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Human trafficking is a real issue in the West. Restaurant workers and prostitutes may not end up outright killed, but the conditions can be close to slavery.

by pavlov 4y ago

themitigating 4y ago
Is it a real issue? I hear it constantly from the right but I'd like to see some numbers
- llamaimperative 4y ago
  > In 2020, 10,583 situations of human trafficking were reported to the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline involving 16,658 individual victims. Shocking as these numbers are, they are likely only a fraction of the actual problem. https://polarisproject.org/2020-us-national-human-trafficking-hotline-statistics/ https://polarisproject.org/2020-us-national-human-traffickin... To be clear though, what you’re hearing (or at least what I’m hearing) from the US right wing is not referring to this. It’s referring to a theory that specifically cultural elites are specifically trafficking children for sex. There’s no reason to believe this is a large issue, though obviously there were systemic failures in the whole Epstein ordeal that gave conspiracists a lot of ammunition. The majority of trafficking is of laborers, which the right wing generally opposes protections of, and immigrants, which again the right wing generally opposes easy paths to legal citizenship and legal protection for illegal immigrants wherever possible (leading victims to believe they cannot contact law enforcement). Having grown up in a US border state I strongly suspect labor trafficking is dramatically underreported because a lot of immigrant laborers don’t even know they’re being trafficked. They’re essentially told they have no rights in the US and that’s just how it is. The reality of course is that you have ~100% of the legal protection offered to citizens the moment you set foot on US soil. All of this applies equally to another large source of trafficking which is sex work. US right wing is fixated on the morality of sex work rather than the morality of building a system that rewards and enables coerced sex work.
  - xfitm3 4y ago
    As someone who had inside knowledge of the sex work industry the incident rate of trafficking was extremely low. Most trafficking was related to Asian gangs in LA, SF, NY. It's an anecdote, take it with a grain of salt.
    - ethanbond 4y ago
      Yeah this meshes with my understanding as well. To be clear, my comment above is that sex work is a substantial part of human trafficking, not that human trafficking is necessarily a substantial part of sex work.
    - lupire 4y ago
      What number is "extremely low"?
      - themitigating 4y ago
        Criminal activity should be compared to other countries and historical data (per capita)
- pavlov 4y ago
  The existence of human trafficking isn’t really a left/right question (at least under the traditional definition — I suppose the QAnon-style folks may have been playing their usual games of redefining a real issue into some story they’ve invented out of whole cloth). In Europe trafficking happens in tomato fields in Italy, online prostitution in Scandinavia, and everywhere in between. Victims can be in the country legally or illegally. I remember a case in Finland where an Indian restaurant hired a foreign worker legally, but then they took away his passport and coerced him to work 18-hour shifts using lies and threats of being sent back. That’s trafficking too. The left and right have somewhat different ideas for solutions of course, with the usual recipes being further labor laws on one side and further limits on immigration on the other side. But probably such small tweaks won’t do anything to address the root issue, and in that sense it transcends left and right.
MockObject 4y ago
Can we please stop complaining about "trafficking"? If slavery exists, the least of anyone's concerns is that the slaves are being moved from here to there. The salient issue that the slavery itself is occurring!
- pavlov 4y ago
  Trafficking refers to people who are generally not slaves in their home country but are lured or transported to a foreign country to be exploited. It’s a distinct phenomenon, so I don’t see why it should be lumped under slavery.
  - MockObject 4y ago
    How is it distinct? They're enslaved abroad! That doesn't make it any less slavery than if they were enslaved in their home countries.
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  The concern is because it's almost impossible to have slavery in a place where it's (de facto) illegal without some trafficking. Trafficking is what enable slavers to stay hidden.
  - MockObject 4y ago
    Moving slaves around, during which the authorities may notice, is a better hiding strategy than keeping them in one location? Are you quite sure?
    - marcosdumay 4y ago
      Then keeping them around their home and families? I'm quite sure.
- ketralnis 4y ago
  Two things can be bad and we're allowed to complain about both. But either way trafficking is typically shorthand for slavery in practise. The thing with trafficking specifically is that it is more likely to go somewhere that it can be spotted. Airports have signs in the bathrooms saying "if you're being held against your will try to get to this part of the airport" because it's the trafficking piece of the slavery/trafficking combo that takes the victim into the airport in the first place. Being trained to spot trafficking in jobs like TSA agents is thus very useful regardless of the slavery situation.

