Kate D'Adamo, Thesis Outline

The Baby Prostitute Next Door:The Trafficking Victim in Three ActsKate D‟AdamoThesis Workshop; N. KruschevaFall, 2011

Outline Introduction and Background What is trafficking? ◦ Trafficking as Cultural Myth: Explanation of what it means to have a concept as cultural myth, and the impact on it. ◦ Trafficking as Narrative: Beyond simply a concept, the idea of trafficking has formed into a more complete story, and the presence of narrative has had a definitive impact. ◦ Trafficking as Propaganda: This narrative, while neutral as a story, has also been utilized by agents looking to push a legislative and cultural agenda. ◦ Trafficking as Truth: Though these sections are loathsome, it must be noted that despite describing the “perfect victim” narrative as a cultural myth/propaganda, this is not to say that stories are untrue, but instead incomplete to describe the phenomenon. The Relevance of the Trafficking Victim ◦ Construction of the Pathetic Victim Narrative and its place in Trafficking Propaganda

Outline, cont. Timeline of Anti-Trafficking Narratives in the US ◦ White Slavery (1903-1915)  Urbanization and Immigration  Nascent Feminism and Purity Reformers  Mann Act (1913) and its Effects ◦ Foreign Cargo (1990 – 2006)  Internationalization  Second Wave Feminism and the criminalization of alternative sexualities ◦ Baby Prostitutes (2007 – present)  Globalization  Backlash of third wave feminism  Criminalization of sex and youth

Methodology Comparative Case Studies ◦ Review the three periods of anti-trafficking discourse in the US, with reference to the European/International movement ◦ Look at media, discourse, and related legislation for patterns and similarities ◦ Analyze these patterns through contextual analysis ◦ Understand the differences through other cultural factors of globalization/internationalization, sexuality and feminism

Period White Slavery Foreign Cargo Baby Prostitutes Time Period 1910 – 1915 1990s - 2006 2007 - Present Legislation Mann Act/White Slave Act (1913) TVPA (2000) End Demand (IL, CO; 2010) Description of Rural, moving to urban female. East Asian or Eastern European, usually Young female, often suburban and Victim Naïve. White. have gender disparity in country. Young, naïve or urban and poverty-stricken. female. Naïve as a result of desperate poverty. Description of Foreign john who might visit a Foreign man or network of men moving - Domestic, neighbor, “John” Villain white prostitute. women and then “enslaving” them. - “Pimp” of colorPreceding Factors - State run brothels/system of - COYOTE, sex worker rights - RI Criminalization of indoor sex re: Prostitution prostitution movement (1970s) work - ACT UP, HIV & LGBTQ rights - “Swedish Model” Feminism/Sex - Beginning of the feminist - Coming off of the anti-prostitution - Backlash against increased Discourse movement in both Europe defeats of the 1980s. sexuality and the US. - Second wave feminism is ending, - 1990s – Third Wave Feminism - Purity movement third wave is still in nascent stages. Global factors - Growing immigration - Ending of Vietnam, Soviet Union - Rise of Multi-polar world - Low-wage to meet - Increase in immigration for - Decline in migration as issue industrialization needs alternative reasons - Failure to pass CIR - Push to cut back foreign policyInternal Cultural - Industrialization - Cultural clashes with growing NIS - Economic decline/Cuts in Factors - Rural to Urban migration population internal economic funding growing - Economic bubbles and boom - Increased policing of female sexuality, spec. youth Major Groups - International Bureau - Coalition Against Trafficking in - CATW behind “anti- - International Abolitionist Women (CATW) - Sanctuary for Families trafficking” Federation - Shared Hope InternationalMajor Groups Left - Was never inclusive - Migrants who show agency - Boys/Trans persons out - Domestic sex workers - Other industries

White Slavery (1903-1915)I say, yes, let her go freewhen she can return to thislittle girl her virtue ; when shecan turn the clock back andmake this little girl as pure inmind and body as she wasbefore she was taken to thisresort. But this she cannotdo. A wrong has beencommitted. She has takenfrom this girl that which cannever be restored, herchastity, her honour andpurity.Roe, Clifford Panders and Their White Slaves (1910)

Timeline of White Slavery Prostitution pre-1903: Internationally, multiple European countries have policies to promote the use of brothels and the institutionalization of concubinage in newly colonized areas 1903: International Purity reformers reach the US and seek expansion of their work in Europe 1907-1910: Peak of media surrounding white slavery. 1913: The White Slave Trafficking Act is passed, which includes criminalization of moving single women across state borders. It if the first time the federal government has addressed domestic prostitution in their laws. 1915: Multiple reports emerge which show that claims of white slavery have been highly exaggerated. As World War 1 begins, international concerns shift off of domestic ones and the movement loses steam

