My Sunday column looks at human trafficking — but in America. This is a subject I’ve written about a good deal in Cambodia, India, Pakistan and elsewhere abroad, and there’s sometimes a tendency to think that the problem just exists overseas, or just among foreign women smuggled in the the U.S. It’s true that the worst places in the world for forced prostitution maybe Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Cambodia, Burma, and so on. But we also have significant problems in the United States — particularly among home-grown young teenagers — and we don’t have the credibility to address the problems abroad unless we clean up our act at home.
Frankly, no model works particularly well in addressing this problem. But there’s a growing sense that the “legalize and regulate” approach doesn’t work particularly well (although Australia may be an exception), because it tends to create a parallel market in underage, trafficked girls. That’s certainly the experience in the Netherlands. Thus the approach that seems to be gathering steam is the Swedish model, in which johns are prosecuted but the women/girls themselves are treated as victims and are given social services but are not prosecuted. The advantage of this is that it cracks down on demand, which in turn reduces the incentive for trafficking girls in Sweden. A growing number of countries are moving to adopt that approach, and police officials in New York City are studying it as well.
Skeptics will note that there is also voluntary prostitution. Of course there is. There was also voluntary work on cotton plantations. But my point is that some of what appears voluntary is in fact coerced, and that should be a higher law enforcement priority. The bottom line is that we need much more aggressive enforcement against pimps, rather than just tossing their victims in juvenile detention. I encourage you to look at Rachel Lloyd’s compelling new memoir, “Girls Like Us,” which is the best thing I know written on domestic trafficking. And after you’ve read the column, I’d welcome your thoughts.
In an excerpt of their new book, “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide,” Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn write that the liberation of women could help solve many of the world’s problems, from child mortality to terrorism.
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