Today the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting hosted a press conference on human trafficking headlined by Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and Melanne Verveer, Ambassador-at-Large for Women's Issues. I am very glad to see a focus on this incredibly important and too often ignored issue.
Mira Sorvino, who is a Goodwill Ambassador with a focus on human trafficking, framed the lack of knowledge about modern day slavery in the U.S. through her personal experience: "Like many Americans I thought slavery had ended with Lincoln... It's this unbelievably subterranean crime."
The biggest take away from the press conference for me was the implication that the Executive Branch is just starting to take human trafficking seriously following an administration that downplayed the scope of the problem. Solis wants to prioritize trafficking at the Department of Labor, but this is in the very early stages and the scope of the commitment so far sounds way too small. Next week Solis will be announcing over $68 million in grants for ending child labor in over twenty countries. I am not an expert on the issue or what specifically is needed in terms of a response, but $68 million sounds very small.
The press conference did emphasize the link between trafficking and slavery and corporations, including those functioning in the U.S. Multiple participants pointed out we as consumers have a responsibility to know where our products come from. Solis spoke about companies voluntarily sharing this information with consumers, but was unwilling to speak about any strong governmental action.
I was disturbed by the conflation of slavery and sex work. Verveer doesn't believe in non-coercive sex work, even for those who enter the field willingly: "If [people become sex workers] supposedly of their own free will, they end up in situations that are violations of human dignity." Her comments felt like a classic second wave feminist "false consciousness" argument: she knows sex work cannot really be a chosen profession, regardless of what sex workers themselves might think. This attitude leads to the continued criminalization of sex workers rather than efforts to make it a safer, non-exploitative job.
Previously: Why were Laura Ling and Euna Lee in North Korea?
Why the Mann Act expansion is bad for women
The danger in defining: An activist speaks out on trafficking
Voices of API Women: Connecting the Dots: Human Trafficking and Reproductive Justice
Sex worker: What's in a name?
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To me there's a vast amount of difference between a sex worker in a third world country and a sex worker in a developed country. Moreover, the tendency to paint anyone or any group in broad shades of victimhood, no matter what the issue--- might be well-intentioned, but it's also condescending and paternalistic.
What it's also indicative of is that we're uncomfortable with frank discussion of prostitution and would rather deal with it in terms of a one-sided societal ill rather than examine it in totality.