Return to Sender

Nicholas Kristof's piece on human trafficking in today's New York Times describes a particularly unsettling example of a growing problem, but Kristof's simplistic suggestions are hardly helpful. Kristof writes of trafficked women who must be "rescued" from Cambodian brothels, but he downplays the fact that many of these women actually prefer to be in brothels rather than be returned to their source countries. Significant numbers of women who are forcibly removed from sex work and repatriated by NGOs just return as soon as the aid workers are out of sight. NGOs seek to reunite women with their families, but often they're returning women to poverty and isolation. There is a reason these women leave their villages in the first place.

The Cambodia Daily, discussing the same well-meaning NGO as Kristof, reports that some women are more intent on escaping from the NGO's hostel than the brothel:

And many women do "escape," said Pierre Legros, Afesip's director. The organisation does not have the legal right or manpower to detain the trafficking victims who pass through the center, he explained . . .

Huyen Trang was one of 27 women brought to Afesip in March, the result of a joint investigation and raid on Svay Pak conducted by Cambodian police and the faith-based NGO International Justice Mission. Within two weeks, six of those women had climbed the compound's wall and disappeared. Legros said it is likely they returned to the brothels from which they were rescued.

None of this is to suggest that human trafficking isn't a disturbing reality; these women should have better options. But giving them options requires treating them as individuals capable of making their own choices.

Comments

[SR]

One thing that I've never seen explained in these sorts of hysterical frothings on "sex trafficking" is why it is that coventional kidnapping laws are inadequate. I don't know the details of Cambodian law, but in the U.S., and every other country I'm familiar with, inducing someone to follow you on false pretenses and then confining them against their will easily meets the standard. (And in the U.S., at least, a federal kidnapping charge can net you up to life in prison, as I recall.) Obviously, the real goal is simply to boost penalties for prostitution in general, not to protect the handful of genuine victims.

[Ken Shultz]

My understanding is that in Cambodia, a prostitute isn't free to leave a brothel or object to the way she's treated. I think the government has a legitimate reponsibility to make sure that the rights of prostitutes in these brothels are protected.

If prostitutes choose to go back to brothel life, so be it; but I think that the government should question agreements between pimps and prostitutes.

Contractual rights and responsibilites should only be valid if the contract is between mutually consenting adults--anything else smacks of Dredd Scott.

[Henry]

They are stupid third-world people--people like Nick Kristof MUST know how to better order their lives than they do. It's the white man's burden, don't you know.

[Ruthless]

Henry,
You hit the hail on the Ned.
Will someone recall the Kathie Lee Gifford episode to fill out how "sensitive" liberals are?

And will someone e-mail me when we get around to female genital mutilation? I'll come back in then.

Does anyone here know what "ngo" means in Vietnamese?

[The Lonewacko Blog]

I'm looking forward to the future Reason post where it's suggested we bring them here as guest sex workers.

[Ruthless]

Rev. T. L. Blog,
I hereby suggest changing the name of Hit and Run to The Chicken Ranch.

While debating that, will someone explain cybersex to moi? I just want to know if I'd be eligible. Are there age limitations?

[Jack]

Lonewacko wrote: "I'm looking forward to the future Reason post where it's suggested we bring them here as guest sex workers."

I'll support that.

[stonegatherer]

XXXShopXXX
Shagdoll's
Honeysuckle Shop
GayVOD.net

[Jennifer]

How much of this might be cultural? Maybe the women--some of them, anyway--don't want to return because they're considered 'damaged goods;' many cultures still have the idea that any woman--even a rape victim--who has sex with anyone other than her lawfully wedded husband is no longer worthy of respect.

[Ken Shultz]

I'm certain that's a factor Jennifer. In some Asian cultures, prostitution is the only place for unmarried non-virgins--marrying a non-virgin is unthinkable and keeping one in your home and treating her like a daughter is unthinkable as well. I understand that organized crime over there counts on that and that many sex workers over there were originally rape victims. I understand there are a lot of bumpkins who are victims of fraud too--girls who signed up to be maids and find themselves held against their will until they work off their transportation costs, room and board, etc.

