So there are levels of victimhood in human trafficking? If they manage to look sorta happy, it isn’t really so bad? This may be the most fucked up repugnant thing I’ve read here in quite some time.
Given that a significant portion of prostitutes and other sex workers work against their will - from girls pimped by their boyfriends to full-blown bring-em-here-in-a-container sex-trafficking, the point that Kraft maybe didn’t know the plight of these girls has exactly no bearing.
Sports reporters are humans too. They can’t focus on Kraft without being asked why they’re doing that instead of commenting on slavery and trafficking. The Kraft part is titillating but virtually meaningless by comparison - even discussing possible NFL sanctions is pretty shallow.
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No, I’m not saying that. I’m not saying that at all.
I’m saying that someone who chooses to become a (legal) sexworker and is 100% content with that choice and everything it implies (money, johns, hours, club or not, etc), can still be considered a victim of trafficking if another person plays a role in the business (driving, security, making adverts, etc).
Per the definition that is.
You know who often has a problem keeping the two concepts separate? The actual law enforcement agencies who engage in these types of stings.
In a significant number of cases like this, they make a lot of noise about trafficking, but end up doing little more than breaking up consensual prostitution rings. For too many cops, “prostitution” and “trafficking” go together like bacon and eggs; where you find the first, you’ll always find the second. The emphasis on alleged trafficking helps to drum up support among the hoi polloi because, understandably, no-one wants to express any support for people who engage in actual human trafficking. The term “trafficking” serves a rhetorical function that attracts the law-and-order crowd and attempts to head off criticisms from the legalization crowd, the same way that terms like “gateway drug” and “addiction” are often used by law enforcement to justify marijuana stings and head off criticism of the war on drugs.
As Elizabeth Nolan Brown reported a couple of days ago, Florida law enforcement has been walking back a lot of its earlier trafficking rhetoric, and there’s precious little actual evidence that much, or any, coerced prostitution was going on here. Yes, I understand that Reason is a largely libertarian site, and that libertarians get pretty short shrift among many Dopers (including me), but I’ve found Nolan Brown’s reporting on the sex trade to be pretty reasonable in the past.
Trafficking is BAD, and when it happens it should be stamped out with all possible force. But it also shouldn’t be deployed by law enforcement in a dishonest attempt to misrepresent what are often little more than efforts to stamp out consensual sex work. We can argue all day about whether consensual prostitution should or should not be legal, but it shouldn’t be conflated with trafficking just to act as a shield for draconian law enforcement crackdowns. As a whole raft of sex workers’ advocates have noted, the people who end up suffering the most in many of these sorts of stings are often the sex workers themselves. And as Nolan Brown concludes in her article:
I don’t think a lot of so-called consensual sex work is in fact consensual at all- just because someone isn’t chained or locked up doesn’t mean they are not coerced. For the small portion of sex work which is in fact consensual, I have no problem people promoting legalizing it. From the descriptions here, there is little doubt that this was pretty clearly coercive, and classic trafficking. But trafficking cases are as I understand it very hard to make, so often those charges are not brought. We are not dealing with consensual sex work here. I don’t understand why arguments are brought against persecution or prosecution of consensual transactional sex, when so clearly this is not the case here.
Please show me that definition. I’m pretty sure Ms Daniels, Stormy, is not considered trafficked because she engages a driver. Regardless, I am supremely unconcerned with the possibility of non-trafficked sex workers being classified as trafficked, when the reverse is so much more often true. It is time that those who frequent Day-spas, or certain clubs in Germany etc realize that they are more than likely encountering victims of coercion or trafficking amongst those from whom they receive services. It may not be obvious, they may have been conditioned to seem ok with their lot, but that is no excuse to be ignorant of the possibility.
What evidence do you have, aside from your own hidebound certainty? Especially regarding your massive generalization that a “small portion of sex work …is in fact consensual”?
I, for one, did not know that the workers at this sort of establishment are disproportionately victims of trafficking. But then, I have no inclination to visit such an establishment in the first place. Among those who would be so inclined, would they be expected to know this? If this story serves to make said information common knowledge, that would be a good thing.
