Germany is a country where prostitution has been legalized and normalized to the degree that over one million men are purchasing sex in the country per day. Nearly half a million women are sold in 3500 brothels, on the streets, in drive-through sex stalls, and other locations. Because of laws that allow men to buy sex with impunity, the sex industry in the country is enormous and sexual exploitation is...
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On August 19, a trial began in San Diego, in which 22 women testified to being manipulated and tricked by producers into making internet pornography for a website called Girls Do Porn. Each woman’s claim includes being seriously deceived by the producers from beginning to end. What began as a Craigslist ad for a modeling job, featuring pictures of fully clothed women, turned into a bait-and-switch to make amateur porn....
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When we hear the term “sex trafficking,” something in our hearts ignites. Visions of women drugged and smuggled across the border, awakening to the dingy smell of a back-end brothel flood our minds. We are immediately infuriated by the blatant injustice. We raise impassioned pleas for the violence to end. We organize fundraisers, start social media campaigns, and tell all our friends. We muster all our sympathy against a crime...
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I tried to kill myself when I was 17. I count that as my first real act of speaking. I screamed the excruciating pain of being sexually exploited in prostitution and porn, as I swallowed an entire bottle of pills. And then I collapsed back into silence. I was able to speak the truth in that moment only because I thought I would never have to face the consequences. When...
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This guest post was written by Alison Phillips, an adjunct professor at the University of Missouri Kansas City specializing in human trafficking. This past week, headlines splashed around the country announcing the apparent suicide of Jeffrey Epstein, a famous and wealthy financier charged with operating a sex trafficking network and sexually exploiting dozens of underage girls. His death means that he will not be prosecuted in a court of law,...
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This guest blog post was submitted by anti-trafficking advocate Abby Shrewsbury. I had lunch next to a pimp. I had been in anti-trafficking meetings all day with local organizations I partner with and hadn’t eaten a full meal all day (sorry mom). I was planning to shop until I met some friends in the area later that night, but I decided to stop at a restaurant nearby for a...
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Lately, it feels like I am surrounded by nudity or (borderline) pornographic material everywhere I turn. From random advertisements, YouTube, all the popular movies and television shows, and now, even the most prominent social networking sites have started to disappoint me. Nudity is everywhere, and if it's not full-frontal nudity, it's a picture of a beautiful woman covered in just enough strings to be classified as a bikini. Sometimes it's a...
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Recently, Academy Award-winning actress Charlize Theron, arguably one of the most powerful and highly paid women in Hollywood, recounted a “casting couch” experience that she had with a big-name producer. At the time of the incident, she was only eighteen or nineteen and just starting out in her acting career. She said in the interview that the man “was a very big deal and is still a big deal,” hinting...
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On the heels of consistent breaking stories of sexual abuse scandals being uncovered in the Church at the hands of men in positions of power, news broke this week of a yet another tragedy. This time mega-church leader Joaquín García has been arrested on charges of sex trafficking and child rape. It is reported that over a period of years the “pastor” raped the underage girls and coerced them into...
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