...At any rate, when we get to the point where government interference in the wholesale slavery of asian girls makes the top 100 list of things libertarians need to be concerned about, I suspect I will have already joined one of the two main parties.

...I bet some of the people who post on this thread will be the same ones who called Badnarik a loon for going on about driver's licences, which seems a lot less loony than this discussion.

[Jennifer]

Ken-
I'm willing to bet also that a good number of these girls wound up in those brothels because their parents themselves sold them there. They say the devil you know is better than the devil you don't; perhaps those poor girls would rather stay in their familiar brothel than run the risk of being sold to an even worse one.

Considering how young the girls are, there's also the question of free will versus conditioning; if a young girl chooses to stay in a brothel because all her young life she's been told that the point of her existence is to support her family via prostitution, which is the more egregious breach of freedom: letting her stay there or forcing her to realize that she shouldn't have to prostitute herself for her parents and siblings?

[Andrew Ian Dodge]

The NGOs free them and then they say they can't go home for fear of x,y or z. They plead for asylum and you suddenly have another unskilled illegal immigrant kicking around.

Human trafficking is horrible granted but just "setting them loose" is not always the best solution.

[TM Lutas]

I'd suggest a test. If you can talk to a "sex worker" offer her better pay at a different job, and not have any difficulty in hiring her and shifting to a different trade, you can start to talk about voluntary prostitution. From what I can tell, all of these brothels have coercive practices that no libertarian should be comfortable with.

As usual, state sponsored solutions are not ideal. That means that libertarians should be working on better ones, not making a defense of violence and coercion.

[raymond]

As usual, state sponsored solutions are not ideal.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

It seems to me that sometimes "libertarians" go overboard when it comes to denouncing the role of government.

Securing rights is the JOB of a government. It's the only job. Securing rights is a government's raison d'?tre. When a government has failed in this job, then non-governmental agencies have to get involved.

When adult human beings freely decide to rent out their sexual services, that is their affair. But when a person is sold or kidnapped or prostitutes himself under duress, that is slavery.

Kristof writes of trafficked women who must be "rescued" from Cambodian brothels, but he downplays the fact that many of these women actually prefer to be in brothels rather than be returned to their source countries.

I find this statement disconcerting. It sounds like something a Southern slave-holder might have written during and after the Civil War. It's sort of revolting to read here - on a site devoted to FREE MINDS.

Many of the comments are equally shocking.

...in these sorts of hysterical frothings on "sex trafficking"...

Sex slavery doesn't occur only in Cambodia. It happens all over the world. Nepali girls are regularly kidnapped, tricked, sold into the sex trade in India. It happens in Erope and the US. Calling for an end to this is hardly "hysterical frothing".

...is why it is that coventional kidnapping laws are inadequate.

In the real world - in the corrupt, poverty-stricken real world - most laws which do not protect the rich are "inadequate". No one actually cares about the miserable poor, except the NGOs. You people really do need to get out more.

Human trafficking is horrible granted but just "setting them loose" is not always the best solution.

No NGO just wants to "set them loose". They offer programmes to help the people take over their lives.

libertarians should be working on better [solutions], not making a defense of violence and coercion.

Not all state action is violence. Not all coercion is violence, either.

[Henry]

TM,

Your "test" makes no sense to me, sorry. Why does their have to be the option of "better pay" to determine whether or not the choice of prostitution is voluntary?

Let's move our examples onshore to the good ol' USA, so we can bag at least some of the implicit (and explicit)assumptions of of cultural and moral superiority.

I posit the following: some people have more limited options in life than others--it may be a product of circumstances, fate, their temperment or (dare I say it?!?) their native intelligence.

Let's assume we have three American women of "equally" limited opportunity (whatever that means). A is awaitress who takes home $300/week; B works at McDonalds and takes home $250/week; C hooks, and clears $900/week.

C could stop hooking, and take one of those $250-$300/week jobs, but she doesn't. How is this NOT voluntary? Clearly, most American women aren't prostitutes--even among those with the limited options I have described, the vast majority would choose the McDonald's gig or waitressing over prostitution. They would rather make far less money than take that route. But some choose otherwise--how is that NOT voluntary?

