Inquiry fails to find single trafficker who forced anybody into prostitution

[Bragi]

Source: The Guardian

The UK's biggest ever investigation of sex trafficking failed to find a single person who had forced anybody into prostitution in spite of hundreds of raids on sex workers in a six-month campaign by government departments, specialist agencies and every police force in the country.

The failure has been disclosed by a Guardian investigation which also suggests that the scale of and nature of sex trafficking into the UK has been exaggerated by politicians and media.


Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/20/government-trafficking-enquiry-fails

---

This must be terribly disappointing news for the law and order types in the UK and elsewhere who always pretend to be cracking down on sex workers to save them from being sex slaves.

[mackerel]

1. The scale and nature of sex trafficking is very high, no

exaggeration about it. It's underground though.

There are more women and children enslaved in the world today then there were when slavery was legal in the U.S.

[Bragi]

2. Evidence?

I read statements such as yours all the time asserting that numbers are "high".

So why do you think the UK commission and all the people they asked were unable to identify a single enslaved sex worker?

[roguevalley]

13. probably because they weren't going to get them out of it and they

were afraid of their pimps, some of them horrendous Russian gangsters who will kill you for a pence.

[FreakinDJ]

20. Afraid not - trafficking scare is a made up scam

Sure girls are smuggled into other countries for nefarious reasons - but those girls are a willing accomplice and know exactly what they are going there for.

The best evidence Karen Hughs was able to find was a reference made by a member of the Russian Mob and not an actual person

[alarimer]

39. That's bullshit.

Lies made up by pro-prostitution folks who want to legitimize their ugly trade.

They are not willing, far from it. Usually they are lied to about what they are going to do.

Educate yourself:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/slaves/

[JackRiddler]

36. Yes! I saw that movie too. But...

how true was it, really? That's the question.

I expect it's true that there is sex slavery, and an atrocity in need of urgent action, and yet also exaggerated and instrumentalized in the service of hardline forces of "law and order."

[superconnected]

27. This person said the world, not the UK. And, I have read about many cases of sex slaves who escaped

and tell their story in womens magazines. The last two I saw were from Mexico. The one a month ago escaped at age 13. I can't imagine the mentality that would go out of their way to deny this. Patron?

[Threedifferentones]

56. But the story is about the UK...

In Mexico all sorts of laborers are basically slaves. There just ain't enough to go around, which is why they risk their lives walking across the dessert to come to us, and not the other way around. Now, I know we share a lot of the blame for making Mexico this way, but that is for another thread, here what counts is that poverty and hunger mean exploitation and misery pretty much everywhere.

Is it possible that in the UK, or even in rich countries generally, the problem of sex slavery has been overstated lately? I mean, not the awfulness of it, but the quantity.

Here is an article which strongly suggests that about the UK, and the best which has been done to prove the UK does have a huge sex slave problem is to cite worldwide stats, Mexico, and imply that people who think a lot of prostitutes in the UK might not be slaves are Johns...

[MineralMan]

5. Do you have any supporting data for your assertion?

By data, I mean actual data, not websites full of guesses.

[superconnected]

29. Here's a link.

http://www.humantrafficking.org/

[yurbud]

3. did the guys announcing the findings have lipstick on their flies?

[TheWraith]

4. Nobody announced the findings, they tried to cover them up.

This is major egg on the face of the British government, which was been trumpeting this as a threat to society as we know it. (And advocating new, harsh laws to help them stop it, of course.) From the article, talking about the supposed 500+ arrests, most of which were bogus:

***

Only 22 people were finally prosecuted for trafficking, including two women who had originally been "rescued" as supposed victims. Seven of them were acquitted. The end result was that, after raiding 822 brothels, flats and massage parlours all over the UK, Pentameter finally convicted of trafficking a grand total of only 15 men and women.

Police claimed that Pentameter used the international definition of sex trafficking contained in the UN's Palermo protocol, which involves the use of coercion or deceit to transport an unwilling man or woman into prostitution. But, in reality, Pentameter used a very different definition, from the UK's 2003 Sexual Offences Act, which makes it an offence to transport a man or woman into prostitution even if this involves assisting a willing sex worker.

Internal police documents reveal that 10 of Pentameter's 15 convictions were of men and women who were jailed on the basis that there was no evidence of their coercing the prostitutes they had worked with. There were just five men who were convicted of importing women and forcing them to work as prostitutes. These genuinely were traffickers, but none of them was detected by Pentameter, although its investigations are still continuing.

