Quotulatiousness

June 15, 2013

Moral panic of the month – sex trafficking

Filed under: Europe, Law — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:18

In Forbes, Tim Worstall explains why so many stories about sex workers being smuggled across borders and forced to work as prostitutes may be based on imaginary numbers:

The full paper is here. And I’m afraid that it’s a horrible mess. And not just because they rather gloss over the two meanings of “trafficking” that are used in the debate.

Those two meanings are as follows:

1) The transport of unwilling people (usually women, but of course can at times be either men or children) into forced prostitution. This is of course illegal everywhere: it’s repeated rape just as a very start. It is also vile and we should indeed be doing everything possible to stamp it out.

2) The illegal movement of willing people across borders to enter the sex trade. Strange as it may seem there really are people who desire to be prostitutes. People would, other things being equal, similarly like to be in a country where they get a lot of money for their trade rather than very little. Given these two we wouldn’t be surprised if people from poorer countries, who wish to be in the sex trade, will move from those poorer countries to richer countries. And such is the system of immigration laws that many of them will be unable to do this legally: just as with so many who wish to enter other trades and professions in the rich world. You can make your own mind up about the morality of this but it is obviously entirely different from definition 1).

There is a third possible meaning which is used by some campaigners which is any foreigner at all who is a sex worker. This is obviously a ridiculous one: especially in the EU given the free movement of labour.

We might paraphrase the two definitions as the “sex slavery” definition and the “illegal immigrant” one. I would certainly argue that the first one is a moral crime crying out to the very heavens for vengeance while the second leaves me with no more than a heartfelt “Meh”.

He also links to a Guardian story about a sex trafficking investigation in Britain from a few years ago called Operation Pentameter:

The UK’s biggest ever investigation of sex trafficking failed to find a single person who had forced anybody into prostitution in spite of hundreds of raids on sex workers in a six-month campaign by government departments, specialist agencies and every police force in the country.

The failure has been disclosed by a Guardian investigation which also suggests that the scale of and nature of sex trafficking into the UK has been exaggerated by politicians and media.

Current and former ministers have claimed that thousands of women have been imported into the UK and forced to work as sex slaves, but most of these statements were either based on distortions of quoted sources or fabrications without any source at all.

We could simply assume that there’s something wildly different about the UK. Something that means that there are, to a reasonable approximation, zero sex slaves in the UK while 30% or more of sex workers in Denmark, Sweden and Germany are all sex slaves. This isn’t an argument that’s likely to pass the smell test to be honest. The explanation is instead that the two different meanings of “trafficked” are being used here.

May 7, 2013

Escaped Colombian convict gets sex change to avoid recapture

Filed under: Americas, Law — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:57

You have to admire the dedication of Colombian prison inmate Giovanni Rebolledo who apparently went through a partial sex-change in an attempt to stay off the police radar:

Colombian transgender criminal

After escaping from prison where he had been sentenced to serve 60 years, Giovanni Rebolledo reportedly decided to get breast implants to help him avoid capture.

Despite his rather impressive new rack, Police were able to identify and capture Rebolledo during a routine stop and search in the Viejo Prado district of the northern coastal city of Barranquilla.

Following his extreme make-over, the suspect reportedly was involved to some degree in prostitution in the area.

Depending on where the Colombian justice system decides Rebolledo has to serve the remaining years of the original sentence, “Rosalinda” may be a very popular inmate after this.

December 21, 2012

The funny side of the sex trade

Filed under: Cancon, Humour, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:36

In the National Post, David Granirer talks about a stand-up comedy therapy program he runs to help people suffering from mental illness find ways to cope with their issues. He also ran the program for women in the sex trade and provides a few jokes from a recent performance by members of the program:

* “I’ve been in detox. While I was there I took a lifeskills course. They taught me how to shop, how to manage money, and how to pay my dealer on time so he’ll keep fronting me drugs.”

* “When you’re selling drugs on the street everyone wants to trade clothes for drugs. You can get a $200 pair of jeans for a $10 rock. Why would you go to Winners after that?”

[. . .]

* “When I first started in sex trade, a friend and I went down to the stroll and I get into a car with 2 guys. At first I thought it was kinky that they were into handcuffs, but then I found out they were cops.”

* “But the sex trade is a business like any other. If a john can’t pay I turn it over to my collection agency – 2 guys with baseball bats.”

* “As a sex trade worker you have to be a psychologist. The only difference is a psychologist’s clients don’t ask to be peed on.”