Ken,

You stated:

"At any rate, when we get to the point where government interference in the wholesale slavery of asian girls makes the top 100 list of things libertarians need to be concerned about, I suspect I will have already joined one of the two main parties."

I'm not concerned about it. That lack of concern is what has Mr. Kristof annoyed. He's concerned about it--and he's no libertarian. He's a big government-loving, moralist, internationalist busybody who wants to spend the money of US taxpayers to "improve" the cultures of other societies. All we did was call "bullshit" on the facts at hand.

And, I suspect, the time is long overdue for you to join some other party, or church, or something.

[Rick Barton]

Even if significant numbers of the women who are forcibly removed from sex work return to the Cambodian brothels, it doesn't follow that that is representitive of human trafficking in general. We're talking slavery here, and the fact that these slaves' labor consists of sex acts shouldn't, of course, let our opposition to the ridiculous laws proscribing prostitution get in the way of our outrage at the plight of these woman who are victinzed by this most total deprivation of liberty.

When it is detected where we live, we should demand that our local law enforcement make every effort to liberate these woman prosecute those responsible. This is an action that is consistant with the limited role of government. They could free up funds for this by cutting back on enforcement of prostitution and drug laws.

Also, note that among the nations where this practice occurs most frequently is Israel, whose government recieves by far more money from our government than any other:

Israel a Human Trafficking Haven

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,129157,00.html

Human Rights Abuses Affecting Trafficked Women in Isreal's Sex Industry

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/engMDE150172000

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/engMDE150242000

A couple years ago when this situation in Israel was recieving a lot of press, I think that the Sharon administration promised that they would clean it up within three years. Three years?

[Henry]

Shouting "slavery, slavery, slavery!", when the facts discussed in the original post make such an asserion highly dubious, doesn't really add much here. I appreciate your moral fervor--now have a decaf and a cookie.

If you want to contribute to some charity, or "aid agency", or whatever, dealing with this issue--great, more power to you.

But Kristof is demanding action from the US GOVERNMENT, and thst's where I have to get off the bus. If the US government were actively supporting such "exploititive" arrangements, I would oppose it. But that is not Kristof's accusation.

[Rick Barton]

Shouting "slavery, slavery, slavery!", when the facts discussed in the original post make such an asserion highly dubious, doesn't really add much here.

As I pointed out, the facts in the original article are concerning a situation in sotheast Asia and not the practice, worldwide. It most certainly is slavery.

I prefer private solutions to problems (problems are often caused by government in the first place) as more ethical, but when trafficking occurs domestically, it falls within the confines of "force and fraud" and the government should take action to stop it.

A key question concerning trafficking internationally is; do our tax dollars wind up supporting this hideous activity?

[Henry]

OK, if you want to move beyond what was raised by the original post, fine, Rick. But it seemed others were confusing the issue.

What should be the response of the United States to governments that countenance slavery?--it needn't be related to the "sex industry". By all accounts, real, old-fashion slavery (like that practiced by many of the Founders) still exists out there.

You and I (and I think just about everybody here) would oppose "our tax dollars supporting this hideous activity", so I don't know if that really advances the ball much. What next? (meant seriously, not as some smartass remark)

[raymond]

Kristof is demanding action from the US GOVERNMENT, and thst's where I have to get off the bus.

A report by the Protection Project, based at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, Maryland, has documented the rising trends in the sex slave trade.

It says more than 15,000 women are trafficked into the United States every year, many of them young girls from Mexico.

The project also claims that Asian women are sold to brothels in North America for $16,000 each. (2001. See link above)

Better get back on the bus.

What should be the response of the United States to governments that countenance slavery?

Unfortunately, the US government is in no position to bring moral pressure to bear on such governments.

Slavery Convention (UN)

Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (US Law)

Trafficking in Persons Report - 2004 (US State Department)

[Henry]

Raymond, that's for the herring, despite its color.