***

[superconnected]

28. Excellent point.

[EFerrari]

6. I love the UK. There's something about it too basically decent to spin

these results as they would have been here, "Study Shows Government Crackdown Dramatically Reduced Sex Trafficking".

lol

[Rebubula]

7. OK...

...maybe in law and order type societies the cases of sexual slavery is rare. However, in Eastern Bloc countries - the practice of tricking young women into being prostitutes is very common.

I support legalizing prostitution for a variety of reasons (mostly since it will continue to happen no matter what and it is better to have regulations and health standards for the workers) - but to pretend that sexual slavery does not exist just because a UK report says so is pretty short sighted.

[paulsby]

16. actually, no

the UK report doesn't say it doesn't exist, or even that it doesn't exist in the UK. they said that after an investigation (extensive) no evidence of same was found.

that is NOT the same thing.

one may infer that it doesn't exist in the Uk, but it would be just that - an inference.

of course, proving a negative is often difficult (and sometimes logically impossible). but not always.

recall that until the FBI *finally* got an undercover in the mafia, and with a wire, there was NO hard evidence the mafia existed. iow, for decades, there was no real hard evidence, but the FBI claimed the mafia existed, and some organizations claimed it didn't.

i have no doubt sex slavery/trafficking exists, but have no idea how extensive it is in the UK, if it is present there at all.

[winyanstaz]

8. They couldn't find any evidence...riiiiight....

I guess all those little kid prostitutes did it themselves.

[WriteDown]

10. They wanted to go into that profession! nt

[AlphaCentauri]

54. En La Puta Vida

En La Puta Vida

Sinopsis :
Turf wars between Uruguayan hookers and Brazilian drag queens are just one of the highlights of Tricky Life, a serious but humorous look at women, poverty, and white slavery. When Elisa (Mariana Santángelo), a single mother of two, is kicked out of her mother's house in the middle of a rainstorm, she goes to her current lover, a married, middle-aged store keeper, for help. He finds her an apartment in Montevideo, where Elisa lives with her best friend Loulou. The two women want nothing more than to open their own hair salon, but can't find the necessary money to do so. Deciding prostitution is the easiest way to go for financing, they find a respectable brothel to call their workplace. Things go fairly smoothly until Elisa falls for Placido, an older, smooth-talking Spaniard who seduces her with his smooth manner and talk of riches to be had in Barcelona. Abandoning both her children and a good portion of her common sense, Elisa, with Loulou in tow, follows Placido to Barcelona, where she soon discovers that Placido is better at making promises than actually keeping them. Tricky Life was screened at the 2002 Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema
MOVIE CLIPS

http://www.amautaspanish.com/amautaspanish/culture/cinema/movie.asp?CodMovie=49

[woo me with science]

14. Recovered memories don't count. nt

[gaspee]

9. Yeah, right

Women love being prostitutes and choose it freely as a career all the time. It's what they're for, no?







And just in case... :sarcasm:

[WriteDown]

11. Its glamorous...

Haven't you ever seen Pretty Woman? :eyes:

[Froward69]

12. Have you ever visited

A brothel in Nevada?
Possibly ever talked to a hooker?
The Women working there have chosen prostitution as a profession.

I must also mention the thousands who "vacation" in Nevada every year working as prostitutes for two week stints at a time.
As one said on HBO's show Cathouse, "It pays the bills my regular job can't and I have fun making the extra money.. my Family just wouldn't understand what I do on vacation, They think I come here to gamble, and WIN."

[superconnected]

30. Adult woman who chose it in the US are far cry from 8 yearolds in Thailand.

I mean, we can cite the world right, since you're using the US prostitution in a state where it is legal to say there is no forced sex slavery in the UK, you may as well say it speaks for the world.

Also, eww. Sounds like you know first hand. Some men just have to PAY for sex or they don't get it, I guess. Most don't and won't. I can only imagine what losers do have to. Ewww. Happy Herpes!

[Froward69]

31. ok then

granted in Thailand child sex slavery is a problem. ...also in vietnam. impoverished nations tend to have families selling children t feed the others.

now insofar as your last line... aside from showing how immature you are.
1)if marrage guaranted sex, I would have gotten married long ago.
2)I have found American women sell sex too. they do not call themselves prostitutes but wont date/marry/have sex with a man that just asks. he has to take her to dinner, buy her the "appropriate" gift and have (at least) six figures in the bank, and can prove it.

3) the biggest problem most women have with prostitution is... the hookers are honest enough with themselves to accept cash for having fun. most "moral" women cannot accept sex as just sex. without confusing it with $$love$$.

truth be told the biggest hearts I have ever met were the hearts of prostitutes.