Human trafficking is a real issue in the West. Restaurant workers and prostitutes may not end up outright killed, but the conditions can be close to slavery.

by pavlov 4y ago

Human trafficking is a real issue in the West. Restaurant workers and prostitutes may not end up outright killed, but the conditions can be close to slavery.

themitigating 4y ago

Is it a real issue? I hear it constantly from the right but I'd like to see some numbers

llamaimperative 4y ago
> In 2020, 10,583 situations of human trafficking were reported to the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline involving 16,658 individual victims. Shocking as these numbers are, they are likely only a fraction of the actual problem. https://polarisproject.org/2020-us-national-human-trafficking-hotline-statistics/ https://polarisproject.org/2020-us-national-human-traffickin... To be clear though, what you’re hearing (or at least what I’m hearing) from the US right wing is not referring to this. It’s referring to a theory that specifically cultural elites are specifically trafficking children for sex. There’s no reason to believe this is a large issue, though obviously there were systemic failures in the whole Epstein ordeal that gave conspiracists a lot of ammunition. The majority of trafficking is of laborers, which the right wing generally opposes protections of, and immigrants, which again the right wing generally opposes easy paths to legal citizenship and legal protection for illegal immigrants wherever possible (leading victims to believe they cannot contact law enforcement). Having grown up in a US border state I strongly suspect labor trafficking is dramatically underreported because a lot of immigrant laborers don’t even know they’re being trafficked. They’re essentially told they have no rights in the US and that’s just how it is. The reality of course is that you have ~100% of the legal protection offered to citizens the moment you set foot on US soil. All of this applies equally to another large source of trafficking which is sex work. US right wing is fixated on the morality of sex work rather than the morality of building a system that rewards and enables coerced sex work.
- xfitm3 4y ago
  As someone who had inside knowledge of the sex work industry the incident rate of trafficking was extremely low. Most trafficking was related to Asian gangs in LA, SF, NY. It's an anecdote, take it with a grain of salt.
  - ethanbond 4y ago
    Yeah this meshes with my understanding as well. To be clear, my comment above is that sex work is a substantial part of human trafficking, not that human trafficking is necessarily a substantial part of sex work.
  - lupire 4y ago
    What number is "extremely low"?
    - themitigating 4y ago
      Criminal activity should be compared to other countries and historical data (per capita)
pavlov 4y ago
The existence of human trafficking isn’t really a left/right question (at least under the traditional definition — I suppose the QAnon-style folks may have been playing their usual games of redefining a real issue into some story they’ve invented out of whole cloth). In Europe trafficking happens in tomato fields in Italy, online prostitution in Scandinavia, and everywhere in between. Victims can be in the country legally or illegally. I remember a case in Finland where an Indian restaurant hired a foreign worker legally, but then they took away his passport and coerced him to work 18-hour shifts using lies and threats of being sent back. That’s trafficking too. The left and right have somewhat different ideas for solutions of course, with the usual recipes being further labor laws on one side and further limits on immigration on the other side. But probably such small tweaks won’t do anything to address the root issue, and in that sense it transcends left and right.

MockObject 4y ago

Can we please stop complaining about "trafficking"? If slavery exists, the least of anyone's concerns is that the slaves are being moved from here to there. The salient issue that the slavery itself is occurring!

pavlov 4y ago
Trafficking refers to people who are generally not slaves in their home country but are lured or transported to a foreign country to be exploited. It’s a distinct phenomenon, so I don’t see why it should be lumped under slavery.
- MockObject 4y ago
  How is it distinct? They're enslaved abroad! That doesn't make it any less slavery than if they were enslaved in their home countries.
marcosdumay 4y ago
The concern is because it's almost impossible to have slavery in a place where it's (de facto) illegal without some trafficking. Trafficking is what enable slavers to stay hidden.
- MockObject 4y ago
  Moving slaves around, during which the authorities may notice, is a better hiding strategy than keeping them in one location? Are you quite sure?
  - marcosdumay 4y ago
    Then keeping them around their home and families? I'm quite sure.
ketralnis 4y ago
Two things can be bad and we're allowed to complain about both. But either way trafficking is typically shorthand for slavery in practise. The thing with trafficking specifically is that it is more likely to go somewhere that it can be spotted. Airports have signs in the bathrooms saying "if you're being held against your will try to get to this part of the airport" because it's the trafficking piece of the slavery/trafficking combo that takes the victim into the airport in the first place. Being trained to spot trafficking in jobs like TSA agents is thus very useful regardless of the slavery situation.