"Survival Sex" - Bodies for Sale

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• Video PitchThey're not men; they're not women; they're prostitutes

  •  Pakistan

  Hijras are transvestites who live lives of desperation. They are cursed by birth, thrown out of their homes and disowned by families. Forced to live in communities, they provide financial and moral support to each other. Few want to employ them, and they usually have no schooling. As a result hijras have no options; most choose to dance at weddings to earn a living while others prostitute themselves or act as pimps. Since hijras aren't traditionally beautiful, the end up having to prostitute for little money and also find themselves forced to satisfy men with weird fetishes.
  

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    Ayesha Nasir

  20 Dec 2010

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  Vote 2

• Video PitchThe prostitution area will close, solution or problem ?

  •  Indonesia

  The biggest prostitution in South East Asia will be close, solution or problem for survival sex?
  Dolly red light district in Surabaya, East Java province in Indonesia is claimed as the biggest prostitution in South East Asia. There are more than 1000 sex workers and pimps depend on their live in this well known red light district. Last year the local government plan to shut down this area to decrease the new comer prostitute and HIV AIDs disease. The local communities refuse this plan because around 70% of running local economic community really depends on this business.
  

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    Sigit Purwono

  11 Jan 2011

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Jacquelyn C.A. Meshelemiah, PhD

•   United States

Dr. Meshelemiah is a three time alum of the Ohio State University, College of Social Work.

As an Associate Professor in Social Work, she has taught courses across the curricula at the BSSW, MSW, and PhD levels. She primarily teaches courses related to the social work profession, human behavior, and theory building from a social justice perspective. She is the author and co-author of numerous publications and presentations at the local, national, and international levels. Her research publications primarily focus on human trafficking and prostitution along with social work practice, substance abuse, and social justice. Current research interests include work related to women entangled in prostitution and trafficking domestically and internationally and structural explanations (domestic and international) for human trafficking and prostitution among both adults and children.

To Fight Human Trafficking, Education of Law Enforcement and Human Welfare Workers is Crucial

Feb. 4, 2011, 9:16 a.m.

In 2000 the USA saw the introduction of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), which is meant to deal with severe forms of human (sex) trafficking such as the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act (CSA).

The commercial sex act must be induced by force, fraud, or coercion, if an adult, but is not a necessary requirement if the individual is less than 18 years of age.

This piece of legislation is important for two reasons. First of all it formally “de-prostitutionalizes” prostitution activities of children and secondly, it recognizes that adults are oftentimes induced into prostitution activities. The government finally acknowledged that children are incapable of voluntarily and maturely making the decision to engage in prostitution and other commercial sex acts and that they are victims when they engage in it.

The TVPA also acknowledges the role of oppression in adult commercial sex activities. The TVPA, along with its subsequent reauthorizations in 2003, 2005, and 2008 were implemented to combat trafficking in persons—domestic and foreign. Although millions of boys and men are victims of labor trafficking and even sometimes sex trafficking, most sex trafficking victims are women and girls. The TVPA’s stance on children’s involvement with the commercial sex industry sets the tone for victim centered policies and procedures when a child or teenager entangled in the commercial sex industry comes into contact with law enforcement and human service agencies.

It is impossible to... address prostitution and human trafficking... when most designated personnel are not informed enough to do their jobs

However, the problem is that many law enforcement personnel and human service workers do not recognize trafficking when they come into contact with a trafficking victim. This oftentimes results in the child or teenager being adjudicated by the juvenile justice system and/or processed by the child welfare system instead of being processed as protective victims under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.

For instance, a minor trafficked victim may be arrested and charged with prostitution-related charges although she is being forced into commercialized sex by a “pimp”. Under the guise of the TVPA, however, she should be categorized as a sex trafficking victim and assisted with housing, health care, job training and other federally funded social service programs. In the case of adults, this lack of knowledge also leads to adults being prosecuted and/or deported as well. In the case of foreigners, for example, many trafficked victims are oftentimes wrongfully charged and arrested for prostitution activities. They should be assisted in rebuilding their lives and obtaining social services along with acquiring the newly established T-visa that allows for temporary residency for victims who cooperate with the prosecution of their traffickers. Instead, most are criminally charged and later deported.

All too often the system fails these victims. Law enforcement and human services practices that continue to inappropriately treat trafficked minors and adults involved in commercial sex acts (CSA) as criminal activities is a major problem. This is especially egregious given that the TVPA anti-trafficking legislation is over 10 years old at this juncture. If the persons who are directly responsible for rescuing (law enforcement) and protecting (human service workers) trafficking victims are not providing their respective services appropriately to trafficked victims, then who can these individuals depend on?

Needless to say, it is impossible to fully and equitably address prostitution and human trafficking intelligently and collaboratively when most designated personnel are not informed enough to do their jobs.

Clearly more training among law enforcement and human service workers on human trafficking must take place. The TVPA is a well meaning federal legislation, but its implementation continues to lack in substance despite the fact that millions have been designated towards it. In order to bring the mission of the TVPA to fruition, the federal government must re-think how it administrates funding to states for its implementation.

The TVPA acknowledges and spotlights the reality of human trafficking in its many ugly and oppressive forms, but the actual victims that it is intending to protect, trafficked children and adults, are not being protected and assisted to the degree that the Act has intended. This is a national tragedy.