I've written twice (here and here) about my individual student, whom I felt was in danger of being trafficked. At our last class, I gave her five pages in Russian, sent to me by the Angel Coalition, on the dangers posed to Russian women by traffickers. She didn't show up to class today. Of course, there could be any number of reasons: she could be sick, she could have left for Egypt early, she might have decided to learn English from someone other than me. Or perhaps she's changed her mind about the Egypt thing. I hope so.
7 comments:
No matter what she decides to do, Jane, you did the right thing, sharing that information with her.
This past week we talked about trafficking in my Post-Socialist Gender class, and although the trafficking reports I had heard before this class had always scared the hell out of me (and with good reason!), a couple of the articles really drove the feeling home further than I ever thought possible. (The pieces did mention the Angel Coalition, by the way.)
An infuriating apsect revealed in them was how most international criticism and legislation focus on the "sender" countries and their problems more than the "receiver" countries and their issues. The author mentioned how in one instance, Ukrainian authorities were invited to the D.C./Maryland/Virginia area by US authorities for a seminar on what they could do to stop the trafficking of women. Ironically enough, the host officials from the US failed to even mention (nevermind examine!) the United States' role in this "supply and demand" structure of the sex industry, which ultimately leads to women's literal enslavement. Typically hypocritical!
Needless to say, the brutality of these issues and the inflamatory nature of their causes made it difficult for us as a class to talk about them in an academically-productive manner. In my opinion, such a tension in scholarly discussion usually indicates that we're "on the right track," so to speak - that we're addressing real-life issues in need of nuanced examination. However, the tension does highlight, too, the need for a sturdier bridge between "armchair" academia and activism...
Wow - I didn't mean to write this much! I guess I had to get it all out of my system...
It's similar to the fact that those arrested for prostitution usually receive a harsher punishment than those arrested for soliciting prostitutes...
I do think that any "sender" countries should have a responsibility to protect its citizenry, but I agree.... why isn't there more of a focus on the recipient countries? Infuriating!
I'm not sure how the recipient countries can do as much as the sender countries in terms of prevention. You can't catch someone before they commit the crime. If you are talking about recipient countries being "the West" our visa laws are already so difficult as to frustrate even law-abiding citizens who wish to legitimately visit. You could attempt to curtail demand with stiffer legal penalties, but given that we already have stiff laws against this and to support increased investigational efforts to stop it (2000 Trafficking Victims Protection Act and 2003 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act) it is difficult to imagine what those penalties would be (at least on US soil).
So when the US talks with Ukraine about informing these young women - it is an obvious, low-cost, and effective step towards prevention.
I think if you look around, there is actually a lot of political pressure applied by the US to curtail human trafficking. However, consider that the "four countries .. placed on Tier 3 for insufficient efforts to take action to comply with U.S. standards for the elimination of trafficking, including the exploitation ... workers: Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates" are all Persian Gulf oil producing states.
Regarding prostitution, I believe it should just be legalized and taxed as it is in Germany.
In the areas that border Mexico, trafficking (for the sex and labor trades) is a huge problem. 'Coyotes' (smugglers of humans ('illegals') across the border from Mexico into the US often smuggle people in under false pretenses. An excellent website, Los Cristeros has excellent documentation of the trafficking between Tijuana and San Diego. This isn't just an isolated problem; it happens all along the US border with Mexico, and I'm sure the border with Canada is not immune to such issues. I think that the US *should* definitely talk with other countries (be it Ukraine or Mexico or anywhere else) regarding prevention of trafficking *from* their countries, but the US still needs to work on ending its status as a recipient.
And I agree there is DEFINITELY a problem with the high rate of trafficking to Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates being ignored because they're our "oil allies" (kind of goes along with what I wrote in the comment under the protest songs post... about how we attacked Iraq but not Saudi Arabia)
Melissa, that also reminds me of all those commercials on AFN (Armed Forces Network, for those who don't know) - although, granted, they were geared towards both sides: the themes were essentially "Don't get raped" and "Don't rape."
Another thought: A lot of people seem to turn a blind eye to this issue. They prefer to believe that either human trafficking is not a problem, or it is not a significant problem, or it only exists in far-away places. Kind of like all the people I met in Korea (mostly ESL teachers and USFK personnel) who were convinced that all the Russian and Filipino hookers *wanted* to be there and that trafficking just wasn't something that occurred...
The media fails so often and has such power...this is one arena where it seems the media doesn't bother to look (at least not often enough), becuase I cannot imagine anyone knowing frankly about trafficking/sex trade/slavery type issues that are growing esp. among impoverished nations and NOT be horrified...
It reminds me of the Holocaust atrocities...people didn't seem to know, but if they did know they would be more likely to ...what? I hope press the gov'ts of effected countries (most all) on the issue --with even just a camapaign to educate.
I am glad you gave that woman that info--in russian no less. I hope that it at least would slow down any decisions she made.
I think the News media has become lazy in the west. They simply aren't tenacious enough. Pulling the threads of a story together and doing continued research on topics of interest simply isn't being done the way it once was. Consider even how Woodward and Bernstein have become shadows of their former young selves. They are a symbol of how far the news media has fallen.
In an interesting sort of way, blogs are challenging that norm. However, I see conventional news media trying to put the blog format to use in a too slick fashion (consider on Yahoo news ... Kevin Sites "In The Hot Zone").
Anyway, I digress.
As to the informing the potential perp vs. potential victim - you aren't going to talk a drug dealer out of being a drug dealer, or a rapist out of being a rapist. No amount of education is going to keep a classless jerk from date raping. Society already says it is wrong, has taught that since he was age 5, and such brainless idiots won't get the message because of some pamphlet or infomercial. The lines of right and wrong in society are already clearly drawn - trust me, in the US we already give men the message. As a group of women, it might not seem that way, because you are witness to low-class jerks who behave coarsely or wrongly or illegally. But you shouldn't doubt for a minute that they knew they were wrong to begin with.
I know it is popular to point to the most crass elements of the pop culture as sending mixed messages, but I think that is stretching the reality of culture and life in the US. People know where the lines are drawn, they just are in violation of those boundaries of right and wrong.
I have seen some incredible documentaries on this problem on shows like Dateline... but it simply doesn't seem to outrage people like you'd think it would...
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