America vs. Sex Trafficking

Some signs this week that the issue of human sex trafficking is gaining long-overdue recognition within the U.S.

In New York, convicted prostitutes who are victims of commercial sex trafficking will have their criminal records wiped clean. New York Governor David Paterson is expected to sign the bill soon.

This follows the release Wednesday of the State Department’s annual “Trafficking in Persons” report which, for the first time, assessed trafficking in the U.S. and acknowledged its status as a “source, transit and destination country.”  

The impetus for the New York measure stems from the many female arrivals in the New York area who struggle to find work and are lured into prostitution, often against their will. Vacating convictions is intended to help them overcome stigma, transition back into society and improve their chance to secure housing, employment and legal residency. According to the Urban Justice Center’s Sienna Baskin in a press release. "Our clients include women trafficked into commercial sex who were arrested more than 10 times. Their fears of retribution prevented them from informing law enforcement about their exploitation...These women have suffered enough and simply want to move on with their lives by finding a good job and a safe place to live, or applying for immigration status.”

Reaction to the measure has been swift and positive. “Yes, yes, the rest of the country should do that,” wrote Shakesville’s Melissa McEwen, who notes that fear of legal retribution often prevents women forced into sex work from seeking helping. According to Audacia Ray of change.org, “The passage of this bill has shown us that it is possible for sex workers' rights advocates to have their say, and that there are state legislators who will listen to our concerns.”

The State Department report, meantime, noted that men, women and children are all victims of forced labor, debt bondage and forced prostitution in the U.S. Trafficking is most prevalent in sectors such as domestic help, janitorial services, agriculture, health and aged care and strip club dancing.

The report found that 12.3 million adults and children were trafficked in 2009, at a rate of 1.8 people per 1,000 worldwide.  As for the U.S, the report showed that the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and U.S. Attorneys’ Offices initiated 183 investigations, charged 82 individuals, and obtained 77 convictions in 40 human trafficking cases (13 labor trafficking, 27 sex trafficking). In addition, the Innocence Lost National Initiative, relating to child prostitution, led to 148 convictions.  

Previously, domestic trafficking had been the reporting domain of the Attorney-General. Inclusion of the U.S. in the State Department’s international listing has been applauded by human rights groups, who have pushed for the US to formally acknowledge their role in international human trafficking. “We have been calling for that since the first report 10 years ago,” says Kevin Bales, president of the anti-trafficking group Free The Slaves in an interview with the website The Daily Caller. In that same piece, International Justice Mission's Holly Burkhalter says, “This country has thousands of minor kids being pimped on the street."

However, Time’s E. Benjamin Skinner argues the report appears to have white-washed a specific category of close-to-home cases involving foreign diplomats. A notorious case was that of Alan Mzengi, a Tanzanian diplomat who was found by a U.S. district court judge to have forced a 20-year-old woman named into domestic slavery in his family's six-bedroom home in Bethesda, Md.