Obviously there are laws--pretty freaking severe ones--against slavery in the US. If you are arguing that such laws are inadequatedly enforced, then if that is truly the case to nearly the extent you contend, asses should be in slings. I'm not totally conviced on the point, but certainly a problem exists to some degree.

However, to the extent the problem exists, I think it is symptomatic of a larger disregard for the fate of the immigrant poor. It took forever to get ANY attention to the fate of migrant farm workers, for example.

[Henry]

Meant "thanks".

[Rick Barton]

Henry,

Part of the intent of my first post was to make the point that the slavery of the worldwide trafficking is real, regardless of the Cambodian and Laotian situation cited in the article. And, liberty-loving folks ought to be appalled.

What should be the response of the United States (government) to governments that countenance slavery?

I will assume for this answer that our government is not responsible in any manner for the trafficking in other nations. I would say that our government should do mostly nothing but calling them out and trying to embarrass them into taking action to stop it. Now, for governments that receive US tax aid; I, as someone who opposes all US government foreign aid, would perhaps suggest something like telling them (ethically, this is very tricky) that we're cutting back their aid by 70% this year, and if they don't want it to be cut by 80%, they had better do something about the slavery. Now, and this is critical, I would only this tactic on nations where, 1) I could not politically pull off cutting all their US tax aid. And, 2) I would only threaten to cut by more than 70% if I thought that 70% would be the maximum cut that I could get thru politically. So, actually the taxpayers would not be subsidizing my revulsion at slavery. In other words, I'm saying that I would lie to the foreign governments. Not doing so in this scenario would be unfair to the US taxpayers.

As private citizens, with whom the bulk of response to international trafficking and other slavery should reside, I like your suggestion: "to contribute to some charity, or aid agency, or whatever, dealing with this issue" and other actions which would engender private pressure.

[Ken Shultz]

"He's concerned about it--and he's no libertarian. He's a big government-loving, moralist, internationalist busybody who wants to spend the money of US taxpayers to "improve" the cultures of other societies."

I don't understand why this means that American libertarians should concern themselves with Cambodian officials who overzealously prosecute those who traffic in sex slaves. Whatever libertarians gain by pointing out that this kind of enforcement can be done overzealously is lost because, after all, we are talking about those who traffic in sex slaves.

"All we did was call "bullshit" on the facts at hand."

When you used the word "we", to whom were you referring?

"And, I suspect, the time is long overdue for you to join some other party, or church, or something."

I've known fundamentalist, Christian Republicans who are less hostile to libertarian arguments than you seem to be to Christians--am I reading you right?

...Are you suggesting that there isn't a place for Christians in the Libertarian Party?

[Henry]

Ken, get a clue. Nobody here is bothering any Cambodian officials about anything, as far as I know. We just said Kristof is full of shit for wanting to get the US involved in this matter. How hard is that to understand, again? (Apparently very hard, for you.)

I am hostile to idiots who can't, or who refuse to, accept that the State isn't supposed to be their private hobby horse to advance any cause that interests them personally. If that describes today's Christians, in general, and there is ample evidence that it increasingly does, then yes I am hostile to them.

There are many Christian libertarians--you can find a hardcore faction of them over at the Lew Rockwell site. And when they write about Christians and libertarianism, they invariably decry how most "Christians" today have become knee-jerk statists of the worst sort.

You want a free pass because your belief system centers upon some invisible being, as opposed to, say, the dialectical materialism? Why?

[Ruthless]

to the whip, Henry.

Is the "fatal conceit" of a republic the misrepresenting of itself as the hobby horse of do-gooders?

The only way to be sure of taking a step forward instead of backward is to bypass governments and ngo's and do it yourself.
There are no shortcuts.
Governments (and ngo's) are the Alphonse of Alponse and Gastone in their famous routine.
While they politely debate by the door over who should go first, the inmates of the world continue to suffer.

Anarchist speakin' here.

[Gary Gunnels]

Most governments (Western ones at least) signed treaties outlawing slavery and the slave trade in the 19th century; indeed, such treaties - and general customary international law - allow for any court to have jurisdiction in such cases as I recall. Accordingly, if a Canadian slaver is working in Turkey, but gets caught in Italy, Italian courts can try him even if he has done nothing illegal in Italy.