November 15, 2012

Human trafficking in the US

Filed under: Law, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:20

At the Foundation for Economic Education, Lewis Andrews explains how immigration reform will also help to combat the scourge of human trafficking:

Restrictive immigration policies have long been associated with a variety of economic problems including the diminished availability of foreign business and scientific talent, the inability to fill low-skilled agricultural and service jobs typically scorned by legal residents, and reduced access to the kind of entrepreneurial enthusiasm characteristic of those willing to risk their futures in another country.

Only recently has it become clear how restrictive immigration laws also produce harmful social consequences, particularly when it comes to the age-old scourge of human trafficking — the use of force and fraud to supply cheap labor and sexual services.

To understand these consequences, it is important to appreciate just how lucrative a branch of organized crime the modern slave trade has become. Efficient transportation, technological advances in both farming and factory work, and advances in communication have all combined to make the use of forced labor very cheap by historical measures.

Free the Slaves, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, has calculated the return on the cost of an enslaved field worker in 1850s Alabama at just 5 percent, whereas today a trafficked farmhand can yield the owner anywhere from double digits to 800 percent. Similarly, an imprisoned prostitute shuttled around the boroughs of New York City in a van by a driver scheduling appointments on his cell phone can service as many as 40 customers in a single shift. As one researcher coldly but accurately put it, “People are a good commodity as they do not easily perish, but they can be transported over long distances and can be re-used and re-sold.”

The result, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, is that 2.5 million victims, approximately 80 percent female and 50 percent under the age of 18, are being trafficked around the world at any given time. In 2005 the International Labor Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, estimated the annual revenues from this “industry” at $32 billion, or $13,000 per victim.

June 4, 2012

The “sex traffic” meme is this decade’s version of the “Satanic panic” of the late 1980s

Filed under: Media, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 13:03

An interesting post at The Honest Courtesan on the strong similarities between the media freak-out about Satanic ritualists kidnapping children back in the late 1980s and early 1990s and the current media meme about sex trafficking rings:

How well do you remember the “Satanic Panic” of the ‘80s and ‘90s? Do you remember when you first heard about it, and what your reactions were? Do you remember how widespread and exaggerated the claims were, and how seriously everyone took them? The reactions from believers when skeptics pointed out the tremendous absurdities? The decline and fall of the hysteria? I sure do, and if you do as well you’ve probably noticed the strong resemblance of “trafficking” hysteria to its older sibling. Both revolve around gigantic international conspiracies which supposedly abduct children into a netherworld of sexual abuse; both are conflated with adult sex work, especially prostitution and porn; both make fantastic claims of vast numbers which are not remotely substantiated by anything like actual figures from “law enforcement” agencies or any other investigative body; both rely on circular logic, claiming the lack of evidence as “proof” of the size of the conspiracy and the lengths to which its participants will go to “hide” their nefarious doings; both encourage paranoia and foment distrust of strangers, especially male strangers; etc, etc, etc.

[. . .]

Once one is able to examine the hysteria from an historical and sociological perspective, it becomes rather fascinating (though none the less frightening for those of us whose profession is being targeted by the witch hunters). For example, one can see how events that would have been interpreted one way 15 years ago are now seen through the lens of “human trafficking”; this recent trial in which members of a Somali gang were convicted for forcing young female members into prostitution would have been reported as a “gang-related violence” story in the late ‘90s, but is now labeled a “sex trafficking case”. In the ‘80s, every city in America imagined itself overrun with Satanic cultists; now it’s “human traffickers”, and there’s a creepy competition for the title of “leading hub for sex trafficking”, generally on the basis of how many interstate highways pass through or near the city (since none of them have any actual statistics to support their claims). In the past year I’ve heard New York, Dallas, Miami, Portland, Atlanta and Sacramento vying for this dubious distinction, and now Tulsa, Oklahoma is as well.

H/T to Jesse Walker for the link.

May 3, 2012

Sarkozy’s best chance to win? The DSK effect

Filed under: Europe, France, Government — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:26

John Gizzi on the slim hopes Nicolas Sarkozy has to catch up to front-runner Francois Hollande in the French presidential election:

Before arriving here today to find France braced for its presidential election run-off May 6, I stopped at London’s Ladbroke’s, the world’s most storied of oddsmakers. The odds against Nicolas Sarkozy winning, the bookmaker told me, were 4-to-1, while the odds favoring Socialist challenger Francois Hollande were 1-to-7.

[. . .]

