4 ms·

Not liking your job != exploitation. There are plenty of people out there working shit jobs to pay off debts or a support a family, even though if they have a

Not liking your job != exploitation. There are plenty of people out there working shit jobs to pay off debts or a support a family, even though if they have a choice they'd be drinking daiquiris on Aruba, but that does not make them "modern slaves".

btilly 13y ago
I read the phrase "modern slaves" as an accurate description for a sadly large number of sex workers worldwide. See http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/hookers-in-the-holy-land-an-uncomfortable-history-in-israel/ http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/hookers-in-the-holy-land-an-u... for an example of something that qualifies for that description.
DanBC 13y ago
There's a difference between being coerced to have sex with someone that you don't want to have sex with and doing photocopying.
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  You can make just as much of an inequality in the other direction. There's a difference between chatting with someone you don't know in a skimpy outfit and doing repetitive manual labor in the heat and sun for 12 hours a day. Outside of human trafficking (which I acknowledge as an important problem) it's pretty hard to get coerced into prostitution.
  - btilly 13y ago
    Outside of human trafficking (which I acknowledge as an important problem) it's pretty hard to get coerced into prostitution. No, not hard at all. I had a friend from high school who met a guy at a party. He gave her drugs. Before long, she was addicted. She couldn't afford the habit. He let her get into full withdrawal, then offered her drugs if she'd have sex with his friends. She did. A week later, she had dropped out of law school and was working a street corner. My understanding is that this is a fairly common path into prostitution.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > Outside of human trafficking (which I acknowledge as an important problem) it's pretty hard to get coerced into prostitution. While I agree with what you seem to be arguing in your post, this particular sentence is true in the same sense as "outside of triangles, its pretty hard to have a three-sided polygon."
    - Dylan16807 13y ago
      I had a hard time trying to find numbers, but this blog post seems to have reasonable sources. http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/06/human-trafficking-prostitution-matter-call/ http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/06/human-trafficking-pr... 4.5 million victims of trafficking for purposes of sex, 40 million prostitutes total. I certainly won't argue with the idea that some of them are forced into it by circumstance, but no matter how you slice it you end up with a lot of voluntary sex workers.
      - DanBC 13y ago
        Your post started by excluding trafficked workers! You can't come back comparing trafficked workers to non-trafficked workers and say that the rest are voluntary. There are criminal gangs that specialise in coercing girls into providing sexual services, and who take money from punters for those services. See recent UK cases about child grooming gangs. Your link in incoherent. One example: > It is true that as I type this, there are young girls and women {and some boys} who are physically locked behind closed doors, who are threatened with their family’s safety, and who are paying off debts by servicing men in brothels. Estimates are, in fact, that there are about 4.5 million women and children forced, by coercion or abuse, into the sex industry today. That's coercion, not trafficking. I have no idea what definition they're using for coercion, or trafficking, or even prostitution. (Can a 14 year old be a prostitute, or is that always rape of a child?) Here's a better article about modern day slavery: http://www.irinnews.org/report/98964/anatomy-of-modern-day-slavery http://www.irinnews.org/report/98964/anatomy-of-modern-day-s... And about helping people who used to be indentured workers. This article also has links to better quality information about human trafficking, about child trafficking, etc: http://www.irinnews.org/report/98867/new-lease-on-life-for-ex-slave-girls http://www.irinnews.org/report/98867/new-lease-on-life-for-e...

btilly 13y ago

I read the phrase "modern slaves" as an accurate description for a sadly large number of sex workers worldwide. See http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/hookers-in-the-holy-land-an-uncomfortable-history-in-israel/ http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/hookers-in-the-holy-land-an-u... for an example of something that qualifies for that description.

DanBC 13y ago

There's a difference between being coerced to have sex with someone that you don't want to have sex with and doing photocopying.

Dylan16807 13y ago
You can make just as much of an inequality in the other direction. There's a difference between chatting with someone you don't know in a skimpy outfit and doing repetitive manual labor in the heat and sun for 12 hours a day. Outside of human trafficking (which I acknowledge as an important problem) it's pretty hard to get coerced into prostitution.
- btilly 13y ago
  Outside of human trafficking (which I acknowledge as an important problem) it's pretty hard to get coerced into prostitution. No, not hard at all. I had a friend from high school who met a guy at a party. He gave her drugs. Before long, she was addicted. She couldn't afford the habit. He let her get into full withdrawal, then offered her drugs if she'd have sex with his friends. She did. A week later, she had dropped out of law school and was working a street corner. My understanding is that this is a fairly common path into prostitution.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > Outside of human trafficking (which I acknowledge as an important problem) it's pretty hard to get coerced into prostitution. While I agree with what you seem to be arguing in your post, this particular sentence is true in the same sense as "outside of triangles, its pretty hard to have a three-sided polygon."
  - Dylan16807 13y ago
    I had a hard time trying to find numbers, but this blog post seems to have reasonable sources. http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/06/human-trafficking-prostitution-matter-call/ http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/06/human-trafficking-pr... 4.5 million victims of trafficking for purposes of sex, 40 million prostitutes total. I certainly won't argue with the idea that some of them are forced into it by circumstance, but no matter how you slice it you end up with a lot of voluntary sex workers.
    - DanBC 13y ago
      Your post started by excluding trafficked workers! You can't come back comparing trafficked workers to non-trafficked workers and say that the rest are voluntary. There are criminal gangs that specialise in coercing girls into providing sexual services, and who take money from punters for those services. See recent UK cases about child grooming gangs. Your link in incoherent. One example: > It is true that as I type this, there are young girls and women {and some boys} who are physically locked behind closed doors, who are threatened with their family’s safety, and who are paying off debts by servicing men in brothels. Estimates are, in fact, that there are about 4.5 million women and children forced, by coercion or abuse, into the sex industry today. That's coercion, not trafficking. I have no idea what definition they're using for coercion, or trafficking, or even prostitution. (Can a 14 year old be a prostitute, or is that always rape of a child?) Here's a better article about modern day slavery: http://www.irinnews.org/report/98964/anatomy-of-modern-day-slavery http://www.irinnews.org/report/98964/anatomy-of-modern-day-s... And about helping people who used to be indentured workers. This article also has links to better quality information about human trafficking, about child trafficking, etc: http://www.irinnews.org/report/98867/new-lease-on-life-for-ex-slave-girls http://www.irinnews.org/report/98867/new-lease-on-life-for-e...