There are also specific treaties against "white slavery" from the 19th century which presumably be applied to the sex slavery of today (if those treaties haven't already been surpassed by something more recent).

The problem of course is that most countries don't apply a heck of a lot resources to these issues. That's why the sex slave trade may be in the millions of persons at this point.***

***Note that many countries also have captive populations that are work in agricultural or industrial facilities.

[Ken Shultz]

"We just said Kristof is full of shit for wanting to get the US involved in this matter. How hard is that to understand, again?"

Just out of curiosity, once again, this "we" you keep talking about, who is it?

"You want a free pass because your belief system centers upon some invisible being, as opposed to, say, the dialectical materialism? Why?"

What are you talking about? Who asked for a free pass?

" If that describes today's Christians, in general, and there is ample evidence that it increasingly does, then yes I am hostile to them."

The belief that the state exists to advance the private interests of Christians doesn't describe today's Christians in general, but if what you say is true, and your generalization is increasingly true, then why, when happening across a Libertarian Christian, would you suggest that they don't really belong in the Libertarian Party?

Whether you realize it or not, your hostility to Christians comes across like the generalization made by some of the propaganda victims who troll this site spouting hostility to Muslims.

...It comes across as bigotry.

It's one heck of a party you seem to be advocating here--a party that only appeals to non-Christians and people who aren't put off by nuanced arguments about Asian sex slaves.

[TM Lutas]

From what I can gather brothels control the movements of their "girls", they coercively condition them to believe that bad things will happen if they leave and that their only opportunity in life is to serve the brothel. They limit the prostitutes' access to information and they hire government muscle to retrieve prostitutes who have been removed.

This is so far away from voluntary prostitution that it disgusts me that people making excuses for it describe themselves as libertarian. It's simply libertine and coercion be damned if it helps get your rocks off.

raymond - The state sponsored solution is to have the government of Cambodia enforce its own domestic laws and treaty obligations against slavery. It obviously isn't working as the sex slavery industry has bought up enough of the government.

I happen to believe that when you think long enough, hard enough, you can find a private solution that is superior to the best that government has to offer. Government solutions in an area may be the best we have today. They may even be the best we have all century. But we ought to keep looking for an improvement because government both tends to screw things up and metastasize, pushing its way into areas we already have superior private solutions for.

Unfortunately, we don't have the sort of private police forces that would be a precondition to solving the white slavery issue privately. We're a long way away from a practical libertarian solution there. Simple justice requires that we act now, with the tools at hand, to get as close as we can to freedom for those who want to leave and death or permanent jail time for those who enslaved them. Since that's likely to clean out the entire pimp population of Cambodia, things are likely to change for the better if, in fact, anybody wants to be in that lifestyle.

Henry - If sex work is just a job, you should be able to lure someone away with more money. If you can't, it's usually because there is a fear of violence or other unspoken bad consequence if they go along. A woman who sleeps with men for cash may be voluntarily doing it because it's her highest income potential. But she may also be doing it because it's her highest income potential and she's being coerced by a pimp who is "babysitting" a child of hers. The two are not mutually exclusive

[zeroentitlement]

Unskilled immigrants, Andrew? I defy that! Gluing and painting acrylic nails on fat white fingers all day long requires extremely fine motor skills. Lawdy knows we need more cheap nail salons in America's strip malls.

I tend to view this the same way as I've been viewing their unwillingness to prepare for the tsunami: natural selection by corruption and Byzantine social order.

[Don]

I have known people who have been in Cambodia and they say that the average wage is about a $1 a day. They also say that you can take the girls to a hotel which means that they have a chance to escape after they are done and recieve a tip. Many of these girls come from abusive homes and have no alternative but hooking. I have never seen a story on this subject that if the girls knew that they could leave the brothel what kind of work do they think they could get? This does not justify their parents selling them into bondage (they act as collateral and work off a loan given to their parents) but what else is there except some type of sweatshop?