What Does Sex Trafficking Look Like?
There’s no one answer to this, but very often in Australia, the UK, USA and all over the world, it looks like this. Trigger warning for child sexual abuse and sex slavery in the link. Here’s another source.
For those who don’t want to read the link, here’s a brief summary; eight men in Australia have been charged with various offences related to being involved in a pedophile ring. The most recent court hearing was about the fact that one of these men raped a thirteen year old girl multiple times after her father, who was also sexually abusing her, advertised for men to rape her on craigslist. It appears that the father of the girl was at the centre of the ring, and all the men involved raped the young girl (who hasn’t been identified for legal reasons).
This is a clear cut case of sex trafficking, and the police have recognized this also as they have charged the father with “sexual servitude of a child” among many other offenses.
What many people don’t realize is that this is what sex trafficking usually is in Australia; parents forcing their children, usually girls, into sexual slavery. Abusive men forcing their women partners into sex labor. Yet very few of the organizations that claim to advocate for sex trafficking survivors recognize this or institute any supports for victims. The laws they push for do nothing to protect victims or prevent these horrific crimes; this case was facilitated via craigslist, not a sex work website such as backpage; clearly restricting websites like backpage made no difference here and adult sites never even factored into the case. Sex work is decriminalized in Western Australia under certain conditions, with the age of consent to engaging in paid sex labor being 18 years old. Forcing someone into sex labor is illegal regardless of the victims age, so decriminalizing sex work has nothing to do with it; the child was not involved in a brothel, agency or club of any kind, and brothels are illegal in Western Australia anyway. I want to reiterate that this horrific case is not an anomaly, and since the vast majority of sexual violence is never reported, we have every reason to believe that the cases we do hear about are just the tip of the iceberg.
Since we know what doesn’t work, what will? My experience in forced sex labor was as an adult, and I certainly don’t claim to have all the answers or speak for everyone, but thinking about this from a community perspective, a few things come to mind
Keeping kids engaged in the community via school, daycare etc helps make kids visible, so there’s less chance of these atrocities going unnoticed. In this case, the young girl obviously couldn’t disclose what was happening to her. We need to have mechanisms in place where teachers and community members know the warning signs of abuse and are able to reach out to at-risk kids and help keep them safe. While all Australian states have mandatory reporting from teachers regarding child sexual abuse, these mechanisms failed and we need to find out why.
Educating kids about abuse in age appropriate ways has been proven to increase the rates at which kids disclose abuse, and this should be part of kids education - taught in an age-appropriate way - as soon as possible, ideally in daycare or kindy and continuing right through into high school. For little ones, this means teaching them what good, loving contact is versus abusive contact, recognizing the warning signs their own bodies give them that’s something wrong, teaching them that no one has the right to hurt them, and who they can turn to for help.
Overhauling the child protection system is long overdue in Australia as well as many other countries; the departments that deal with child protection in the various states and territories are grossly underfunded and hostile to victims, kids and adults alike. Many abused kids are told by their abusers that if they tell anyone, they’ll be taken away and forced to live with strangers - and these aren’t even lies. Clearly, the system we have in place for abused kids isn’t good enough, it’s an active barrier to disclosure and we need to do better. One of the best ways to begin this is
Facilitating strong relationships with family members, friends and the community. Kids (and adults) who are victims of sex slavery need to have alternatives to foster care (for kids) and refuges (for adults). These services are already in place as a ‘last resort’ where no other appropriate housing and/or care can be found, but what are we doing to increase the chances that these other, better options will be viable? In addition to visibility, extended family and close friends (and particularly, knowing that there are safe places) makes it easier for victims to disclose. This is a huge issue that requires an overhaul of everything from working hours, public transport, affordable telecommunications, and affordable housing to name just a few. Our culture isn’t set up for strong family and community ties, and that needs to change.
There is no reason why anyone, especially a child, should be subjected to sex slavery at all, and the fact that this often goes on for years is . . there’s no word for it, it simply shouldn’t happen and there’s no excuse for it.
If we are serious about stopping sex trafficking, these are just some of the issues we need to look at. We need to see what’s actually enabling this to go on rather than allow the rescue industry - who are deafeningly silent on this issue - to dictate what should be our focus, and we need to recognize that this is going on in our own communities.
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