As to the conensuality of sex work in general, there are degrees of consensuality. No doubt, the majority of sex workers made the decision to join the industry under some degree of duress, probably most typically that they need the money and have no better way to earn it. But then, there are plenty of people with office jobs who wouldn’t do those jobs if they didn’t need the money, too, and yet nobody considers office workers to be “coerced”, or “enslaved”, or “trafficked”. Just exactly what level of duress is acceptable? And is the line different for sex work than for any other kind of work?
I’m pretty sure where the law is concerned it doesn’t matter. If you agree to participate in a bank robbery as a driver, you know that robbing a bank is dangerous and could easily lead to violence. So even though you’re only expecting to facilitate theft, if one of your fellow robbers shoots and kills someone you will likely be charged with murder, because as far as the law is concerned the crime you chose to commit could plausibly have that outcome.
Similarly, if you solicit a prostitute it’s common knowledge that it’s plausible that human trafficking may be involved. Therefore it shouldn’t matter if you knew for certain the prostitute was the victim of trafficking. Essentially if you don’t want to risk being charged with participating in trafficking, don’t go to a dodgy illegal brothel.
Do you have any evidence that this is how the laws are written for prostitution and human trafficking? I can find you laws from a number of states that address the type of felony murder situation that you’re talking about in your first paragraph, but those laws actually have to be written in such a way that makes clear how they work.
Do you know whether or not anti-prostitution and anti-trafficking laws are written in such a way that simply soliciting a prostitute is, in and of itself, sufficient to sustain a charge of human trafficking? Or are you just making assumptions and drawing parallels for the sake of your personal preferences? If the law works as you suggest, why hasn’t Robert Kraft been charged with human trafficking?
And back to the Florida stings, Elizabeth Nolan Brown has another article today that goes into even more detail about the disconnect between the public statements by police and the media, on the one hand, and the actual charges and evidence, on the other. Nolan Brown has been following the police statements, but she’s also been looking at the actual evidence and the actual charges, and there just isn’t much evidence of human trafficking, if any at all.
There’s more relevant stuff, but I don’t want to run afoul of copyright rules, so I can only suggest that people read it for themselves.
That does reflect on something I have mentioned in previous threads, that very often we hear talk of “human trafficking” to ratchet up the impact, when the facts would reflect violation of existing pimping laws, which should be enough to act and put a stop to the abusive practices.
I have no idea which is why I was speaking in generalities. If I had specifics I’d cite them. I didn’t claim to be an authority, I was drawing a parallel as a potential explanation if a trafficking charge was levied. And I was also addressing why it might not matter if he didn’t know for certain if trafficking was involved. I think you read much more in my speculation than I claimed. “I’m pretty sure” and “it shouldn’t matter” are not declarations of fact. 
Yeah, sorry, but that’s not how discussions of the law work.
“They do this other thing in some completely different situations, so I think that they probably must do something similar in the situation we’re currently talking about.” Great analysis!
Look, I understand that not everyone’s a lawyer. I’m not a lawyer. I also understand that, even when people make the effort to research a legal issue, they might make errors of analysis or interpretation, and we should cut people some slack if they’re making a genuine effort in an area that is not their profession. But when we’re addressing the question of what the law actually says and how the law actually works, then rank speculation and broad generalities and unwarranted inferences from dissimilar situations just don’t cut it.
You said, “I’m pretty sure where the law is concerned it doesn’t matter.” But it might matter very much, and just because a felony murder statute exists doesn’t mean that prostitution and trafficking are treated in the same way.
This ain’t GQ. I think you got a bit lost. And I think you’ve derailed this thread enough already.
Fair enough.
“It’s not GQ, so the facts don’t matter.”
Got it.
No. It’s not GQ so speculation is allowed. Facts as always are welcome. (I’m still waiting on them by the way.) Piling on someone for speculating about legal matters in The Game Room is just trying to rile things up for kicks.
Did the police secretly plant cameras in the place, or do they have some sort of security camera footage?
The police planted cameras