A summary of Nick Davies’ article
An article published by the Guardian on Tuesday 20th October 2009 by Nick Davies suggested that current figures of sex trafficking into the UK are highly over exaggerated and misleading. The article, entitled “Inquiry fails to find single trafficker who forced anybody into prostitution”, was the product of an investigation led by the Guardian into the results of Operation Pentameter Two (a nationwide investigation into human trafficking conducted in 2007). What was discovered were discrepancies between the number of arrests claimed to have been made and those which in reality took place. The article deemed Pentameter Two a failure on account of not resulting in a single prosecution for trafficking related offences, stating that although five men were convicted of trafficking women into forced prostitution, these were not direct consequences of the operation itself.
Another blow to Pentameter‘s credibility was dealt as Davies illustrated that the definition of trafficking used for the operation was taken from the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Unlike the definition found in the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children 2002, this does not deem force or deception prerequisite to the term. This would potentially question ideas of progress on behalf of sex workers’ rights groups considering the effort made by the Human Rights Caucus during the creation of the Protocol in managing to incorporate these elements into the final product.
Davies concludes that the UK Parliament is in the process of passing the Policing and Crime Bill which, when brought into force, will amend among other things the Sexual Offences Act 2003. This will entail including in section 53A the subsection explaining that, whether or not a person making or promising a payment for sexual services of a prostitute is aware of that prostitute being controlled for gain by a third person, is irrelevant. This would add to the already vast repertoire of laws regulating prostitution which arguably serve to do nothing but isolate the sex worker from protection and further place the goal of recognising sex work as a legitimate form of labour, and thus according to sex workers the corresponding rights, out of reach.
Nick Davies’ report left me with a healthy dose of scepticism as to the real scale of sex trafficking in the UK, and made me question as to how far the hype is just being fed to us by politicians and neo abolitionists with vested interests in eradicating prostitution. However, one must be aware of the difficulties in compiling data on human trafficking, as for example much literature on the topic tells us that potential victims may be less likely to come forward due to fears of possible reprisals to them or their families at the hands of their traffickers or members of the network they are associated to.
-Caroline Eriksson
To read Nick Davies’ report follow the link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/20/government-trafficking-enquiry-fails
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2 comments:
The numbers of sex trafficking sex slaves:
There is a lot of controversy over the numbers of adult woman who are forced sex slaves. The real factual answer is that no one knows. There is hard evidence that the sex slavery/sex trafficking issue continues to report false information and is greatly exaggerated by politicians, the media, and aid groups, feminist and religious orgainzations that receive funds from the government, The estimate of women who become new sex slaves ranges anywhere from 20 million a year to 5,000 per year all of which appear to be much too high. They have no evidence to back up these numbers, and no one questions them about it. Their sources have no sources, and are made up numbers. In fact if some of these numbers are to believed which have either not changed or have been increased each year for the past twenty years, all woman and children on earth would currently be sex slaves. Yet, very few real sex slaves have been found.
“If media reports on sex trafficking in Nepal are to be believed, there would be no young girls left in Nepal at this time”
A key point is that on the sidelines the prostitutes themselves are not being listened to. They oppose laws against prostitution. But no one wants to listen to the prostitutites themsleves. Only to the self appointed experts that make up numbers and stories.
This is a story that continues to give false information and is greatly exaggerated by politicians, aid groups, and the media.
It is not easy for crimanals to engage in this acitvity:
Sex trafficking is illegal and the pentities are very severe. It is very difficult to force someone to be a sex slave, they would have to have 24 hour guards posted and be watched 365 days a year, 24 hours per day. Have the threat of violence if they refused, and have no one notice and complain to the authorities or police. They would need to hide from the general public yet still manage to see customers from the general public. They would need to provide them with medical care, food, shelter, and have all their basic needs met. They would need to have the sex slaves put on a fake front that they enjoyed what they were doing, act flirtatious and do their job well. They would have to deal with the authorities looking for the missing women, and hide any money they may make, since it comes from illegal activity. They must do all of this while constantly trying to prevent the sex slaves from escaping and reporting them to the police. This is extremely difficult to do, which makes this activity rare.
What hard evidence does the police have that these women were forced slaves? Were all the women that the police saw in fact slaves? Did the police prove without a doubt due to hard concrete evidence that the women were victims of being slaves and forced against their will? Did they account for all the benefits they would receive if they lied?
I find it very hard to believe that most women in this business are forced against their will to do it. It would just be too difficult. There may be some exceptions but, I believe this is an attempt to over inflate an issue in order to get more government money to fight this cause. As a tax payer, voter, and resident I don’t want the government to mislead me.
The following links will give your more information about this
Washington post article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/22/AR2007092201401.html
Human traffic website:
http://traffickingwatch.org/node/18
http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/OJP/a0826/final.pdf
Guardian newspaper:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/20/government-trafficking-enquiry-fails
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/20/trafficking-numbers-women-exaggerated
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/22/gov_proposals/print.html
India newspaper:
http://www.thehoot.org/web/home/story.php?storyid=3622&mod=1&pg=1§ionId=9&valid=true#
http://www.bayswan.org/traffick/Weitzer_Criminologist.pdf
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/2850/
== In the United Kingdom ==
In October, 2009 - The biggest ever investigation of sex trafficking failed to find a single person who had forced anybody into prostitution in spite of hundreds of raids on sex workers in a six-month campaign by government departments, specialist agencies and every police force in the country. The failure has been disclosed by a Guardian investigation which also suggests that the scale of and nature of sex trafficking into the UK has been exaggerated by politicians and media.
== World Cup 2006 ==
Politicians, religious and aid groups, still repeat the media story that 40,000 prostitutes were trafficked into Germany for the 2006 world cup – long after leaked police documents revealed there was no truth at all in the tale. A baseless claim of 25,000 trafficking victims is still being quoted, recently, for example, by the Salvation Army in written evidence to the home affairs select committee, in which they added : "Other studies done by media have suggested much higher numbers.". Which has been proven by the German police to be completely false. Yet people still talk about these false numbers as if it were fact.
== In the USA ==
On August 5, 2008
U.S. Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine uncovered discrepancies in a program dedicated to cracking down on human trafficking, McClatchy Newspapers report. Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales spent millions of dollars on combating the international trafficking of indentured servants and sex slaves, including by creating task forces across the U.S. that identified and helped victims. Over four years, the department paid $50 million to the task forces and other groups. Conservative groups, who pressured the administration to go after sex trafficking more aggressively, applauded his efforts.
Critics have questioned whether the problem was being hyped. Fine found in an audit issued that the task forces and other groups set up to help were 'significantly' overstating the number of victims they served. By examining a sampling of cases, Fine found the task forces had exaggerated by as much as 165 percent. Making matters worse, the inflated numbers were included in annual reports to Congress.
The following links will give you more information about this
Washington post article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/22/AR2007092201401.html
Human traffic website:
http://traffickingwatch.org/node/18
http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/OJP/a0826/final.pdf
Guardian newspaper:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/20/government-trafficking-enquiry-fails
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/20/trafficking-numbers-women-exaggerated
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/22/gov_proposals/print.html
India newspaper:
http://www.thehoot.org/web/home/story.php?storyid=3622&mod=1&pg=1§ionId=9&valid=true#
http://www.bayswan.org/traffick/Weitzer_Criminologist.pdf
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/2850/
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