Episode 140
[powerpress]
Sex trafficking is one of the great social justice issues of our time, but unfortunately society largely ignores how pornography is related to trafficking. We interviewed Liz Yore, Oprah Winfrey’s former legal child advocate, to get her perspective.
Show Notes:
0:34 – Introduction to Liz Yore
1:28 – Liz talks about her experiences with human trafficking cases and how pimps use pornography as part of their illegal business. Anti-trafficking advocates should not talk about porn as a victimless crime.
3:46 – How big is human trafficking? Why is it so lucrative?
5:20 – Who are the common victims of trafficking?
5:54 – Liz talks about the main ways porn is connected to trafficking: training of victims, use of victims to make porn, blackmailing potential victims, and increasing demand for victims.
8:28 – Liz talks about the deafening silence in the media and in the culture at large about the link between porn and trafficking.
9:37 – How both pimps and johns use porn in their encounters with victims
12:23 – Why isn’t the dialogue happening and what kind of movement do we need to chance that?
17:03 – How should react? How do we make porn a public health crisis?
19:45 – Liz talks about the need for a “renaissance of innocence” among adults.
22:15 – Liz talks about the impact of porn on the brains of children and why there are a growing number of sex crimes among children to other children.
Learn how to become an advocate
Read this article: “10 Ways Anyone Can Fight Sex Trafficking”
Download this free book: Stop the Demand.
I have gone my whole life and never met a person who was sex trafficked. Sorry, but this issue is way overblown. Does it happen? Yes, I am sure it does. Is it an epidemic. No, it is not. What I actually see is many girls freely choosing to use sex to get ahead. Just look at the explosion in webcams. America is funny. There always has to be a boogeyman. It was witches once. Then communists. Then gays, Then drugs. Now it is sex trafficking. A decade from now it will be something new. I wish people would get perspective and simply ask themselves. How many people do I know who are sex trafficked. I am willing to say that most do not know any. But you will find tons of girls who chose to be strippers, escorts, webcam girls.
Interesting. Are you saying that because you’ve not personally met a victim of sex trafficking, the problem with sex trafficking isn’t as large as some say it is? I wouldn’t hope you aren’t using that logic, because you probably know how silly that would be be. After all, no one has ever offered to sell me an illegal weapon, but dealing in illegal weapons is a major global crime. My personal experience is of little value in estimating the size of the problem.
If you are simply saying that you think the size of the problem isn’t “epidemic” proportions, then I suppose you have to define what you mean by “epidemic.” Since around 300,000 U.S. kids are considered at risk for being prostituted, and since pimps can make between $150,000 and $200,000 per year on a child, I would say it is hardly a small problem.
Of course, if you have other statistics that suggest something different, please let us know.
The problem is that those girls sometimes aren’t given any other options aside from stripping escorting or web camming… they’re left in a position of choosing homelessness, losing their children, left on the street with nothing or finding and resources like “homes for families who are abandoned by fathers with jobs for independent women that pay equally a man’s salary” don’t exist there are so many other cases of human trafficking this is just an example I know of why most women I know chose jobs in the sex industry and there we other reasons too…. but all financial reasons it’s not choosing to work in the sex industry that is human trafficking but the abuse and entrapment that goes on within those industries like a friend of mine was a dancer….. she was told by her boss that she had to”make the customers happy at all costs or she would loose her job…. ” she had three not all strip clubs are like this but many of them are…. I’ve been in good places and bad and what always made it easy for me to walk from a bad situation was not having children and having a family I could always go home to…. I would say most girls that choose to get involved in any of these industries don’t expect to be forced into sexual acts and many of them are… other forms of human trafficking are restaurant employees… opears childcare employees, housekeepers…. construction workers and more ……
Thanks for your insights on this. I’ve often (personally) thought that if the church did a better job of reaching out to the poor like it’s supposed to, and actually help women in these situations before they feel they need to turn to the sex industry for straight-up survival, then we’d have a whole lot less sex trafficking.
Luke, thanks for this article and post. When I share with audiences the connection between the porn industry and human trafficking and the money involved at the expense of these children…..they are shocked. And speechless most of the time. I know make this very topic and part of every presentation I make. Well done and thanks again!
Thanks, Dan. Much appreciated. Thank you for the message you faithfully share with others.