By C. White
November 14, 2015
The US Department of State define sex traffic victims as people who are trapped in their work after taking jobs willingly (Risley 2015:214).
Risley states that actions from feminists, human rights activists, the United States (US) government, and members of different international organizations led to the enforcement of major policy reformations to end sex trafficking in girls and women (2015:213-214).
Risley claims that humanitarian, anti-sex trafficking practices under the Bush and Obama administrations magnify America’s power and great leadership, and moral authority. During Bush’s administration, sex traffic liberator became morally righteous (Risley 2015:214) and sex traffickers became “‘evil’, merciless actors and the suffering they inflict on their victims were meant to create (or heighten) moral indignation”. President Bush proclaimed that sex trafficking was a crime against humanity and dignity. In his Human Trafficking into the United States: Rescuing Women and Children from Slavery speech in 2004, he gave a warning to sex traffickers who bring women and children into the US for illegal, sexual exploitation. He stated that the practice was a “special” kind of “evil” against “the most innocent and vulnerable”. Other leaders remarked that the practice was also “an ‘abomination’…‘a vile trade’ and ‘pure and unadulterated evil’. ‘It is medieval in conception and brutal” in implementation…servitude…is a practice that should long ago have been consigned to the ask heap of discarded inhumanity…and one that we work daily to defeat.” (Risley 2015:218-220). Risley also states that US leaders asserted that this country had a “special ‘duty’…to…fight against” sex trafficking. Before the end of Bush’s presidency, gave strong condemnation to johns, the consumers of sexual servitude, and stated that the motivator of sex trafficking is the normalization, acceptance, and practice of prostitution, which directly accompanies brutality. He blamed the high maintenance of sex trafficking on consumers’ high demand for sexual services (2015:220).
According to Risley (2015:214), sex trafficking recruitments sometimes occur when girls and women accept “lucrative-sounding jobs” to a different area in their countries or overseas. Then the enforcement of commercial sex acts to repay debts and traveling costs confronts them. Some foreknow that the work is sexual, but they do not anticipate manipulation, control, sexual abuse, rape, violence, and threats.
From Risley, the Bush, and Obama administrations accepted The 2000 Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (TVPA) which was emphasized by the Clinton administration, because it details the “prosecution, prevention, and protection” aspects of human trafficking, including sexual exploitation. In late 2009, the US funded 190 programs in almost 70 countries from commitments to economically support traffic victims who escaped the exploitation. Over $600 million in US dollars financed international counter-traffic programs between 2001 and 2009. Within the State Department, the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons work with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and among various work, one is public traffic awareness (Risley 2015:216). Needless to say, the largest counter-trafficking grants worldwide collectively comes from the US (2015:224).
Reference
Risley, Amy. 2015. “America Will Not Tolerate Slave Traders”: Counter-Trafficking Policies and US Power”. Journal of Women, Politics, & Policy 36:213-238. doi:10.1080/1554477x.2015.1019278