That’s called smuggling, and it is a result of fucked up immigration policies by the U.S. I’m not sure why you assume that I’m pro-ICE, since their involvement is probably the number-one factor that will lead to, as you say, family separation. Rape is a huge risk for women crossing the border, and it could be coyotes, it could be random predators looking for easy prey, and it just as easily could be agents of ICE or of local law enforcement. You make a lot of assumptions about my views, particularly that you seem to think that I approve of the U.S. government, of its immigration policies, and of its own actions that allow in many ways for human trafficking and other horrible labor violations.

It’s pretty common for people from Mexico who come to the US without a visa to be brought in by coyotes. There’s a continuum from a clean business deal to trafficking of slaves. The US is never going to spend the money to handle this situation in a morally appropriate way.

I’m sure you agree that rape by coyotes is a good reason for their arrest to receive higher priority by ICE and other law enforcement. I agree with the point that a real anti-slavery organization is not going limit itself to cases where sexual assault or transportation over a large distance of the slave is involved. But, realistically, such an organization might need to prioritize cases where rape, torture, family separation or other aggravations of the crime are going on.

Or agricultural/farm/ranch/herding workers who die due to exposure to extreme weather, lack of running water, dehydration.

Also, agricultural and mining laborers who are trafficked into working 20 hour days until they literally die in the fields/at the site might disagree with you. (Not that migrant laborers who are trafficked into non-sex industry labor aren’t constantly vulnerable to sexual abuse as well, as is pointed out in this piece and by L in her comment.) Ditto domestic laborers who are trafficked into situations in which they’re held prisoner in their employer’s houses, beaten, screamed at, starved, etc. I think saying, “This form of torture is qualitatively always objectively worse than this form of torture” is somewhat absurd. I mean, what basis of comparison and/or experience are you speaking from?

Sorry, what forms of slavery are you thinking of that don’t ever involve forced sex or other forms of torture? And do you really think that any government is or is willing to fight to eradicate serious labor violations that are in its own interests, like those associated with lower-skilled guest worker programs?

I mean I think it’s explained in the piece that donating yet more money to anti-trafficking NGOs is in fact a way for management to look out for its own bottom line. When there’s a line someone like Swanee Hunt is pushing (and many of those state legislators Bubbles mentioned fall in line)…or when a particular person believes in Jesus and that everyone else needs to too… Particularly if those NGOs are similar to ones similar to the one linked to Angelina’s name, which clearly gets clients through the criminal justice system, is a diversion program that is not available to all arrestees, and clearly does believe in the concept of a “prostitution addiction” and uses DBT in order to stop clients from doing it and pushing them into much lower-paying jobs that can often be rife with labor abuses from wage theft to sexually coercive management. Sexually coercive management in straight jobs can be a particular problem for people with a history of prostitution.

Hm, that sounds like a good point. I don’t see where there’s anything about the organization in this article that contradicts anything in Angelina’s comment myself, or any reason that the author ought to have talked to them, but it does look like there is an opportunity here for dancers in genuine workers rights organizations or who have such interests to meet or discuss issues with this organization. That might include things like whipping up false hysteria around sports events, how calling ICE can get victims deported (you might look into how difficult it is to get a T-visa), how calling DHS can get minor victims sent back to abusers, and so on. Even, as mentioned in the article, how strip club management might be using organizational materials as advertising for specific strip clubs, while the advertising itself might be leading to such deportations and so on. The prosecution of two traffickers might be compared to the number of victims whose lives might have been made much worse by such actions.

Angelina brings up a good point here, which is that a lot of very restrictive anti-strip club-legislation is presented as anti-trafficking legislation. And strip clubs are a little different because of their collective/legal nature. The interests of management and workers/contractors are often in opposition, but when it comes to a state legislator introducing a bill that wants to, say, ban alcohol sales in strip clubs or enforce 6-ft distance laws, crying “strip clubs are trafficking hotbeds! let’s ban lap dances!” we do have the same common interest—not getting legislated out of business.

That being said, I agree with the basic premise here, which is that as an organization, it’s not got much to do with the self-directed sex workers’ rights movement.