By Jay Evensen, Deseret News
Thursday, Nov. 3, 2011
Several weeks ago, while attending a convention, I walked down Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Amid the many colorful and deliberately irreverent signs I saw was one assuring all visitors that, "It's only sex."
Most of the people I saw there seemed to embrace that motto, viewing the seemingly limitless bounds of entertainment advertised along the street as harmless fun. But I kept thinking about how the nation's increasing acceptance of that motto would make it harder to root out slavery, which experts now say is the fastest growing crime in the United States.
I call it slavery, while the official language of the day prefers the term "human trafficking." As I told a high-ranking State Department official a few years ago during a discussion on the issue, that's a nuanced term that sounds too much like someone got a speeding ticket or made an illegal turn. When someone is trapped and forced to perform a task against his or her will for no pay beyond life's basic necessities, that is slavery.
Even the street signs on Bourbon Street are a little tipsy in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2007. Things are not back to the way they were in the French Quarter - sixteen months after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans' liveliest, most exuberant neighborhood is in a funk. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
And a nation that increasingly finds prostitution or its close cousin, elicit entertainment, harmless is going to have a tougher time noticing when girls are being shipped to this country against their will, or taken from this country to labor in the sex trade.
After all, it's just sex. Lighten up and quit moralizing.
Most Americans probably believe we ended slavery in the 1860s, but a recent State Department report calls it a $32 billion worldwide industry, and some experts say the problem now is far worse than it ever was in the 19th century.
The issue became relevant this week as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops announced it may sue the Obama administration for ending its funding of the church's efforts to help victims of slavery.
The administration says it simply awarded the money to the church's competitors in a normal bidding process. But an independent review board highly rated the Catholic Church, and staffers at the Department of Health and Human Services had recommended the grant remain with the church.
This is, as many have pointed out, actually a grudge match over abortion. The Catholic Church won't refer slavery victims for contraception or abortions. The ACLU sued, and the administration decided to go elsewhere.
But while Washington ties itself in knots over this peripheral issue, it hardly helps the many people who suffer silently, perhaps wondering why there is no underground railroad to come to their defense. Abortion is likely the least of their worries.
To be clear, modern slavery does not confine itself to the sex trade. The State Department says more than 12 million people are in some form of slavery worldwide, and many of them perform hard labor under conditions not unlike those in the antebellum South.
That figure, by the way, is in dispute. The "Not-for-sale campaign" against slavery (notforsale.org) puts it at 30 million, and notes that employers who traffic in the trade use all kinds of excuses to finesse what they're doing.Anyone doubting the severity of this problem need only do a quick Google search. You'll read about several recent cases, including a "human trafficking" ring that was arrested in North Carolina this week. That one involved a brothel owner who didn't worry about bringing in women from far-flung countries. He reportedly lured a woman from another part of his own state, promising her a cleaning job. Instead, she was forced to be a prostitute against her will, authorities say.
The State Department says federal law-enforcement officials charged 181 people and obtained 141 convictions for slavery in 2010, the largest numbers to date. These involved 103 cases, with 71 of them concerning sex trafficking.
As the department noted, the figures don't include the child slavery cases that were prosecuted under other laws.
The victims are terrified and voiceless, often lacking even the language skills needed to seek help.
They would be hard enough to find in the dark recesses of an orderly society. In one that increasingly accepts what some of them are forced to do as harmless fun, and that punishes religious groups trying to help, they have even less chance to be taken seriously.
Jay Evensen is associate editor of the Deseret News editorial page. Email him at even@desnews.com. For more content, visit his web site, www.jayevensen.com.
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