Posted on 07/01/2007 12:14:26 PM PDT by wagglebee
In 1860 there were nearly 4 million men, women and children were held as slaves in our nation's southern & border states. They were denied their natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They were helpless before their masters, forced to work long hours to make money for their owners, with little to no chance of ever earning enough money to buy their freedom. Escapees were often punished harshly with inhumane beatings. Female slaves could be forcibly taken by their masters for use as a sex object or given to anyone the master wished. In 1865, after a long, brutal war, the Thirteenth Amendment outlawed slavery, declaring, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude ... shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Americans look back to the abolition of slavery as the triumph of freedom over bondage, good over evil. They view slavery as an evil of the past.
Yet, unbeknownst to many, between 14,500 and 17,500 women, children and men are forcibly trafficked into the United States each year, as reported by the State Department. Many of these victims are forced into prostitution, though the exact number is not known. Once in America, traffickers, pimps and madams use rape and beatings, among other abuses, to control the prostituted women and children. The “johns” who purchase their services can, and often do, act with the same depraved indifference towards them.
Prostituted women often find themselves in debt to their pimp or trafficker who trumps up “fees” that the women must pay back. These fees may include the cost of bringing them into the country, room, board and condoms — and the fees ensnare the victims with increasing debt. The prostituted women are told that they must repay this debt by servicing between six and 20 men every day. It’s never enough. Women and children remain caught in the web of prostitution.
How can we as a society allow this modern-day slavery to exist? Some of those who know of the problem naively push for the legalization of prostitution, despite the increase of sex trafficking in those countries that have legalized prostitution, such as Germany and the Netherlands. They call prostituted women “sex workers,” so that they can delude themselves into thinking that these women choose prostitution freely, ignoring the staggering 89 percent of prostituted women in the world who want to escape. To call a prostituted woman a “sex worker” is akin to our ancestors calling their slaves “servants”: it may make them feel better, but it does not change the truth.
There are some who argue that prostitution is the only way some women can support themselves, acquire healthcare or feed their children. What is sad is that these proponents would rather promote an institution in which a woman must sell herself and her dignity for food, rather than take action to help those women find a way to support themselves outside of prostitution. Is it not better for a woman to sell the work of her hands and the thoughts of her mind, than the flesh of her body? Didn’t the southern slave owner in the nineteenth century use the same argument to try and convince himself and others that their slaves lived better lives being cared for by their masters?
As in the 1860s, the only way to end this modern-day slavery is abolition, the complete cessation of both the trafficking and use of prostituted women and children. We must take a page from Sweden’s book. That country combats demand by criminalizing the buying of sex while aiding the victims in restoring their lives. For the sake of women and children around the world, we must declare, as did the 19th century abolitionist, Charles Sumner: “I insist that this must cease.”
Over 140 years have passed since the work of Sumner, and others like him, helped lead America in a campaign to outlaw slavery. Then, one face of slavery was an African woman who worked without pay and had no control over the use of her body. Now, one face of slavery is a woman from Russia, forced by a trafficker to work off the cost of her plane ticket plus whatever extra fee is imposed.
The face of modern-day slavery is the five-year old Nigerian girl whose parents thought she was being adopted by a kind family who would give her a better life. Instead she ends up being sexually abused for the pleasure of her trafficker and the men who buy his pornography. Slavery is the American teenager who ran away from her abusive father, but is further used and sold by the pimp she thought was her caring boyfriend. Slavery is any woman, child or man forced to work with little pay and without any recourse against the men who sell and use their bodies.
The victims and countries involved have increased in number, and the means of trafficking are different, but slavery itself has not changed much, has it?
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Are the Southern states at fault of this again? Will they every learn? /sarc.
Southerners will be bashed until the country comes to an end. It seems to be in our genes to use the South as a whipping boy.
I noticed there was no mention of slavery still existing in places like New Jersey until the 13th amendment abolished it. Must have just been an oversight.......certainly not ignorance of the subject.
“between 14,500 and 17,500 women, children and men are forcibly trafficked into the United States each year”
I have a hard time believing these numbers.
“And yet the liberaltarians still insist that prostitution is a “victimless” crime.”
Can you name one other service that it’s legal to give away for free, but illegal to charge for?
Rest easy. In 200 years the whole USA will be talked about with contempt in terms of the topic of this article and illegal alien slavery. The South will have company.
What a stupid statement.
You cheapen and weaken your own position against libertarian beliefs by making idiotic, ridiculously obvious straw men arguments like this.
No libertarian supports sex slavery.
If you don't know the difference between forced sex slavery and voluntary prostitution, you have no business commenting on political philosophies.
only the illegal status of prostitution businesses permits the abuses such as “fees” set by the pimp.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
“only the illegal status of prostitution businesses permits the abuses such as “fees” set by the pimp.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”
I agree 100%. I support it’s legalization.
With legal prostitution, the pimps will be out of business and the street walkers will dissapear - it will be above board.
my congressmans staff laughed at me when I called this modernday slavery.
demanding they return these illegal aliens to their home country. this will bring this country to its’ knees...
we may not survive this.
“They call prostituted women “sex workers,” so that they can delude themselves into thinking that these women choose prostitution freely, ignoring the staggering 89 percent of prostituted women in the world who want to escape. To call a prostituted woman a “sex worker” is akin to our ancestors calling their slaves “servants”: it may make them feel better, but it does not change the truth. “
This intentionally obscures and even conflates the 2 different status.
One is voluntary sex workers.
The other are slaves.
Not the same thing.
In 200 years the reparations will bankrupt us!
I’m only being a little sarcastic, LOL.
All these asshats act li9ke slavery was born in America. Slavery has been around since men first formed communities. It still exists around the world and I feel sorry for the women and children caught up in it. Sex is like drugs as long as there is a market for it someone will supply it regardless of the suffering and degradation of those they sell into slavery.
I think people trafficing in human beings are worse than drug pushers and should recieve the death penañlty for dealing in it.
That’s the same thinking that let us kill 50 million babies because one woman said she was raped.
The only real voluntary sex workers in the country are in Hollywood - and even then you can’t tell me that Britney Spears would do what she does without drugs.
And the men in this country wonder why they are in disrepute. They let their own daughters become “sex workers”. Tsk.
reparations are not right.
the generations down are being paid for something they never suffered.
I want reparations. My family helped pay for the revolutionary war and were never reimbursed. Now our elected officials are opting to hand (my country I invested in) away I want to be reimbursed.
In 1830, of the 3,568 Northern blacks who remained slaves, more than two-thirds were in New Jersey. The institution was rapidly declining in the 1830s, but not until 1846 was slavery permanently abolished. At the start of the Civil War, New Jersey citizens owned 18 “apprentices for life” (the federal census listed them as “slaves”) — legal slaves by any name.
The important part was that the north was on the way to ending slavery. The Southern hot heads wanted to expand it, to continue it, and to continue to make money at it.
Interesting to compare the 18 slaves in New Jersey to the more than 50% of South Carolina that was enslaved. Majority rule in South Carolina didn’t happen until it was forced upon the south by the Federal Army.
I want reparations because women couldn’t vote until 1917!
And she has since admitted that she was coerced into a lie.
oh yeah I want that too.
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