In the past decade, there has been an explosion of interest in human trafficking. Eliminating human trafficking has become a foreign and domestic policy goal for many countries, including the United States and Canada. Following the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 and the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, also in 2000, focus on the issue developed further. Human trafficking is now the topic of numerous articles, conferences, and studies, with many different aspects of trafficking being investigated. However, one aspect of human trafficking gets little attention— namely, the connection between pornography and trafficking (particularly sex trafficking).
This article argues that there are a number of links between pornography and sex trafficking and that curbing pornography can reduce sex trafficking. The first two sections describe the links between pornography and sex trafficking. The third section makes the case that legislators and prosecutors should give greater consideration to the relationship between pornography and sex trafficking as they determine budgetary and law enforcement priorities and as they make recommendations for how to address this link at the federal level.
This article argues that there are a number of links between pornography and sex trafficking and that curbing pornography can reduce sex trafficking. The first two sections describe the links between pornography and sex trafficking. The third section makes the case that legislators and prosecutors should give greater consideration to the relationship between pornography and sex trafficking as they determine budgetary and law enforcement priorities and as they make recommendations for how to address this link at the federal level.
Warning!
The contents of the following article contain references to acts that are not suitable and may be disturbing for younger audiences. Parents, please read over this article before allowing your teen or pre-teen children to read.
Walter Blackwood
The contents of the following article contain references to acts that are not suitable and may be disturbing for younger audiences. Parents, please read over this article before allowing your teen or pre-teen children to read.
Walter Blackwood
Trafficking for the Purpose of Producing Pornography
In 2000, the U.S. Congress enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) “to combat trafficking in persons, a contemporary manifestation of slavery whose victims are predominantly women and children, to ensure just and effective punishment of traffickers, and to protect their victims.” The TVPA creates a framework to comprehensively address the problem of human trafficking through a threefold approach of prevention, prosecution, and protection. The TVPA does not provide a definition of trafficking in persons as such. Rather, it defines two types of what it calls “severe forms of trafficking in persons.”
The first severe form of trafficking in persons is “sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age.” In turn, sex trafficking is defined as “the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act.” A commercial sex act is “any sex act on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person.” Thus, a streamlined definition of the first severe form of human trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person by force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of a sex act on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person. The other type of severe trafficking involves trafficking for the purpose of labor, defined as “the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.” A person who engages in either of the two severe forms of trafficking in persons, which are described generally as sex trafficking and labor trafficking, may face severe criminal penalties.
In 2000, the U.S. Congress enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) “to combat trafficking in persons, a contemporary manifestation of slavery whose victims are predominantly women and children, to ensure just and effective punishment of traffickers, and to protect their victims.” The TVPA creates a framework to comprehensively address the problem of human trafficking through a threefold approach of prevention, prosecution, and protection. The TVPA does not provide a definition of trafficking in persons as such. Rather, it defines two types of what it calls “severe forms of trafficking in persons.”
The first severe form of trafficking in persons is “sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age.” In turn, sex trafficking is defined as “the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act.” A commercial sex act is “any sex act on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person.” Thus, a streamlined definition of the first severe form of human trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person by force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of a sex act on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person. The other type of severe trafficking involves trafficking for the purpose of labor, defined as “the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.” A person who engages in either of the two severe forms of trafficking in persons, which are described generally as sex trafficking and labor trafficking, may face severe criminal penalties.
It is easy to see how participation in the production of pornography could satisfy the definition of either sex trafficking or labor trafficking. If a trafficking victim is forced to engage in a sex act that is filmed or photographed for sale as pornography, then the production of pornography itself becomes a severe form of trafficking in persons that is subject to criminal liability. The production of pornography could also involve labor trafficking in one of two ways. First, a trafficking victim could be coerced into aiding in the technical side of production, rather than the performance side. Second, participation as a nude model for soft-core pornography that does not involve a proscribed sex act could be a form of labor trafficking.
