4 ms·

The trafficking of underage girls (and the trafficking of adults, for that matter) is a crime in and of itself, not because of what they are being trafficked to

by geofft 5y ago

The trafficking of underage girls (and the trafficking of adults, for that matter) is a crime in and of itself, not because of what they are being trafficked to do, and it's a shockingly immoral misattribution of blame to say that the problem with trafficking is the crime of prostitution being "committed" by the victims of trafficking. (Analogously, this is why law enforcement professionals and the like have been moving to the term "child sexual abuse material" instead of "child pornography": the problem with it is not that it's pornography, it's that it's sexual abuse.) It is not only entirely possible to fight the crime of trafficking people and forcing them to do certain acts without criminalizing those acts, it is in fact significantly more effective. Imagine, for instance, if Abraham Lincoln had tried to eliminate slavery by declaring that picking cotton was illegal. Not only would it not have addressed the problem, it would have made the problem worse - slaves are in no position to refuse to do an act because it's illegal, and a fugitive slave would be liable for the crimes they committed as a slave.

GhettoComputers 5y ago
I made that point to say that drugs and prostitution definitely have victims and are not victimless. I could bring up STDs, robberies and killings due to drugs as well, its possible to fight trafficking without criminalizing it, but its not likely to happen nor would a moving target of decriminmalizing actions they do be a realistic goal.
- geofft 5y ago
  I understood your point full well, and it is both wrong and immoral. Prostitution does not have victims. Forcing someone into prostitution has a victim - the unwilling prostitute. This is a crime committed by the trafficker against the prostitute, not a crime committed by the prostitute against the client (or even vice versa). Again, take the example I gave of slavery. The analogous argument to yours is to claim that cotton picking is not victimless. Obviously there were victims in the antebellum south. But to say that cotton picking is the crime is to miss the point entirely and to hurt the victims of the actual crime. Cotton picking is victimless, unless you think cotton feels pain. Forcing someone to pick cotton is a crime. STDs are not a crime*. They are a potential downside of sexual activity of all kinds. We are comfortable with all sorts of activities having potential injurious downsides which are not criminal. You can get a concussion playing football, but that doesn't mean giving someone a concussion in the course of playing football (as opposed to because you specifically set out to attack them, of course) is a crime, and it certainly doesn't mean that playing football itself ought to be criminalized. If someone claimed that the only way to stop football concussions was to criminalize the game, we would find that position laughable or at least dangerously authoritarian. Robberies and killings are a crime, and they can be prosecuted in their own sake. Robberies and killings also happen in, say, banks; we don't say that this is a reason to make banking illegal. In fact, it is because banking is legal that police and regulated armed guards can be at banks and stand by as legitimate, victimless banking transactions happen, and that a bank under attack can call for the police and know that they will not get shut down. Going back to the example of the fugitive slave - a slave who knows he's been forced into illegal actions is unlikely to seek his freedom and is quite likely to seek the effective protection of his master, preventing him from accessing the liberty due to him in a just society. Similarly, people participating in the victimless crimes of the sex or drug industry generally have little recourse to the justice system. Robberies and killings (and mistreatment of prostitutes) happens because criminals know that their victims do not have the same ability to pursue justice as the general public does. Fully legalizing these industries is the only plausible first step to solving this problem. * I should probably say that they should not be a crime. Some jurisdictions have such laws, and they are widely recognized to be both unjust and ineffective, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_transmission_of_HIV_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_transmission_of_HIV_i...
  - GhettoComputers 5y ago
    In an artificial environment sure, you will have prostitution with no trafficking, but it is never that way in practice. Even in places with brothels you still see humans trafficked. It is irresponsible to assume they go away with legalization. Concentration of money will cause unscrupulous people to gather. Realistically, legalization doesn’t end these issues.

by geofft 5y ago

GhettoComputers 5y ago

I made that point to say that drugs and prostitution definitely have victims and are not victimless. I could bring up STDs, robberies and killings due to drugs as well, its possible to fight trafficking without criminalizing it, but its not likely to happen nor would a moving target of decriminmalizing actions they do be a realistic goal.

geofft 5y ago
I understood your point full well, and it is both wrong and immoral. Prostitution does not have victims. Forcing someone into prostitution has a victim - the unwilling prostitute. This is a crime committed by the trafficker against the prostitute, not a crime committed by the prostitute against the client (or even vice versa). Again, take the example I gave of slavery. The analogous argument to yours is to claim that cotton picking is not victimless. Obviously there were victims in the antebellum south. But to say that cotton picking is the crime is to miss the point entirely and to hurt the victims of the actual crime. Cotton picking is victimless, unless you think cotton feels pain. Forcing someone to pick cotton is a crime. STDs are not a crime*. They are a potential downside of sexual activity of all kinds. We are comfortable with all sorts of activities having potential injurious downsides which are not criminal. You can get a concussion playing football, but that doesn't mean giving someone a concussion in the course of playing football (as opposed to because you specifically set out to attack them, of course) is a crime, and it certainly doesn't mean that playing football itself ought to be criminalized. If someone claimed that the only way to stop football concussions was to criminalize the game, we would find that position laughable or at least dangerously authoritarian. Robberies and killings are a crime, and they can be prosecuted in their own sake. Robberies and killings also happen in, say, banks; we don't say that this is a reason to make banking illegal. In fact, it is because banking is legal that police and regulated armed guards can be at banks and stand by as legitimate, victimless banking transactions happen, and that a bank under attack can call for the police and know that they will not get shut down. Going back to the example of the fugitive slave - a slave who knows he's been forced into illegal actions is unlikely to seek his freedom and is quite likely to seek the effective protection of his master, preventing him from accessing the liberty due to him in a just society. Similarly, people participating in the victimless crimes of the sex or drug industry generally have little recourse to the justice system. Robberies and killings (and mistreatment of prostitutes) happens because criminals know that their victims do not have the same ability to pursue justice as the general public does. Fully legalizing these industries is the only plausible first step to solving this problem. * I should probably say that they should not be a crime. Some jurisdictions have such laws, and they are widely recognized to be both unjust and ineffective, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_transmission_of_HIV_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_transmission_of_HIV_i...
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  In an artificial environment sure, you will have prostitution with no trafficking, but it is never that way in practice. Even in places with brothels you still see humans trafficked. It is irresponsible to assume they go away with legalization. Concentration of money will cause unscrupulous people to gather. Realistically, legalization doesn’t end these issues.