to be correct there would have to be a vast conspiracy on the part of Department of State Consular employees in league with the criminals to issue visas to all these kidnapped women.  Using your information, calculating that many per year for the 15 or so years the Iron Curtain has been down, there would be a significantly higher presence of hookers speaking with foreign accents.  Where are they?  What cities are absorbing these numbers?  I don't see it in my city, does any body else?   Simple common logic tells us you are just dead wrong about how many are being smuggled into the USA each year.

[Turboguy]

jb, you are not supposed to care about the quality of the American hookers.  You are married, did you forget that?   

I acutally sorta hinted at proposing to a hooker in Moscow a long time ago.  I had chatted with her a lot in my hotel in Moscow.  Towards the end of my trip I just told her I wish I could take her home with me.  If she would have sounded interested I would have jumped on that opportunity.  She was stunning and had her arms been any shorter she would never have been able to reach the door nob without something touching first.

[Maxx2]

  Using your information, calculating that many per year for the 15 or so years the Iron Curtain has been down, there would be a significantly higher presence of hookers speaking with foreign accents.  Where are they?  What cities are absorbing these numbers?  I don't see it in my city, does any body else?

Hey JB, they are all in Minneapolis. Every May 1st they close off Hennipen Avenue and have a block party called "Minnekova Day" and the Peva flows in the streets. But most of these ladies have hearts of gold and make good traditional wives when they stop working their trade. I am thinking of opening an marital agency for them here in Minneapolis...

Maxx      

[Jumper]

peewee-
 i think the trade is deplorable  and would like to read your book on the subject.Your obviuosly and understanadably passionate about it. provide a title? it is of intertest to anyone looking for RW?

ans YEAP!
 i am hard headed and stand by my thoughts that your initial post was very misleading and inflamitory.
like many good stories it had elements of truth mixed with twisting of statistics.

After several different sources that you provided,, this seems somewhat accurate?

An estimated 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked annually in the United States

note ESTIMATED
and generally such things are estimated high.

then Germany is cited as needing an ADDITIONAL 40,000 prostitutes for the world cup soccer .. not annuually
last time i looked Germany was a country.
BC has a very good point about the large number of legal /and illegal prostitution in Western europe.. we've  both been there i assume?
and both been many places here as well ?
.. what did you see?


I know its not hard for me to imagine along the german ,polish and czech borders more hookers of every nationality per square inch than in Parump, Nevada.or any where else in the USA.
along with that would likely go the human trafficing or sex slavery numbers?

Lets take Chicago..
How many hookers total?
most are local citizens ,but  thiers always the asian massage parlors busted regularly..a problem? absolutely!
but how many total for a major US city??
i'd compare those numbers to any hamlet or city in germany ..
much less a few other countries..the totals would pale in comparison?

Since you have source after source and have written a book on the subject ,,
this should be easy for you ,
and you should have it handy.

Since your claim, and alledge that your sources claim, that  the US is the number one culprit in human trafficking in the sex slave biz..

I will certainly  admit i am completely full of BS..
WHEN you can

cite some statistics on how many eastern eurpopean women
are brought in to the US as sex slaves annually

cite some stats on how many international women total are brought into the US as sex slaves annually

cite the same relative stats for other countries,
for both groups of women.
in particular i would be interested in the Balkan areas /coutries,
 Isreali , turkey ,
Saudi, UAE ,and several western european countries..


Hookers are often called *Natashas*
 in some parts of the world.Just how it is. reality.it doesnt take an estimate.
In those same parts the world the penalties  for human trafficing are basically  a slap on the wrist..and some countries are just now even passing laws against it.
With no reason not to do so..(other than morality)
With few laws and little regulation,
It's certainly not hard to imagine the numbers there being significantly higher than here, every common sense thing would indicate that would be the case.    

but the ball is in your court to show your point of view,
not shown so far, with what you have presented?

 
again "trust but verify"




 

[BC]

Turbo,

The intent of my post was to get out of the futile 'numbers game' being argued here, alarmism never seems to help anything as Maxx sorta pointed out in the quote he posted.  I took a quick look at the Polaris website and to tell you the truth I wouldn't send them a dime.  Not because their cause is not noble, but with that half million or so bucks a year they can probably only maintain their organization.  Their report:

http://www.polarisproject.org/polarisproject/programs_p3/ProgramImpacts.htm

shows they have helped a couple hundred women in the US Korea and Japan with assistance (most hotline advice) temp shelter, some hot meals and referrals to other social agencies over the last few years and that's it? No FSU activities at all BTW which we all know is a hotbed of activity.