Thus, thought alone indicates that there is more than one way for the production of pornography to involve trafficking in persons, and production of pornography that involves trafficking in persons is not purely theoretical. For example, in 1999, an American living in Cambodia, where he maintained a pornographic website, decided to incorporate into the site what he labeled a “Rape Camp” featuring “Asian sex slaves” used for “bondage, discipline, and humiliation.” Women on the website were “blindfolded, gagged, and/or bound with ropes while being used in sex acts,” and viewers were encouraged to “humiliate these Asian sex slaves to your hearts [sic] content.” Expanded service featured live interactive bondage sex shows from Cambodia with pay-per-view access in which customers could relay requests for torture that would be fulfilled within seconds. The website also “promoted prostitution tourism to men visiting Cambodia.”
The Cambodian Minister of Women’s Affairs called for the American “to be charged with violating a Cambodian law prohibiting sexual exploitation and trafficking of women.” He was arrested but “escaped prosecution through assistance from the U.S. embassy.” If this incident had occurred more recently, the perpetrator might have also been subject to criminal prosecution in the United States. As of 2008, the criminal provisions of the TVPA, including criminal liability for severe forms of trafficking in persons, apply extraterritorially.
Thus, thought alone indicates that there is more than one way for the production of pornography to involve trafficking in persons, and production of pornography that involves trafficking in persons is not purely theoretical. For example, in 1999, an American living in Cambodia, where he maintained a pornographic website, decided to incorporate into the site what he labeled a “Rape Camp” featuring “Asian sex slaves” used for “bondage, discipline, and humiliation.” Women on the website were “blindfolded, gagged, and/or bound with ropes while being used in sex acts,” and viewers were encouraged to “humiliate these Asian sex slaves to your hearts [sic] content.” Expanded service featured live interactive bondage sex shows from Cambodia with pay-per-view access in which customers could relay requests for torture that would be fulfilled within seconds. The website also “promoted prostitution tourism to men visiting Cambodia.”
The Cambodian Minister of Women’s Affairs called for the American “to be charged with violating a Cambodian law prohibiting sexual exploitation and trafficking of women.” He was arrested but “escaped prosecution through assistance from the U.S. embassy.” If this incident had occurred more recently, the perpetrator might have also been subject to criminal prosecution in the United States. As of 2008, the criminal provisions of the TVPA, including criminal liability for severe forms of trafficking in persons, apply extraterritorially.
The production of this type of pornography is not an isolated phenomenon, and similar businesses operate in the United States. After joining the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1975, Special Agent Roger T. Young (now retired) worked on obscenity, child pornography, and prostitution cases for more than 23 years. Now serving as a consultant to both law enforcement agencies and nonprofit organizations, he recounted the following case:
“While working as consultant and private investigator, I learned of a massive operation in the United States that involves Asian-appearing women who engage in sex acts for live streaming from a website over the Internet. Customers all over the world pay with a credit card to watch the sex acts in actual time. They can also communicate with and tell the participants what sex acts they want them to do. This operation also involves Asian-appearing females working as prostitutes in apartments in the United States. I am not sure if the women are transported here from … Asia—but they speak the language of the customers—or [whether] businessmen … fly into the United States for sex with them.”
It will often be difficult to determine conclusively whether businesses like those described by Special Agent Young do, in fact, involve trafficking in persons, but as journalist and author Victor Malarek warned in his book The Johns: Sex for Sale and the Men Who Buy It,
“[P]orn addicts may want to sit in the director’s chair themselves, but most will never have the opportunity.… What’s their solution? Webcams. A new breed of johns—cyberjohns … seeking out websites that let them create XXX from afar. They sit alone … and order up a woman.… They order the woman to perform sex acts, in real time.… [A]s for the women in front of the cameras …, [m]any are from impoverished regions of the world.… So what is this phenomenon? … Without a doubt, it is an extension of prostitution. These men are paying to use women for their own sexual pleasure and perversion. The women may or may not be willing participants, but the preponderance of Eastern European and Asian women—typical targets of traffickers—should set off alarms.”
