Today my guest blogger is Leslie Eischen. Leslie describes herself as A Christ following, Midwestern wife and homeschooling mom who enjoys learning as much as teaching. With an affinity for ‘narrow passages’ (Matthew 7:13-14). Leslie has a ministry focused on the issue you will read about today, human trafficking. You will find her blog here.
It would be better for him if a millstone
were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should
cause one of these little ones to sin. ~ Luke 17:2
Society is becoming aware of the plague of human
trafficking. Citizens are rightly
appalled by the enslavement of women and children as though they are chattel to
be consumed for profit and self-indulgence.
Yet, what was once marginalized in society, we now tolerate, embrace,
celebrate and even defend the prolific dissemination of pornography. If we are going to combat trafficking we must
grasp its connection to pornography.
Many believe that pornography is harmless
entertainment. That simply isn’t true. Pornography drives the demand for
trafficking. It is the prominent
industry that keeps human trafficking in business promoting the purchase of
humans for commercial exploitation.
Porn is much more than an individual
decision—it is part of a system that preys on women and children, and its
viewers are participating in, contributing to, and being shaped by that
destructive, enslaving system. ~ Dr. Justin Holcomb
As a culture, we are saturated with hyper-sexualization. Everywhere we turn we are bombarded with
images and opportunities to partake in the reprehensible world of
exploitation. We have become unable to
recognize what is happening around us because it permeates every aspect of
society and has become mainstream. The
sexualization of our society is steadily encroaching on our freedom to eschew participation.
It’s this sexualization that feeds pornography and builds
a demand for trafficking and in turn creates the supply to support the
demand. Rough estimates, because companies are
disinclined to expose their profits from the industry, suggest that it is a ten
to twenty billion dollar a year industry and that’s just in the United
States.
The word pornography
comes from the Greek words porne, meaning
“prostituted woman” or “prostitution”, and the word graphos,
means “writings.” If we realize that commercial exploitation is being
represented in pornography, we will begin to understand the insidious effects
of its content.
Pornography is advertising for traffickers.
Traffickers use images of their victims to solicit consumers. Many of the women and children used in the
production of pornography are being exploited and trafficked. Victims are photographed or filmed without
consent and that material distributed for profit.
Many levels of production in this industry involve variations of
force, fraud and coercion. Even initial
consent does not preclude individuals from being victimized. Pornographers, as with other traffickers,
demonstrate ways of exploiting the vulnerabilities in their victims to obtain
and maintain their compliance in the industry.
Pornography is devastating marriages, families, communities and
targeting our children. It’s estimated
that one in five pornographic images online is of a minor. Twelve years old is the average age of minors
being exploited through pornography.
“Ending child pornography is as much a matter
of vigorously prosecuting those who distribute adult pornography as it is a
matter of prosecuting child pornographers...The link between adult and child
porn is observed globally, and it is nothing new… The congressionally-created Child Online Protection Act (COPA) Commission saw
the need to curb adult obscenity as a necessary precursor for combating child
pornography… Since the advent of the Internet age, millions of federal and
state tax dollars have been channeled toward fighting Internet child
pornography. Like many government programs, those targeting child pornography
are on autopilot, gobbling up ever-increasing resources with no critical
evaluation of effectiveness. Rather, “success” seems to be counted by the
number of arrests and convictions. By that measure, law enforcement successes
climb every year, regardless of the safety of our nation’s children. No
credible claim is made that children are safer today than at the beginning of
the Internet age. The number of child pornographers is increasing, not
decreasing. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics…child pornography
matters accounted for 82% of the growth in sex exploitation matters referred
from 1994 to 2006…. Children are harmed not only by child
pornographers, but also by the consumption of adult pornography. The average
age of a child’s first exposure to pornography is 11. A total of 90 percent of
children ages 8-16 have viewed pornography
online…Since the Internet came into its own nearly 20 years ago, Congress has
tried to protect children from online pornography through the Communications
Decency Act (CDA) and COPA. Unfortunately, the United States Supreme Court has
declared both laws unconstitutional… When these acts were stricken, Congress
seemed to give up on attempts to protect children from pornography on the
Internet. Remarkably, it seems that no one at the top level in the Department
of Justice has considered that the one effective—and constitutional—way to
protect children from harm would be the vigorous prosecution of illegal adult
pornography. Federal laws prohibit distribution of illegal adult pornography…
Even when parents utilize pornography-blocking software in their own home, kids
will have access to the material at friends’ homes or even at many public
libraries. The predatory pornography industry targets children… It is time to
reconsider this informal grant of immunity to the porn criminals and think
first of the welfare of our children…” ~ Patrick A. Trueman, ~ The Witherspoon
Institute
People ensnared by pornography aren’t necessarily
the seedy characters we see on television or in the movies. They are college professors, policeman, bus
drivers, teachers and even former Library of Congress researchers.