Creation of a White Slave George Kibbe Turner. "The Daughters of the Poor: A Plain Story of the Development of New York City as a Leading Centre of the White Slave Trade of the World, under Tammany Hall." McClures Magazine 34 (November 1909). Kaufman, Reginald Wright. The House of Bondage. Moffat, Yard and Company: New York, 1911. Traffic in Souls, directed by George Loane Tucker (1913; Independent Moving Pictures Co. of America) Roe, Clifford. Panders and Their White Slaves. Fleming H. Revell Company: New York, 1910) Bell, Ernest [Secretary of the Illinois Vigilance Association]. Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls (Fredonia Books, 2002) Originally published 1910 White Slave Traffic Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2421–2424 (1910)

Creation of a White Slave Irish/English female (Agnes, Henrietta, Mona) Roughly 19 – 20 years old Rural upbringing (Illinois, Pennsylvania, Minnesota) ◦ New immigrant from Northern Europe (Traffic in Souls) Usually a Jewish pimp tempting them (sometimes French) Naïve of alcohol, are usually tricked into imbibing Seeking a husband, which is the impetus to their move to the city Clients, when portrayed, are usually Italian and Chinese Story ends with either her innocence being restored through prosecution of traffickers, or the rejection by society because of her lack of innocence

Creating the White Slave:Cultural Factors Industrialization and migration ◦ Rural to Urban migration leads to an increase in women traveling and living independently, often disrupting the family structure in more rural, lower-income areas. ◦ Urban areas began seeing increases in international immigrants responding to increasing industrialization. Ellis Island is ten years into its peak years of receiving and processing new migrants.

Creating the White Slave:Feminism and Purity Reform Multiple new groups and activists around purity reform and growing feminism which focused on prostitution as the most important issue to tackle. These groups joined together on prostitution as the nexus issue of their work. ◦ International Bureau ◦ International Abolitionist Federation ◦ Josephine Butler (European) The growing trend of feminism is spreading through upper and middle class women in both Europe and the United States, contributing to a shift in the prostitute being represented as sullied woman to prostitute as victim of circumstance and trickery.

Foreign Cargo: 1990-2006 I met Srey Neth, a lovely, giggly wisp of a teenager, here in the wild smuggling town of Poipet in northwestern Cambodia. Girls here are bought and sold, but there is an important difference compared with the 19th century: many of these modern slaves will be dead of AIDS by their 20s.Nicholas Kristoff, Girls for Sale, New York Times, January 17, 2004

Timeline of Foreign Cargo 1989: Collapse of the Soviet Union and creation of NIS States 2000: US Federal government passes the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), the UN passes their Protocols on trafficking (Palermo Protocol) 2000: R2P is institutionalized in 2000 with ICISS‟s formation/release of “The Responsibility to Protect”

Unpacking the victim Lilya 4 Ever. DVD. Directed by Lucas Moodysson. (Memfis Film: Sweden, 2002.) Nicholas Kristof Pieces from the New York Times, 2004 ◦ Kristof, N. D. (2004, January 24). Bargaining for Freedom. The New York Times. ◦ Kristof, N. D. (2004, January 17). Girls for Sale. The New York Times. ◦ Kristof, N. D. (2004, January 17). Girls for Sale. The New York Times. ◦ Kristof, N. D. (2004, January 24). Going Home, With Hope. The New York Times. ◦ Kristof, N. D. (2004, January 28). Loss of Innocence. The New York Times. ◦ Kristof, N. D. (2004, January 31). Stopping the Traffickers. The New York Times. Bucharest Express. DVD. Directed by Chuck Portz. (2004) Sex Slaves. Frontline. Public Broadcasting Station. 7 February 2006. Trafficking Cinderella. Directed by Mira Nia (2000).

Unpacking the Victims Late teens, early 20s and female Women, generally from NIS States ◦ Lesser proportion from Eastern Europe Stricken by poverty Told they will be waitresses or topless dancers in a new country Trafficked by rings of men from the NIS States Often end in the contracting of HIV/AIDS either through unprotected sex or IV drug use In best case scenarios, they are repatriated o their country of origin.

Unpacking the cargo:The US and the world A growing and thriving economy meant that there was ample opportunity for international economic migration into the US. One element of this was the creation of temporary worker visas, which created a state- sponsored circular migration system. Increase in attention to state control of migration. Five of the most wide-reaching immigration bills were passed in the 30 years leading up to this wave, including the definition and policy for acceptance of refugees and the repeal of the quota system, which had specifically minimized the numbers of migrants coming from Asia. Populations from Eastern Europe were migrating into the US, including a number of unaccompanied women.