“While working as consultant and private investigator, I learned of a massive operation in the United States that involves Asian-appearing women who engage in sex acts for live streaming from a website over the Internet. Customers all over the world pay with a credit card to watch the sex acts in actual time. They can also communicate with and tell the participants what sex acts they want them to do. This operation also involves Asian-appearing females working as prostitutes in apartments in the United States. I am not sure if the women are transported here from … Asia—but they speak the language of the customers—or [whether] businessmen … fly into the United States for sex with them.”
It will often be difficult to determine conclusively whether businesses like those described by Special Agent Young do, in fact, involve trafficking in persons, but as journalist and author Victor Malarek warned in his book The Johns: Sex for Sale and the Men Who Buy It,
“[P]orn addicts may want to sit in the director’s chair themselves, but most will never have the opportunity.… What’s their solution? Webcams. A new breed of johns—cyberjohns … seeking out websites that let them create XXX from afar. They sit alone … and order up a woman.… They order the woman to perform sex acts, in real time.… [A]s for the women in front of the cameras …, [m]any are from impoverished regions of the world.… So what is this phenomenon? … Without a doubt, it is an extension of prostitution. These men are paying to use women for their own sexual pleasure and perversion. The women may or may not be willing participants, but the preponderance of Eastern European and Asian women—typical targets of traffickers—should set off alarms.”
In other cases, trafficking in persons clearly has been involved. For example, on December 7, 2011, a federal jury in Miami convicted two defendants, Lavont Flanders Jr. and Emerson Callum, on charges of sex trafficking. A press release issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida described that case as follows:
“The charges spanned from 2006 through July of 2011. During that time, the defendants had perpetrated a cruel fraud to lure aspiring models to South Florida by promising them an opportunity to audition for modeling roles that, it would later turn out, never existed. Once the victims arrived in Miami, Flanders would instruct them to perform an audition for a purported alcoholic beverage commercial. During this purported audition, the victims were asked to promote and drink different brands of alcohol, while Flanders filmed. Unbeknownst to the victims, the alcoholic beverages Flanders provided them were laced with benzodiazepines, a common date rape drug. Once the drugs had taken effect, Flanders would drive the victims to Callum, who had sex with the victims while Flanders filmed. The defendants then edited, produced, and sold the footage of the sex acts over the Internet and to pornography stores and businesses all across the country.”
According to United States v. Marcus, the defendant, Marcus, engaged in a consensual sexual relationship involving bondage, dominance–discipline, submission–sadism, and masochism (BDSM) with a woman, Jodi. She acted as Marcus’s “slave” and was subject to various physical and sexual punishments. Jodi lived in an apartment with other women who also acted as Marcus’s slaves, and, at Marcus’s direction, she maintained a membership BDSM website called “Subspace” that chronicled their exploits. When Jodi refused to recruit her younger sister as a slave, Marcus inflicted severe physical punishment on her. She testified that she cried throughout the incident and that the relationship was not consensual after that time. Marcus then directed Jodi to move to New York and required her to create and maintain a new commercial BDSM website called “Slavespace.” Jodi worked on the site approximately eight to nine hours per day, updating site content, including diary entries and photographs, and clicking on banner advertisements to increase revenue. Marcus received all revenues from the website.
Jodi said she did not want to continue working on the website, but was afraid of the consequences if she refused. Marcus sexually punished Jodi when he decided her work on the website was inadequate, and these punishments were documented and published on the website. Some punishments were quite severe.
On one occasion, Marcus tied Jodi up, forced her onto a table, and then put a safety pin through her labia, while she screamed and cried. Marcus posted photographs from this incident on the Slavespace website and directed Jodi to write a diary entry about it for the website. When Jodi told Marcus she could not continue in this arrangement, he threatened to send pictures of Jodi to her family and the media. On the basis of these and similar occurrences, a jury found Marcus guilty of both sex trafficking and labor trafficking.