Federal agents arrested a computer specialist
who worked for the Department of Homeland Security, calling him “one of the
nation’s most prolific disseminators of child pornography.”
The former national head of programs for the
Boy Scouts of America admitted and was charged with possession and distribution
of child pornography.
The former spokesman for the Florida
Department of Children and Families was arrested and charged for child pornography
including a child in the agency’s care.
NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy
Love Association states that their mission is simple, they want the abolition
of age of consent laws that classify sexual relations with children as criminal. The ACLU has represented NAMBLA, Pro Bono, in
the murder case involving a ten year old boy on the basis of free speech.
On a separate occasion, four members
of this group were arrested in an FBI sting.
One of the men worked for his county’s circuit clerk office in the civil
division as a deputy clerk. All received
varying degrees of child pornography charges.
One member, so far, was sentenced to nine years in federal prison. According to court documents, at the time of
his arrest, agents found twelve hundred images and one hundred videos of child
pornography in his possession. These
members stated that they found their victims anywhere from Xbox Live Web site
to public restrooms.
Predators are vying for our children in the most horrific
ways. A recent undercover investigation
exposed that the giant of social networking services worldwide, Facebook, is
also a hotbed for child predators.
“It is common for producers of child
pornography to groom victims, or cultivate a relationship with a child and
gradually sexualize the contact over time. The grooming process fosters a
false sense of trust and authority over a child in order to desensitize or
break down a child’s resistance to sexual abuse.” ~ US Department of Justice
According to the investigation there appears to be little
policing by the network of these groups and individuals. State law enforcement officers and FBI agents
report that Facebook has been “most uncooperative” in assisting them in
stopping the illicit activities.
It’s important to comprehend that if these images are being
produced and distributed, people, specifically minors, are being
assaulted. They are being
trafficked.
Perhaps you are unaware that this alarming aspect of
Facebook exists. This is the malevolent
side. Social networking in general has
become a magnet for the evils of our time.
It has changed the way in which we engage one another. It is a powerful tool for good but just as
powerful for evil. These predators are
brazen and unapologetic, flourishing under the anonymity that the internet
provides.
The social networking predators use key words and codes to
solicit other predators to their groups and pages. According to the Facebook investigation, a
cartoon-like character called “PedoBear,” is used by the predators to identify
each other on the social networking site.
At the time of their report, there were over a quarter of a million
“likes” for groups containing the term “PedoBear.” Predators even profit from placing outside
links to their groups and pages for other predators to consume.
What can be done?
Some have suggested PhotoDNA that creates a digital code of an image,
like a fingerprint and locates that exact image for removal in large data
sets. But it has its limits. It is only capable of finding and removing
known images. It does not find and
remove new photos that have not been previously identified in the
database. Furthermore, it isn’t capable
of locating videos for removal.
We need to bring pressure to social media networks to
prevent these images and videos from ever appearing in the first place. As a private business, sites like Facebook,
have the financial means and technological savvy to protect themselves and
their users but have chosen not to and allowed criminal activities to pervade
their site.
People, who are contemplating investing in Facebook’s initial
public offerings, may want to pause and consider that this is a company that is
involved in the commercial exploitation of women and children.
Obscenity and child pornography are illegal and not protected
by the First Amendment. There is no
legal protection simply because the images are exchange via the Internet. Some experts are not satisfied with allowing
the FBI or the Justice Department to determine whether or not social networks,
like Facebook, are doing enough to prevent the images from being uploaded and
distributed.
“All of this should be blatantly illegal. Those who run Facebook should face court
action. Let’s let a jury decide. That’s what I want to see happen. I’ll come in
and testify.” ~ Dr. Judith Riesman
We must resolve to have a clear and explicit
understanding of the correlation between human trafficking and pornography.
To obtain justice for those who have been exploited we need to understand that
any form of pornography is unacceptable. We need to be relentless in the
truth about pornography and act accordingly.
What to do if you suspect someone is
being trafficked:
If the situation is imminent, call 911.National Center's CyberTipline at 1-800-the-lost or
online at www.CyberTipLine.org
Labels: Guest Blogger