Unpacking the Cargo:Feminism and Sexual Freedom By 1990, second wave feminism was in full swing, with many of the same advocates both leading the movement and pushing an anti-trafficking agenda, including Kathleen Barry, Catherine McKinnon, and Dorchen Leighthold, founder of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW). These same organizations had recently seen the end of their movement to increase criminalization around pornography, a relationship which led to a close partnership between strongly conservative religious organizations who shared their anti-porn focus. It is right on the heels of this failure that the focus shifted to prostitution and trafficking. CATW was a leading influence for both the Palermo Protocols, and the TVPA. Additionally, much of this work came directly on the heels of increased recognition, but decreased protection of LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS rights. While community groups such as ACT UP were in the height of their actions, the government was systematically marginalizing sexual freedom with cases such as Bowers v Hardwick, 1986. In an interesting nexus of the issues, Washington state passed a law criminalizing the distribution of sexually explicit material to minors after ACT UP had passed out 500 illustrated packets on safer sex practices to high school students.

Saving the Victims: The TVPA Criminalized the labor or sexual exploitation of anyone using force fraud or coercion. Criminalized minors involved in sex work. Instituted the T-Visa, which was to be used for survivors of trafficking to stay in the country to testify against their traffickers. While the numbers of possible victims ranged in the hundreds of thousands, the number which could be received per year was capped at 5,000, as congress feared that the visa would be exploited. ◦ To receive a T-visa, the individual was required to act as a material witness and support the efforts of the investigation. During this time, they are held in immigration detention centers, and a failure to cooperate to the fullest will result in the rejection of their visa application, or a rescinding of their recommendation from the supporting department. The visas remain skewed towards passive victims who never attempt escape, and are rescued by law enforcement. As law enforcement chooses which cases to pursue and which not to, recipients are highly skewed towards women from the sex industry.

Saving the Victims: The TVPA The TVPA, created out of the pathetic victim narrative, reinforces this structure in its text and execution. ◦ Women ◦ Sex Industry ◦ Willing and ready to testify against traffickers ◦ Passive until law enforcement arrives, has made no attempt to escape  If she escape, she must immediately leave the country of her own volition ◦ Need/Want to repatriate ◦ No previous crimes, work in the sex industry

Baby Prostitutes Next DoorMany of us have been exploited by our peers,society and often by the people that we trust.When were the most vulnerable pimps attack,promising us stability, a family life, a future.They reel us in. He becomes our father, and ourboyfriend, until we see what he really wants.Then he intimidates us and reminds usconstantly about the consequences if we leave.Most tell us that theyll find and kill us, no matterwhere we go. Were afraid of being afraid.Resources are limited and many of us do notsee a way out.Anonymous, GEMS website

Baby Prostitutes: Media Very Young Girls (2007) ◦ Documentary featuring Rachel Lloyd, director of Girls Education and Mentoring Services (GEMS), a non profit which works with cis-female-identified trafficking survivors. Trade (2007) ◦ Narrative film starring Kevin Kline where he saves a 13 year old Mexican girl from border-based trafficking ring. Taken (2008) ◦ Narrative film starring Liam Neeson as a retired spy who must save his 17 year old daughter from an Albanian trafficking ring. CNN‟s Project Freedom: Ending Modern-Day Slavery (2010) ◦ CNN‟s pet advocacy project which posts short narratives of individual instances of “modern-day slavery.” While the stories have begun to diversify, most involve the sex industry and almost all “solutions” involve invading and forcibly “rescuing” sex workers from brothels. In the nascent stages of this project, reporters targeted their attacks almost exclusively on Craigslist. Section includes a “How you Can Help” which promotes donating to charities, learning about trafficking, and teaching others about trafficking. Most of the organizations listed are expressly anti-prostitution. Call + Response (2008) ◦ It is promoted as a documentary, but includes primarily staged footage, interviews with prominent academics, and assorted celebrity musical numbers to raise awareness about trafficking incite people to act, often using additional networks of media. The project itself also presents a complication of both functioning an independent NGO, though it was originally funded by the State Department, who is charged with addressing trafficking domestically.

Creating a Baby Prostitute Minors, the younger the better Either young women of color from urban areas, or white young women from middle/upper-middle class homes Young WOC are often driven to prostitution through desperate circumstances, street-based living, and drug use. If white, they are drugged and abducted, or lured with the promise of rebellion into the city. More frequent discussion of a pimp who directly interacts with the victim, as opposed to the previous era where the traffickers were more removed from the activities. Instead of brothel-based work (as in the previous era), street and online-based prostitution are the main methods of engagement. Clients are more frequently discussed, and are more often described as domestic men. Terminology changes to focus on “Johns.”

Creating a Baby Prostitute:Globalization and the Turn Inward The financial crisis of 2008 forced the US to turn its focus to domestic policies, especially those which addressed domestic poverty. An increasingly multi-polar world is leading to new pushes to change foreign policy strategy. Scaling back and re-focusing on the challenges at home are all major themes. Despite its prominence in rhetoric, Comprehensive Immigration Reforms fails to become an important agenda item for the Obama administration. Migration discussions regarding the Financial Crisis note that while there is no mass exodus, there is a noted emigration to home countries, and migrants are choosing not to come into the US. Attack ads begin on the temporary worker program, demanding that US jobs be held be US-born workers and the country rescinds the program to keep out new economic migrants.

