# Human trafficking \*in the US\* - Huge issue involving huge numbers or highly overblown? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 12, 2014, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-trafficking-in-the-us-huge-issue-involving-huge-numbers-or-highly-overblown/701133 "2014-10-12T19:55:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-trafficking-in-the-us-huge-issue-involving-huge-numbers-or-highly-overblown/701133/21 "2014-10-13T19:54:47Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > That’s often the problem, isn’t it - people want to spend tax money fixing a problem before they even know if it exists. > > Regards, > > Shodan On Planet Nuance, it’s complicated and full of trade-offs. I work in international development, a field that has caught a fever for randomized control trials. Now, randomized control trials are the gold standard for learning, for sure. But they are enormously, outrageously expensive. I have a few friends who sat happily in academia designing the perfect trial to test this or that. They easily picked up jobs in the growing monitoring and evaluation field, where anyone who can work their way around statistics can find good work. Then they went out to the field and realized- damn! Every dollar spent on elaborate surveys and other data gathering is a dollar literally taken out of programs that are providing vital services for people. They’d face the stark reality that their program hired them instead hiring two much-needed nurses or buying lifesaving supplies- and it’s not a good feeling. Of course, learning is still important. Some people have had success developing rapid assessment techniques- for example, in some places you can accurately estimate poverty by looking at the ration of straw to tin roofs-- much cheaper than a house-by-house survey. Others are using technology, such as mobile technology, to make gathering data easy. Others are looking at different types of learning, such as how we can learn more from failed projects than successful ones, or looking for positive devience. But there aren’t easy answers. Social programs need good data, but they need data exactly up to the point that it is useful, and data for data’s sake just diverts resources and wastes money. In this case, better data would be nice. It might also be actually impossible to get. It’s always difficult to gather data on criminal activity, for obvious rerasons. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-trafficking-in-the-us-huge-issue-involving-huge-numbers-or-highly-overblown/701133/22 "2014-10-13T20:54:32Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Despite being mis-used, “at risk of \_\_\_\_\_” is a useful thing to assess…it’s not just a meaningless number. I work on programs for people who undertake a pretty specific high-risk act. Knowing the risk factors and the numbers behind them help us understand if it makes more sense to put our resources into prevention or in to helping people who are already caught up in problems. Absolutely. A big problem is that when it is mis-used, then that becomes fodder for pushback – “oh, you exaggerated abut one thing, are you exaggerating about the other”; _and_ that it becomes a basis for taking actions that do not address the risk but instead address the misunderstanding. Another issue with the “pop” version of trafficking is that often people get hung up on the sex trafficking of minors, and do not pay attention to the numerically larger issue of migrants getting caught in networks of indentured servitude for sweatshop and domestic labor under terms of near slavery and debt-bondage. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-trafficking-in-the-us-huge-issue-involving-huge-numbers-or-highly-overblown/701133/23 "2014-10-13T21:16:49Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Absolutely. A big problem is that when it is mis-used, then that becomes fodder for pushback – “oh, you exaggerated abut one thing, are you exaggerating about the other”; _and_ that it becomes a basis for taking actions that do not address the risk but instead address the misunderstanding. > > Another issue with the “pop” version of trafficking is that often people get hung up on the sex trafficking of minors, and do not pay attention to the numerically larger issue of migrants getting caught in networks of indentured servitude for sweatshop and domestic labor under terms of near slavery and debt-bondage. Toward that precise point. Where do you categorize the people described in the article below who paid (large sums in many cases) for the privilege of being “trafficked” and are working (by their choice) like donkeys to pay back the debt? They were trafficked, they are by first world employment standards being “exploited” while they pay back huge debts they and their relatives have undertaken to get them trafficked to the US. All at their completely volitional choice. [The Kitchen Network - America’s underground Chinese restaurant workers.](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/13/cooka%C2%80%C2%99s-tale) ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-trafficking-in-the-us-huge-issue-involving-huge-numbers-or-highly-overblown/701133/24 "2014-10-13T21:25:49Z")
Interesting (and horrifying) first-person account on [Cracked.com](http://Cracked.com): [5 Things I Learned as a Sex Slave in Modern America](http://www.cracked.com/article_21538_5-things-i-learned-as-sex-slave-in-modern-america.html#ixzz3G3wV3GhC) ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-trafficking-in-the-us-huge-issue-involving-huge-numbers-or-highly-overblown/701133/25 "2014-10-13T22:07:37Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Toward that precise point. Where do you categorize the people described in the article below who paid (large sums in many cases) for the privilege of being “trafficked” and are working (by their choice) like donkeys to pay back the debt? They were trafficked, they are by first world employment standards being “exploited” while they pay back huge debts they and their relatives have undertaken to get them trafficked to the US. All at their completely volitional choice. > > [The Kitchen Network - America’s underground Chinese restaurant workers.](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/13/cooka%C2%80%C2%99s-tale) Yup. Trafficking. We don’t do debt bondage any more. People who owe money are afforded protections, and everyone had a right to decide where to work. I had a 13 year kid in Cameroon, in all seriousness, explain that he had no future in Cameroon’s current economy, and he would would like to go to greener pastures. He offered to work as a domestic servant until he was 18 in exchange for passage. When I told him underage marriage was illegal in the US, he offered to get his birth certificate so he could change it to claim to to be my kid. He was pretty upset when I told him that the U.S. authorities were not likely to buy that story. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-trafficking-in-the-us-huge-issue-involving-huge-numbers-or-highly-overblown/701133/26 "2014-10-15T21:28:34Z")
I think the word ‘trafficking’ is archaic and has nothing to do with some local pimp. This is just an inflammatory term to get more people onboard with some agenda to raise more taxes for ineffective government work. When nothing can be done, because most hooker/pimp situations are a drug infused mutual transaction, the government will raise MORE taxes, and oppressive laws, none of which will do any good. Rinse, repeat. Overblown, to the max. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-trafficking-in-the-us-huge-issue-involving-huge-numbers-or-highly-overblown/701133/27 "2014-10-15T21:55:29Z")
What do you imagine the tax burden of “combatting human trafficking” to be? Are you also opposed to other workplace safety regulations? ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-trafficking-in-the-us-huge-issue-involving-huge-numbers-or-highly-overblown/701133/28 "2014-10-15T23:08:41Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > What do you imagine the tax burden of “combatting human trafficking” to be? Are you also opposed to other workplace safety regulations? Well… if you have huge private efforts and also large chunks of taxpayer dollars being expended based on horrific stories of a huge cohort of innocents being sexually abused and exploited in the US against their will vs the reality that this target cohort is quite probably fairly miniscule, and beyond this in many cases their presence in the US is entirely volitional, and they are actually paying large sums to be in the US, I think you have to ask yourself if what is being represented is an accurate picture of the problem. There are no doubt sexually exploited underage innocents in the US but if the real world numbers of this happening are 300 nationally vs 300,000 I think it’s fair to ask ourselves how many resources we should be allocating toward dealing with this issue. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-trafficking-in-the-us-huge-issue-involving-huge-numbers-or-highly-overblown/701133/29 "2014-10-16T00:16:16Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Yup. Trafficking. We don’t do debt bondage any more. Yeah, indentured servitude is as good as slavery if the means to shorten or end the indenture are beyond reach and it is enforced through threat and fear of violence. A situation in which the person is **deprived of their liberty to change their mind or quit through treats of violence** against themselves or the family at home, having their ID documents seized or destroyed or sold to someone else, having family communication cut off or intervened, incurring a debt that cannot be paid; or where people are liable to be abandoned to their fate in the middle of the desert or locked in a cargo container, or adrift at sea, if the transporter gets skittish, I have no problem in calling it a trafficking event. That there are people desperate enough to risk it does not change the nature of the criminals inflicting the suffering. If once you are this side of the sea/border you can be on your way, if you can stand up and walk from the sweatshop with no other consequence than loss of the income, or tell Madam from now on she cleans her own house and have no fear she’ll beat you to a pulp over it, if you can remain in unhindered communication with folks at home, if you can freely turn down a John if you dislike him and you’d keep what you’d make from the trick, then sure I’ll buy that it’s exploitative but not trafficking. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-trafficking-in-the-us-huge-issue-involving-huge-numbers-or-highly-overblown/701133/30 "2014-10-16T02:07:22Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Toward that precise point. Where do you categorize the people described in the article below who paid (large sums in many cases) for the privilege of being “trafficked” and are working (by their choice) like donkeys to pay back the debt? They were trafficked, they are by first world employment standards being “exploited” while they pay back huge debts they and their relatives have undertaken to get them trafficked to the US. All at their completely volitional choice. > > [The Kitchen Network - America’s underground Chinese restaurant workers.](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/13/cooka%C2%80%C2%99s-tale) While it hasn’t hit the national news, just down the street from me there was a [quadruple homicide](http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Investigators-reach-out-to-China-in-Guilderland-5821789.php) last week of a Chinese man, his wife, and their two boys. So far it looks like it was somehow related to this sort of underground economy, although there hasn’t been much released in the news and in any case killing an entire family is just brutal. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-trafficking-in-the-us-huge-issue-involving-huge-numbers-or-highly-overblown/701133/31 "2014-10-16T02:13:42Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Well… if you have huge private efforts and also large chunks of taxpayer dollars being expended based on horrific stories of a huge cohort of innocents being sexually abused and exploited in the US against their will vs the reality that this target cohort is quite probably fairly miniscule, and beyond this in many cases their presence in the US is entirely volitional, and they are actually paying large sums to be in the US, I think you have to ask yourself if what is being represented is an accurate picture of the problem. > > There are no doubt sexually exploited underage innocents in the US but if the real world numbers of this happening are 300 nationally vs 300,000 I think it’s fair to ask ourselves how many resources we should be allocating toward dealing with this issue. We aren’t expending many resources at all, and what little we are spending is going towards the lowest hanging fruit, where the impact is pretty immediate. One of the ways people deal with situations that are initially voluntary are provide information on the dangers of the voyage, tighten immigration gaps to make it harder for traffickers, and provide a way for people who are trapped in a bad situation to return home. Are you really opposed to this? ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-trafficking-in-the-us-huge-issue-involving-huge-numbers-or-highly-overblown/701133/32 "2014-10-16T04:27:38Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > We aren’t expending many resources at all, and what little we are spending is going towards the lowest hanging fruit, where the impact is pretty immediate. > > One of the ways people deal with situations that are initially voluntary are provide information on the dangers of the voyage, tighten immigration gaps to make it harder for traffickers, and provide a way for people who are trapped in a bad situation to return home. > > Are you really opposed to this? I’m not opposed to fighting exploitation but if the information being delivered about it’s scope and context of the problem is a BS heavy PR campaign quoting insane numbers about the sexual exploitation of minors of I’d like to have an accurate picture of the real numbers involved. Passing reams of legislation and mobilizing prosecutorial and law enforcement resources to go after a problem that is in reality orders of magnitude smaller than what is being represented is going to be a significant waste of scarce resources. If the real problem is mainly exploited adult workers then target that, but the legislation and focus is not those workers but this purported huge cohort of sexually exploited kids. If you are going to lean on “Even one is too many so what does it matter how many” to guilt people asking questions about the real scope of the issue we will have to agree to disagree. ---
**Author:** ![SecretaryofEvil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@SecretaryofEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecretaryofEvil)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2014, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-trafficking-in-the-us-huge-issue-involving-huge-numbers-or-highly-overblown/701133/33 "2014-10-17T03:06:14Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …I know the exact thread you are referencing: and there was no ignorance involved. > > [I Pit idiots/hypocrites unconcerned about America's sex trafficking - The BBQ Pit - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=610269) > > I would politely request that you not misrepresent what was said in that thread. If anyone wants to know what actually went down, I suggest they read the thread in question. I highly recommend that anyone interested in this issue read that thread. Not to toot my own horn too much, but I think I (with some help) did a pretty good job of demonstrating how ridiculously exaggerated some of the figures regarding sex trafficking are. Oh and please don’t hold the fact that Stoid agreed with me in that thread against me. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2014, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-trafficking-in-the-us-huge-issue-involving-huge-numbers-or-highly-overblown/701133/34 "2014-10-17T13:09:27Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > A large dog isn’t going to help if the client has a gun. He can just shoot the dog and then rape the prostitute. Or vice versa. Regards, Shodan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-trafficking-in-the-us-huge-issue-involving-huge-numbers-or-highly-overblown/701133.md?page=1)