In United States v. Bagley et al., a case that is currently pending, the alleged victim was a young woman with a troubled childhood who suffered from mental deficiencies. She is referred to as “FV” in the indictment. The primary defendants, a husband and wife, took FV into their home when she was 16 years old, after she ran away from a foster home. The defendants allegedly began to sexually abuse and physically harm FV and forced her to dance at local strip clubs. They allegedly forced the victim to act as their property, and “Edward Bagley allegedly beat, whipped, flogged, suffocated, choked, electrocuted, caned, skewered, drowned, mutilated, hung and caged FV to coerce her to become a sex slave.” The defendants forced FV to sign a slave contract that she believed bound her to act as their slave, and they had her tattooed with a barcode and the Chinese character for “slave.” Multiple other defendants communicated with Bagley regarding his activities and allegedly participated in some of his videos and photo shoots. At one point, FV even “appeared on the cover of the July 2007 issue of Taboo, a publication owned by Hustler Magazine Group, and was the subject of a story and multipage photo spread inside.” Federal investigators became aware of these activities after “Bagley allegedly suffocated and electrocuted FV during a torture session to a state of cardiac arrest.… FV, who was 23 years old at that time, received emergency medical treatment and was hospitalized.” Four defendants are being prosecuted for these actions under the forced labor and sex trafficking provisions of the TVPA, along with other serious crimes, in connection with these events.
Another case, even more disturbing, has reportedly occurred elsewhere. In the Netherlands, a court found four people guilty of kidnapping asylum seekers and forcing them to take part in pornography. Three victims from North Africa were kidnapped by a small criminal gang and held in a shed, where they were forced to have sex with men and animals on tape. Luckily, one of the victims escaped and was able to alert police. The prosecutor claimed at trial that the three women would have been disfigured and murdered for a snuff film had they not escaped. The girlfriends of the primary defendants were also jailed for their involvement. This situation bears the classic marks of sex trafficking: an organized crime group kidnapped women from a vulnerable population, in this case immigrants from another country, and forced them to participate in sexual behavior. However, in this case, the goal was not the servicing of clients directly; it was the production of pornography.
Less extreme forms of coercion involving the production of pornography may occur with greater regularity. Often, women involved in the production of so-called mainstream hardcore pornography are pressured by their agents, directors, and fellow performers to engage in sexual activity that they do not want to participate in, such as anal sex. This pressure can cross into sexual assault, but in some circumstances it can also be a form of human trafficking.
Thus, while trafficking for the purpose of the production of pornography is not a widely known or recognized form of trafficking, incidents of coerced participation in pornography are far from trivial. Forced participation as a performer can constitute sex trafficking, and participation in the logistical side may be a form of labor trafficking.
“The charges spanned from 2006 through July of 2011. During that time, the defendants had perpetrated a cruel fraud to lure aspiring models to South Florida by promising them an opportunity to audition for modeling roles that, it would later turn out, never existed. Once the victims arrived in Miami, Flanders would instruct them to perform an audition for a purported alcoholic beverage commercial. During this purported audition, the victims were asked to promote and drink different brands of alcohol, while Flanders filmed. Unbeknownst to the victims, the alcoholic beverages Flanders provided them were laced with benzodiazepines, a common date rape drug. Once the drugs had taken effect, Flanders would drive the victims to Callum, who had sex with the victims while Flanders filmed. The defendants then edited, produced, and sold the footage of the sex acts over the Internet and to pornography stores and businesses all across the country.”