You would be surprised How many men occasionally pay cash for sex. (as prostitution wouldn't be a problem if they did not.) All men pay for sex one way or another.

Geeze if you could actually accept the truth from a man... Instead obviously, you believe the lies he tells you, so he can get laid.

[Scout]

32. you're pathetically laughable!

1) no one was talking about marriage
2) maybe they don't date/marry/have sex with YOU when you "just ask" ... and of course if they haven't done it with you, no women anywhere must do that. i wouldn't date/marry/have sex with you either if you "just asked".
3) honest hookers, just having some fun while they make some cash!! uh huh, i bet they're real honest "oh Froward69, no one does it for me like you do! poor baby, those other mean old women won't fuck you, you just come here to mama and i'll do it for cash." funny how HOOKERS won't do it for you just because you ask....

seems like you are saying that all men are just base creatures who can't keep vows they make, and just must follow that penis around willy nilly.


if a woman said that, we'd be screamed at and jumped all over.

[Froward69]

37. ..!.

Ugly women get laid.
Ugly Men do not. (unless they have money)

Hookers are honest in the amount it will cost to fuck them.
"moral" women think they are "giving" when you said it yourself you wont fuck on a simple request. The request being "How much to fuck?" I bet you are like an old girlfriend she only had a good time on a date if I spent $100 or more. she too was "giving" and "not" a hooker.

and yes men are base creatures. Food, shelter air and sex. and we are happy. We do not even need the droning of your conversation.
ANY man that says otherwise is afraid you will cut him off. thus he hasn't the self esteem to do without your Bull.

[AlphaCentauri]

41. There will be those who will think Ashley Dupre is a victim of women trafficking

not only ugly man won't get free sex, also those with antisocial behaviors or communication problems.
Probably if prostitution was legal many of the child abuses that occur in the US wouldn't happened.

[superconnected]

45. I'm just going to assume it's the only way you can get it so you'll defend it to the death.

Men don't have to be great looking to get it, but the sure have to have a good personality. After all, most men get their sex for free and that's even when they're not married. But that comes down to being people that women would want to sleep with - again personality is everything.

[Scout]

48. now i'm laughing even harder!!

you poor, poor baby.

you believe you are ENTITLED to sex simply by being here? :rofl:

[Froward69]

57. advice given me in regard to your opinion.

"you will never win or change minds.
I doubt if there are 5 women on this board who will agree with your position.

I wonder if part of that is fear.

Women use sex as a very powerful weapon against men.

They get what they want most of the time in relatively healthy relationships - and a great many UNhealthy relationships.

If men and women could freely visit a prostitute of their choice in a safe, and legal location, where would their power be?

Thing is, you are very unlikely to get current escorts or prostitutes to come forward. Especially if they are successful. It's just too dangerous.

Women, hard core feminists, or hard core bible thumpers will attack prostitution. ironic, its the only thin g both sides agree on."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I do not feel "Entitled" to sex. I do feel "Entitled" to an Opinion based in reality. My personality allows not just for me to "Rob the cradle" but to allow her to "Rob the Grave"...
I wonder why women like you sell sex, but are insulted with cash?

[Scout]

60. well you know what they say about free advice "you get what you pay for"

you are still pathetically off base.

"I wonder why women like you sell sex, but are insulted with cash?"
are you trying to insult me or something? :rofl:


ETA: you have to seek advice before you post? really pathetic.

[gaspee]

33. wow

Your deep seated hatred of women is quite disturbing.

[Froward69]

38. Nah

I do not "Hate" women, in fact I love 'em.

I am just jaded insofar as I am looking for one of those 2%. who is stable enough to want to be in a relationship. not HAS to be in a relationship.
One of those 2% that would love unconditionally. If by chance we found ourselves living under a bridge. As long as we were together, it would feel like Buckingham palace.

98% of American women require certain prerequisites. House, cash, car, social status, lavished with gifts etc.

the Love of my life (it seems) died in a car accident, she was 33, Her name was Kimberly. she required none of the trappings of wealth.
To her a picnic overrun with ants... was just as romantic as Dinner Theater.
She Loved Unconditionally and more than (I think) any one else is capable.
there must have been 900 people at her Funeral.

[Hannah Bell]

51. men without "six figures" in the bank never get sex? pitiful.

