If you're part of the solution, you might be part of the problem
In some of my remarks about Jack Shafer's articles on Peter Landesman and sex trafficking I've suggested that I can't get quite as worked up as Jack does about the role of right-wing evangelicals in the anti-trafficking movement. I've generally taken the position that people can come to causes from different starting points and that just because you disagree with a group of people about some issues, doesn't mean you should dismiss their work on all issues.
But now Debbie Nathan has a must-read article in The Nation that spells out quite clearly why Jack was right to be concerned — and that along the way demolishes many assumptions of Landesman-style journalism. (In These Times published a similar article in March.)
Nathan explains how the Christian right (and its "abolitionist feminist" allies) have gamed the system to keep media and legal focus on forced sex work at the demonstrable expense of people who are enslaved (literally) in other jobs — even though there's evidence that far more people are forced to work on farms and in factories than in brothels.
What's more, the evangelicals managed to work official condemnation of all prostitution -- even voluntary -- into the laws on forced trafficking. Meaning that it is nearly impossible for groups seeking to help sex-workers by working with them to get funding. And remember that voluntary sex-workers vastly outnumber enslaved ones. But here's the really tricky side-effect of this: "In a slick rhetorical maneuver, the TVPA offers no assistance to individuals who've been voluntarily smuggled to work as prostitutes, yet it counts them as 'trafficking' victims, along with brothel prisoners. The conflation inflates the severity of the 'sex slave' problem in the public mind."
So where does Landesman fit in to this? Glad you asked.
"Still, the media favor sex-trafficking stories over accounts of other forced work. Television and the press are full of titillating reports, often with suggestive visuals (a New York Times Magazine cover piece featured a photo of a teenaged victim posed in a Catholic-style schoolgirl uniform -- sitting on a bed). Despite the likelihood that the coverage is skewed, researchers such as Kevin Bales, of the NGO Free the Slaves, have tallied press clippings to argue that prostitution predominates over other types of labor trafficking. The State Department makes the same claim by citing the Bales study." [emp. added]
Nathan's best estimate of the severity of the sex-slave trade is the only one that a responsible journalist can make: "No one knows." What we do know now -- and I've only scratched the surface of Nathan's excellent article here -- is that the Christian right (and paleofeminist left) have an obsession with sex that is making the work of freeing all enslaved people harder rather than easier.
Comments
All this talk of ending slavery makes you sound like a Republican.
Posted by: MM | August 16, 2005 11:18 AM
In no place and in no manner does the NY Times Magazine story on sex trafficking state that sex slavery "predominates over other types of labor trafficking". In my reporting, and in the writing, I did not attempt to contextualize sex trafficking in a "this is worse than that" manner. I focused solely on the emotional and financial economy of sex trafficking into the U.S., and the toll it takes on its victims. Claims to media "hysteria" over sex trafficking appear to be somewhat hysterical.
Posted by: Peter Landesman | August 17, 2005 09:15 AM
>I did not attempt to contextualize sex trafficking in a "this is >worse than that" manner.
Yeah, context is overrated as a tenet of journalism.
Posted by: radosh | August 17, 2005 09:25 AM
I remain curious about claims by Slate's Jack Shafer, and this blogger, among other so-called media "experts", that reporting on sex trafficking in general, and my piece in particular, relies heavily (or even somewhat) on the agenda of the "Christian right". I find sex trafficking to be a non-dominational issue, above issues of politics and religion and agenda. As a reporter who spent 5 months investigating this subject, I frankly was less interested in my sources' religion or their party affilition than what they were doing about sex trafficking. I find such debate on right-vs.-left on this issue akin to spending one's days in Plato's Cave debating shadows and ideas rather than on those streets where girls are forced to have sex with as many as 20 - 30 men a day. Experts are important to provide context, where appropriate. Reporters who rely on experts for direction often miss the point of a story. That said, regarding my NY Times Magazine piece in particular, let me set the record on this issue straight: in the 5 months reporting this story, I made my first and only contact with one (and only one) so-called "Christian organization", the International Justice Mission, and in month 4 of my investigation. I quoted IJM's President twice. In fact, I had much more contact with Equality Now than I did with IJM. Contrary to the punditry of the Shafers and the Radoshes (who I would guess have not actually had physical or even phone contact with anyone of this ilk) I find IJM to be decisively un-hysterical. In fact, anyone who deals with that organization might find them to be rather rational and lawyerly. While reporting "The Girls Next Door" I spent nearly all of my time among trafficking networks and law enforcement.
Posted by: Peter Landesman | August 18, 2005 09:33 AM
Quite intresting article posting.I enjoyed reading this.
Paul
Posted by: paul | August 24, 2005 01:48 AM