Too much VAWA influence for me.. too much Org eating those donated bucks away.  Noble machine.  They call themselves 'grassroots' but their blurb and activities seem awful 'top heavy'. 

I guess what I'm getting at is that unless one identifies the real problem it's like shooting arrows blindfolded.. That's what we're doing around here with these numbers.

[KenC]

I don't have any input regarding the statistics, but I have read an interesting and related story here in a San Diego publication. There was a group of Ukrainians that would bring young Ukrainian women into Mexico and smuggle them across the border for use as prostitutes in LA. The border guards wouldn't question a blue eyed blond in the least. It seems that one of the gals decided not to mouth the few English words that were taught to them and instead raised a ruckus in Russian at the border. The girls were baited into coming to Mexico with the promise of entry into America. The organization would then have them work off a huge debt by prosituting them for years. Human trafficking at it's worst.

In this article, they also mentioned a great number of Mexican children that were sold into prostitution in Mexico.

My wife tells stories about a modeling agency in Tver that would promise the girls modeling jobs in foreign countries, Japan specifically, and they would end up being used as prostitutes.
KenC

[jb]

KenC,

I can't dispute what you say.  However, I live near the Mexican border as well, and we routinely pass through Border Patrol check points around here.  Being a blue-eyed blond will not prevent you being questioned, any accent will be enough to get you closer scrutiny at the border.   My wife has blue eyes and blond hair and her GC and DL are always examined as soon as she opens her mouth.  I once asked why, "What's the matter, don't we look like gringos?"  The agent just laughed and said they had so many non-hispanic aliens pass through every day he couldn't keep track of them all.  It seems the Rio Grande valley is a favorite wintering over place for Canadians and he sometimes thinks there are no real Americans down here.

Those BP guards are pretty sharp.

[Jumper]

KenC -
I remember that as well.
It was a high profile case ,,
I certainly agree with all the variuos nationalities (asian, cuba, haitia, mexico, FSU) being brought in  there is a large problem!!
 
I think some of us were just asklingfor clarification or verification of the *annual numbers* since they seem so large.

I doubt anyone disagrees with peewee that its a big issue,
 and indeed likely bigger than recognized

[BC]

Ken,

Similar stories from my wife re modeling agencies so the grapevine does work to some extent.  When you really think about it the 'target' group is probably identical for traffickers and WM alike.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if agency catalogs are being used to identify supply. Thousands of women with dreams of living elsewhere already planted in their heads.. ripe for their recruiting efforts.

During my last visit I did see one public service TV ad warnings about 'jobs overseas' and trafficking but of course a little PR won't affect those with *stars* in their heads much.  The lure is just too great imho.  I call it the 'Pretty Woman' syndrome.  The film was and is still quite popular there. I think the MOB scene likely plays a big role in amplifying such thoughts.

[KenC]

jb,
I don't know what to tell ya, but we just went through the checkpoint here in TJ and they didn't give us a second look. I had 2 Ukies in the back seat that I can hardly understand because of their accent. Maybe it is more laid back here than Texas.
KenC

[Bruno]

Just a few link :

- Russian women charged of sex trafficking
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20050516-2004-ca-sextrafficking.html

- U.S. Cooperates with Europe to Combat Sex Trafficking
http://usinfo.state.gov/gi/Archive/2005/Jan/06-705748.html

- UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT EFFORTS
http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/USA-2.htm

[ronin308]

I hate to bring this up but does anyone here actually know what the UN definition of trafficing is?  It is so tight and restrictive that any man who brings a woman or child from a foreign country into his own can be considered a trafficer, and it doesn't have to be against their will.   A slight change in wording by a documentary filmmaker and it goes from a generic statistic to "sex slaves".

I do agree that there are a large number of women and children being trafficed into the US but I doubt we are the highest on a per capita basis.

Unfortunately no one is doing anything significant on an international level.  Our great moral leader hasn't tried to lean on countries like Isreal and Saudi where the trafficing is huge. 

I'm sure there are some women who knew what they were getting themselves into but I've also seen others claim to be duped.  If any of you know a RW/UW you can talk to it would be interested in my case the ones I've spoken to all know that a job overseas unless it comes from a recognizable agency or trusted source.  Unfortunately some of those trusted sources tend to abuse their trust.