Sex Trafficking: A Media Guide

This isn't sex trafficking. (An image used in a campaign for anti-trafficking organization Voices for Dignity, by Flickr user dualflipflop)

Sex trafficking is when evil men steal little girls from the mall and keep them chained to beds where they are forced to service 100 men a day. Sex trafficking is when you ask your husband to sit in the next room while you see a new client, just in case. Sex trafficking is when… Continue reading Sex Trafficking: A Media Guide

Who’s The Victim: The Tragedy of Latesha Clay

Latesha Clay cries at her sentencing. (Screenshot from MLive video of the sentencing.)

Content warning: This piece contains general discussion of child sexual abuse. Reading about the plight of Latesha Clay, the child in Grand Rapids, MI sentenced to nine years in prison after being used as live bait in a robbery scheme, the thing that struck me was the use of the word “victim.” Of course, referring… Continue reading Who’s The Victim: The Tragedy of Latesha Clay

Some Sportsball Feelings Before Super Bowl 50

While there has been no shortage of sex trafficking panic in the media leading up to Super Bowl 50, there has also been a refreshing plethora of reasoned reporting regarding the oft inflated and falsified statistics that anti-trafficking organizations tout around major sporting events. Friends, I am no statistician, and I will not waste this… Continue reading Some Sportsball Feelings Before Super Bowl 50

What The Rentboy Raid Tells Us About The Gendered Rhetoric Of Trafficking

A recent Renboy.com screenshot, before the raid.

Tuesday morning, Homeland Security and Brooklyn police raided the offices of Rentboy.com, arresting its CEO and several current and former workers, seizing six bank accounts, and freezing the website in what the U.S. Department of Justice’s press release bragged was a raid on the “largest online male escort service.” Coming right on the heels of… Continue reading What The Rentboy Raid Tells Us About The Gendered Rhetoric Of Trafficking

No Victim, No Problem: The JVTA In Practice

These people look very pleased with themselves. (Photo of Speaker of the House Joe Boehmer signing the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, via Boehmer's Flickr account)

This year, Congress decided that the term “john sting” needed a rebrand. What, they wondered, would justify all the wasted resources and manpower under a veil of moral indignation? After they put their collective hive mind together, a new, shinier, more bureaucratic term emerged. John stings are now called federally funded anti-trafficking work. The change… Continue reading No Victim, No Problem: The JVTA In Practice