According to United States v. Marcus, the defendant, Marcus, engaged in a consensual sexual relationship involving bondage, dominance–discipline, submission–sadism, and masochism (BDSM) with a woman, Jodi. She acted as Marcus’s “slave” and was subject to various physical and sexual punishments. Jodi lived in an apartment with other women who also acted as Marcus’s slaves, and, at Marcus’s direction, she maintained a membership BDSM website called “Subspace” that chronicled their exploits. When Jodi refused to recruit her younger sister as a slave, Marcus inflicted severe physical punishment on her. She testified that she cried throughout the incident and that the relationship was not consensual after that time. Marcus then directed Jodi to move to New York and required her to create and maintain a new commercial BDSM website called “Slavespace.” Jodi worked on the site approximately eight to nine hours per day, updating site content, including diary entries and photographs, and clicking on banner advertisements to increase revenue. Marcus received all revenues from the website.
Jodi said she did not want to continue working on the website, but was afraid of the consequences if she refused. Marcus sexually punished Jodi when he decided her work on the website was inadequate, and these punishments were documented and published on the website. Some punishments were quite severe.
On one occasion, Marcus tied Jodi up, forced her onto a table, and then put a safety pin through her labia, while she screamed and cried. Marcus posted photographs from this incident on the Slavespace website and directed Jodi to write a diary entry about it for the website. When Jodi told Marcus she could not continue in this arrangement, he threatened to send pictures of Jodi to her family and the media. On the basis of these and similar occurrences, a jury found Marcus guilty of both sex trafficking and labor trafficking.
In United States v. Bagley et al., a case that is currently pending, the alleged victim was a young woman with a troubled childhood who suffered from mental deficiencies. She is referred to as “FV” in the indictment. The primary defendants, a husband and wife, took FV into their home when she was 16 years old, after she ran away from a foster home. The defendants allegedly began to sexually abuse and physically harm FV and forced her to dance at local strip clubs. They allegedly forced the victim to act as their property, and “Edward Bagley allegedly beat, whipped, flogged, suffocated, choked, electrocuted, caned, skewered, drowned, mutilated, hung and caged FV to coerce her to become a sex slave.” The defendants forced FV to sign a slave contract that she believed bound her to act as their slave, and they had her tattooed with a barcode and the Chinese character for “slave.” Multiple other defendants communicated with Bagley regarding his activities and allegedly participated in some of his videos and photo shoots. At one point, FV even “appeared on the cover of the July 2007 issue of Taboo, a publication owned by Hustler Magazine Group, and was the subject of a story and multipage photo spread inside.” Federal investigators became aware of these activities after “Bagley allegedly suffocated and electrocuted FV during a torture session to a state of cardiac arrest.… FV, who was 23 years old at that time, received emergency medical treatment and was hospitalized.” Four defendants are being prosecuted for these actions under the forced labor and sex trafficking provisions of the TVPA, along with other serious crimes, in connection with these events.
Another case, even more disturbing, has reportedly occurred elsewhere. In the Netherlands, a court found four people guilty of kidnapping asylum seekers and forcing them to take part in pornography. Three victims from North Africa were kidnapped by a small criminal gang and held in a shed, where they were forced to have sex with men and animals on tape. Luckily, one of the victims escaped and was able to alert police. The prosecutor claimed at trial that the three women would have been disfigured and murdered for a snuff film had they not escaped. The girlfriends of the primary defendants were also jailed for their involvement. This situation bears the classic marks of sex trafficking: an organized crime group kidnapped women from a vulnerable population, in this case immigrants from another country, and forced them to participate in sexual behavior. However, in this case, the goal was not the servicing of clients directly; it was the production of pornography.
Less extreme forms of coercion involving the production of pornography may occur with greater regularity. Often, women involved in the production of so-called mainstream hardcore pornography are pressured by their agents, directors, and fellow performers to engage in sexual activity that they do not want to participate in, such as anal sex. This pressure can cross into sexual assault, but in some circumstances it can also be a form of human trafficking.
Thus, while trafficking for the purpose of the production of pornography is not a widely known or recognized form of trafficking, incidents of coerced participation in pornography are far from trivial. Forced participation as a performer can constitute sex trafficking, and participation in the logistical side may be a form of labor trafficking.
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