[Scout]

47. pardon me if i don't admire their "free choice" to be a fuckhole n/t

[Lance_Boyle]

15. according to this inquiry they choose it freely WAY more often than being forced into it

And by WAY more often, I mean to reiterate the point of the OP that the inquiry did not find ONE SINGLE INSTANCE of anyone forced into prostitution against her will. Another case of that pesky evidence getting in the way of the rights-restriction brigades who just KNOW a priori that most of not all prostitutes are victims of slavery.

[paulsby]

17. this is the case with every topic

and many ideologues, of ANY political stripe.

if this study had said it had found conclusive evidence of widespread trafficking, then one side would herald it as proof, and the other side would question the study's veracity, etc.

since this study found no evidence of trafficking, one side will question it, and the other side will say "see i told you so"

iow, it's situational skepticism. i see it as much here, as in rightwing sites, or libertarian sites. nobody likes evidence that conflicts with their prejudices.

recall the study a while ago that had vrey convincing evidence of no statistically significant nutritional benefit to organics. of course, many people have very strong, almost religious views about organics, so of course every possible spin and evasion was brought out to deny the study's data. not based on rigorousness or analysis of the modeling of the study, but because it gave a "bad result"

[gaspee]

34. Ugh

There's something wrong with ignore - I'm not supposed to see any of your posts. Gross.

[paulsby]

35. how quaint

a passive aggressive plonking... don't fret your little head. i am sure your momma can help you navigate the ignore function , so you won't have to read anything that causes you cognitive dissonance when your sad prejudices are countered with data

hth

[western mass]

21. Just because people don't love their work

doesn't mean they don't choose it freely.

It may not be palatable, but yes, many women do "choose" to be prostitutes in the same way that many "choose" to work in factories, fast food restaurants, gold mines, and other unpleasant lines of work. They do it to make a living.

[JoeyT]

18. It's not like it's hard to find stories of rings being busted.

Just because one investigation in the UK didn't find any it means they're all making it up.

China:
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2009/08/09/219708/Child-trafficking-ring.htm

The United States:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/25/child-prostitution-ring-b_n_109251.html

The United Kingdom:
http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/newsarticles/2009/august/head-of-uk-trafficking-ring-jail

Mexico:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2428115.stm

That was what popped up in the first page of Google.
Of course there's a huge difference in adults that choose to go into the profession and children that are forced into it. I'm in favor of legalizing prostitution for adults: I don't see where it's any of my business what consenting adults do. As long as they're both consenting and both adults.

[mule_train]

19. and they visited every brothel in London looking for them

they're not making you do this agains your will, are they?

uhhhh....no

gigidy!

[western mass]

22. Prostitution is legal in the UK.

Some people thought that would lead to massive problems with trafficking. These findings don't seem to support that argument. More likely, legal prostitution creates alternatives to trafficking. Of course, organized crime still has its hooks in legal prostitution (which fueled the recent drive to impose more restrictions on legal prostitution in Netherlands), so it's no panacea.

[quakerboy]

23. No. Taken was a documentary.

I know this cause it looked real on my TV. Never go to Paris(or any other "international" place), they snatch good upstanding US girls there and addict them to drugs and sell them for sex. Every one of them.

[No Elephants]

24. Heartwarming to know that all those minors who wanted a career in prostitution

traffickers to generate business for them, protect them and invest their earnings for them.

[muriel_volestrangler]

25. The companion piece to this, on how the inflated claims came about, is very instructive

As the introduction says, it has a lot of similarities to the Iraq WMD scare - best guesses by people with some expertise, in which they give possiblities and explicitly state the uncertainties, are stripped of the caveats, batted around from one place to another, the worst cases taken as 'fact', all by people who have a pre-conceived idea of what they want the figures to show. And there are problems with definitions: one international definition of 'trafficking' is doing it against the person's will; and this understandably worries people, and it is regarded as a major crime. But often it is used for smuggling willing prostitutes into another country, and the figures for the 2 get confused.

First, there was the problem of the word, which Kelly and Regan solved by accepting all variations of its meaning. Then, there was the shortage of facts. They spoke to specialists, studied news reports and surveyed police, who reported that 71 women had been "trafficked", whether willingly or not, during 1998. In Stopping Traffic, which they published in May 2000, Kelly and Regan argued that the real scale of the problem was probably bigger than this and, in the absence of any accurate data, they made various assumptions which they themselves described as "speculative".

