Congress Likely Won't Change International Sex Trafficking Travesty

In countries around the world the sexual slavery of children proceeds unabated, even in our own country, the self-proclaimed greatest nation on earth, sexual slavery and human trafficking is a big business. Yet, no one in our government nor in the governments of many developed countries is likely to do anything about it.

Why? Because the women and girls who are being treated as products to be sold and used as any other product one might buy for entertainment -- electronic games, iTunes downloads, internet porn, etc. -- do not live in countries where we, i.e., pour governments care to intervene. After all, fighting sexual slavery costs money. Far better to suggest the US military stay in Afghanistan or Iraq for an indefinite future, because there we have an interest in the oil in the ground or gas pipelines that might someday be built, or simply to pressure and threaten Iran and the Taliban.

So we, i.e., our governments and public servants and elected officials will mouth the right words when the occasion demands condemnation, but we will effectively allow little if any cost to be paid in diplomatic pressure on our "allies", withhold foreign aid to nations which permit and even encourage this nasty business, or create an international program dedicated end the business of selling people to other people, etc. to bring this great atrocity to an end.

You see, there's nothing in it for the large nations and the corporations that run them to bring mount a major effort to end this scourge. Indeed, wealthy businessmen in both the West and the East are big time customers of this "trade" in human beings.

Is it any wonder that major companies with ties to the US government such as the company formerly known as Blackwater (i.e., Xe) and others like KBR engaged in human sex trafficking to provide sexual entertainment to their "workers" overseas.

Sharia Law is the greatest threat to our nation? I'd say our enabling the sex trafficking trade by issuing government contracts to corrupt companies known too use child prostitutes is a much greater threat to our nation. But that's only if you care about things like moral integrity and human rights.

I can tell you one thing: the corporations that bought our latest House of Representatives don't give a crap about this issue. There wouldn't be a sexual trafficking in young children if there wasn't a demand for it, and the people that help to provide that demand often work for major corporations. It's just a cost of business to them, part of their expense account for entertaining clients or improving the morale of their mercenaries contractors. Even our own State Department has been known to turn a blind eye toward sexual trafficking in order to maintain good relations with the rulers of oil rich nations.

The same State Department that issues reports like this one denouncing the growth of the trade in human beings:

 

Since 2001, the number of countries ranked in the State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report has more than doubled to include 177 countries, including – for the first time in the 2010 TIP Report – the United States. The advent of the Report’s ranking of the United States, supported by a frank analysis of our strengths and weaknesses at home, has been welcomed by anti-trafficking advocates and foreign governments alike. The TIP Report remains the U.S. Government’s principal diplomatic tool to engage foreign governments on human trafficking and the world’s most comprehensive resource on governmental anti-trafficking efforts. It has inspired and prompted legislation, national action plans, and implementation of policies and programs.

We have seen, for example, a steady increase in sex trafficking prosecutions and shelters for victims in some Gulf states; greater efforts to address the forced begging of Koranic students in West Africa; passage of a law and formation of a national task force in Swaziland; cross-border cooperation with Mexico; a significant uptick in victim identification in Albania and Montenegro; the naming of the first TIP “Czar” in Malta; and greater anti-trafficking collaboration by the Malaysian government with the U.S. Government and NGOs, leading to new trafficking investigations and prosecutions. Bosnia and Herzegovina also stands out as a particular success story. Bosnia was on Tier 3 for many years as a war-torn nation plagued by sex traffickers, but the government in recent years changed course and aggressively tackled the crime. After a decade of hard work, spurred by the TIP Report and supported by the United States, Europe, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Bosnia is now a Tier 1 country with strong penalties for convicted traffickers and victim protection partnerships with NGOs.

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