Don’t call it slavery

Editor - Regarding Joel Brinkley’s “Enslaved, by definition,” Jan. 13:
Finally someone has noticed that the deliberate conflation of
prostitution and human trafficking hurts everyone involved.

The reality is even worse than Brinkley’s admirable column suggests.
Pending House reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act
wrongly calls all prostitution “sex trafficking” and makes “inducement
into prostitution” a federal crime. It would also force the Justice
Department to stretch its resources for fighting child sexual
exploitation to cover adult “victims,” meaning prostitutes, whether or
not they see themselves as victims. And many do not.

Our clients who want to leave the business are looking for job training,
housing and other services and choices, not for “rescue.” Trafficking is
a gross human rights abuse that must be stopped, but the administration
needs to understand that not all trafficking victims are prostitutes and
not all prostitutes are slaves.

SIENNA BASKIN Sex Workers Project Urban Justice Center New York”

Sienna Baskin
Equal Justice Works Fellow
Sex Workers Project
Urban Justice Center
p/646-602-5695
www.sexworkersproject.org