At the very least, they guessed, there could be another 71 trafficked women who had been missed by police, which would double the total, to 142. At the most, they suggested, the true total might be 20 times higher, at 1,420.
...
Chaste took the work of Kelly and Regan, brought the estimate forward by two years, stripped out all the caution, headed for the maximum end of the range and declared : "An estimated 1,420 women were trafficked into the UK in 2000 for the purposes of constrained prostitution."
...
The researchers ringed this figure with warnings. The data, they said, was "very poor" and quantifying the subject was "extremely difficult". Their final estimate was "very approximate", "subject to a very large margin of error" and "should be treated with great caution" and the figure of 3,812 "should be regarded as an upper bound".
...
The Christian charity Care announced: "In 2003, the Home Office estimated there were 4,000 women and girls in the UK at any one time that had been trafficked into forced prostitution." The Salvation Army went further: "The Home Office estimated that in 2003 ... there were at least 4,000 trafficked women residing in the UK. This figure is believed to be a massive underestimation of the problem." Anti-Slavery International joined them, converting what the Home Office researchers had described as a "very approximate" estimate into "a very conservative estimate".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/20/trafficking-numbers-women-exaggerated

The author of that article, Nick Davies, wrote an excellent book about the distortion, intentional and unintentional, in news reporting in the UK, 'Flat Earth News' - see http://www.flatearthnews.net/

[geek tragedy]

26. Yay sex trafficking!

barf. Unrec'd.

[alarimer]

40. Barf indeed.

Prostitution is an ugly business no matter how you slice it.

There have been a number of high-profile cases in the US in the past few years of actual slavery as well. In fact there are more slaves (not just sex slaves) now than at any other time in history.

I willing to bet someone bought off the people who wrote this report or they have some vested interest.

[Taverner]

42. Could it be that - GASP - Prostitutes actually like their job?

And could it be that they actually - GASP - Make more than most of us?

[kwassa]

43. Probably it was the only good economic opportunity available without sale-able job skills.

and pressure to pay bills.

[Taverner]

44. Or, as in the case of many CSW's, the money pays REALLY good

They get into stripping, and learn that if they keep their nose clean, and sell tricks on the side, they can make more money than they could with a college degree.

[Scout]

49. woo hooo! i can make great money being a fuckhole!! woo hoo, lucky me! n/t

[Taverner]

50. You would be surprised at how many people feel that way

[Scout]

52. if they think it's so great to be a fuckhole, well, that's their problem n/t

[Taverner]

55. We're all fuckholes to some extent

[yurbud]

46. Did they look at any former Dyncorp employees?

[joshcryer]

53. In other news, inquiry into capitalist society finds no evidence that anyone is forced to work.

ie, this "inquiry" is garbage, because it considers the default indebtedness people have in our capitalist society as "normal and voluntary."

[struggle4progress]

58. Men jailed over human trafficking (BBC 23 Oct)

Three men have been jailed for their part in a human trafficking network which brought women from China into brothels in the UK.

Women were sent to work in Worcester, Kidderminster, Birmingham, Cheltenham and Leamington Spa, police said.

Cheng Zhao Su, 42, was jailed for four-and-a-half years at Hereford Crown Court.

Bochao Nan, 27, was sentenced to two years and nine months. Ziqian Lui, 24, was jailed for two-and-a-half years ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/hereford/worcs/8323368.stm

[struggle4progress]

59. Trafficking is no myth – I endured it (Guardian 23 Oct)

Ardita Kraja

... I was trafficked to the UK when I was 22, but was in the grip of the traffickers for two years before that. As soon as I arrived here I was forced to work in brothels, and was controlled not only by the traffickers but by the owners of the brothel and the customers, who pretended to feel sorry for me and the rest of the women. When they had finished what they were there to do – get pleasure – they would close the door behind them, leaving me and other women to suffer on in the hellish world you said did not exist.

The report says the police didn't arrest anyone in the operation Pentameter Two except women or the owners of the brothels. Of course they didn't. Pimps do not stay at the brothels. The business is not run by stupid people. It is a well-developed industry; it is organised crime. And now journalists such as Davies are helping them to grow their business and make women more afraid to tell people what is happening, because no one will believe us. And he has proved pimps right when they say, "No one can touch us".

I was in brothels all over the UK from early 2003 to mid 2007, when I got my freedom. I was under the protection of the Poppy Project for about one-and-a-half years, and they gave me help and support to survive and get my life (what was left of it) back.

In my opinion, Davies doesn't know what real trafficking is, and I wonder if he has ever met any women who were trafficked. Believe me, I know plenty, including myself. I can't explain to you on a piece of paper my years of experience in that world, but I have made an effort to stand up for what Davies and other people like you are trying to hide. He is behaving as if trafficking does not exist. Human trafficking does exist. Don't close your eyes to it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/23/trafficking-prostitution-women-myth