Creating a Baby Prostitute:Feminism, Sex, and Youth While second wave feminism has been collapsing in on its anti-sex self, its reactionary forms of feminism (ie. Lipstick feminism) are finding a strong backlash. Criminalization of sexuality, especially around youth, is still a prominent subject. The 2000s saw a proliferation of state bills which increased the age of consent for minors (predominantly young women), while at the same time the lowering of ages prosecuted in criminal court as adults (and the increased criminalization of younger and younger men).

Saving Baby Prostitutes: EndDemand End Demand Legislation higher criminalizes the procurement activities not just around minors, but all sex workers. Policies are state-based. Falling within this method is also the criminalization of third parties who work or live with the sex industry as “pimps,” including advertisers, taxi drivers, landlords, partners and adult children. While it is promoted as “saving the victim” while trying to criminalize the patron, all laws passed and promoted in the US have neglected to decriminalize sex work, even for those under the age of 18. ◦ After an End Demand-style law was passed for New York City, rates of arrest for patronizing a prostitute declined while arrests for loitering and soliciting for the purpose of prostitution increased in records amounts in almost every borough. State-wide End Demand legislation was passed in Colorado and Illinois in 2010.

Baby Prostitutes: The Harms of aPathetic Victim Important Populations Left out: A recent study of street- based, youth populations engaged in sexual exchange found that half identified as male. Young men as well as trans youth are often specifically excluded from support and service programs which serve “trafficking victims.” Both populations are more likely to face criminalization for their behavior, which further precludes their access to services. Most street-based youth lack a traditional “pimp,” meaning not only that they are less likely to be found as a “trafficking victim.” Additionally, friends and those who do offer support are often arrested as a “trafficker” because of a youth‟s default status as a trafficked person. Criminalization of clients and third parties not only make life more challenging for youth, and put them into increasingly difficult situations, but further removes some of the few outside parties who they can reach out to when in a trafficking situation.

Partial Bibliography Ernest A. Bell, The Truth about Women in the White Slave Trade, (Brooklyn: Run For Cover!: 1910). Bucharest Express, directed by Chuck Portz (2004) Chapkis, Wendy, “Soft Glove, Punishing Fist,” in Regulating Sex: The Politics of Intimacy and Identity, ed. Elizabeth Bernstein and Laurie Schaffner, (New York: Routeledge: 2005). DeStephano, Anthony M.,The War on Human Trafficking: U.S. Policy Assessed (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2007) 5-19. Ellul, Jacques, Propaganda: The Formation of the Attitudes of Men (New York: Vintage Books: 1965) “Films on Human Trafficking,” UN GIFT, accessed 10/31/11, http://www.ungift.org/knowledgehub/media/films.html. Grittner, Frederick K., White Slavery: Myth, Ideology, and American Law (New York: Garland Publishing, 1990) 61 – 64. Kloer, Amanda, “10 Human Trafficking Films to Watch,” Change.org, January 06, 2009, accessed October 16, 2011, http://news.change.org/stories/10- human-trafficking-films-to-watch. Limoncelli, Stephanie, The Politics of Trafficking: The First International Movement to Combat the Sexual Exploitation of Women (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010) 42. “Recommended Books and Films,” Demand Abolition, accessed 06 October 2011, http://www.demandabolition.org/learn-and-act/build- expertise/recommended-books-films/. Roe, Clifford Panders and Their White Slaves (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company: 1910) “Sex Slaves,” Frontline, accessed 10/31/11, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/slaves. Srikantiah, Jayashri “Perfect Victims and Real Survivors: The Iconic Victim in Domestic Human Trafficking Law,” Boston University Law Review, 87:157 (2007) 187.Srikantiah, “Perfect Victims,” 195-196. Turner, George Kibbe, “Daughter of the Poor: A Plain Story of Development of New York City as a Leading Center of White Slave Trade of the World, under Tammany Hall,” A Mead Project, accessed 10/31/11, http://www.brocku.ca/MeadProject/Turner/Turner_1909b.html. Traffic in Souls, directed by George Loane Tucker (1913; Independent Moving Pictures Co. of America) “Traffic in Souls,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_in_Souls (Accessed 11/30/04) Trafficking Cinderella, directed by Mira Nia (2000) Meyers, Diana Tietjens, “Two Victims Paradigms and the Problem of „Impure‟ Victims,” Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development, 2:2 (2001), 258. Uy, Robert “Blinded By Red Lights: Why Trafficking Discourse Should Shift Away from Sex and the „Perfect Victim‟ Paradigm” Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law and Justice 26:1 (2011): 208.

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