With those chunks of LePen and Bayrou voters, Sarkozy would be in a near-tie with his Socialist nemesis and would need some dramatic event or stumble by Hollande to put him over. As to what this stumble might be, one possibility could have occurred at a birthday party for Socialist politician Julian Drey last Sunday. The big news was who showed up: Dominique Strauss-Kahn, whose own presidential hopes were dashed in a sensational string of scandals beginning with his arrest in New York last May for allegedly assaulting a hotel maid. The politician known as DSK dodged that bullet, but is now facing more serious charges of his alleged involvement in a prostitution ring in France.

Upon learning that DSK was at the birthday party, 2007 Socialist nominee Segolene Royal (who is the mother of Hollande’s four children) stormed out and Hollande himself canceled an appearance at the party. Incredibly, the party was held at the site of what was once a notorious house of prostitution.

Just the appearance of Strauss-Kahn sent the Hollande camp into fervent denials that DSK would ever be considered for a position in a Socialist government.

March 26, 2012

Court rules that prostitution is still legal in Canada, strikes down other parts of law

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:32

Yes, prostitution is still legal … but some of the worst restrictions hedging it around have been declared unconstitutional:

The Court of Appeal for Ontario has swept aside some of the country’s anti-prostitution laws saying they place unconstitutional restrictions on prostitutes’ ability to protect themselves.

The landmark decision means sex workers will be able to hire drivers, bodyguards and support staff and work indoors in organized brothels or “bawdy houses,” while “exploitation” by pimps remains illegal.

However, openly soliciting customers on the street remains prohibited with the judges deeming that “a reasonable limit on the right to freedom of expression.”

The province’s highest court suspended the immediate implementation of striking the bawdy house law for a year to allow the government an opportunity to amend the Criminal Code.

[. . .]

The appeal stems from the legal oddity that while prostitution was not illegal, many activities surrounding it were, including running a brothel or bawdy house, communicating for the purpose of prostitution and living on money earned by a prostitute.

That disconnect led to a constitutional challenge mounted by three sex trade workers who say the laws prevented them from taking basic safety precautions, such as hiring a bodyguard, working indoors or spending time assessing potential clients in public.

November 18, 2011

A topic that sends the Guardian off into deep social conservative waters

Filed under: Britain, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:35

Of the various British papers I link to on a regular basis, the Guardian is the most liberal. It can generally be depended upon to come down on the liberal side of any question except for one:

… on the broad subject area of sex and sexuality, the Guardian, more often than not, comes down on the side of repression. The paper comes very much from the liberal, middle-class, English tradition, and the one subject the English middle-classes have always had trouble dealing with is sex. The Guardian also tends to take anti-sex campaigners more seriously if they adopt the “feminist” label than if they crusade under a more old-fashioned “morality” banner. On this subject, the Guardian’s coverage can swing from liberal to deeply conservative in the blink of an eye.

I blogged recently about the UK Government’s steps towards Internet censorship, using the excuse of “protecting children from pornography”. The Guardian, normally a warrior against censorship, lost its mind in an editorial on the subject, using Daily Mail-type phrasing such as “…bombarding of people’s homes and children by pornography…” and “…the destructive effects of pornography on relationships and values…“. The editorial also mentioned a recent government-commissioned report on “sexualisation”, neglecting to mention that it came from a Christian lobbying organisation. The idea that anyone who doesn’t want to see porn is “bombarded” with it is of course laughable, and serious research on porn has yet to reveal the harmful side effects claimed by conservatives of various shades.

And this wasn’t a one-off: on the icky subject of sex, the Guardian is often deeply conservative. I recently interviewed strippers who are defending themselves against campaigners who threaten their right to work in the London boroughs of Hackney and Tower Hamlets (podcast coming soon). These women are articulate, well-paid and belong to trade unions. Yet, the Guardian is apparently convinced that stripping is bad, and refuses to take seriously the voices of the women themselves who earn a living that way; instead, they give a platform to “feminist” (aka sexual morality) groups who use fascist-style propaganda methods (such as claiming a non-existent link between strip venues and rape) to attack the venues and the people who work in them. While women who strip have offered to write for the Guardian about their experiences, only one ex-dancer, Homa Khaleeli is published, because she tells “the truth about lap dancing” — in other words, she makes the “exploitation” and “objectification” noises that Guardianistas want to hear.

The Guardian has a confused idea of defending sexual freedom. While Gay, Lesbian, Transgender issues are treated with the appropriate straight-faced correctness, other forms of sexuality and sexual freedom have Guardian journos giggling like school children. Fetishes, swinging, polyamory, BDSM, open lifestyles, bisexuality and sex work… these aren’t causes for free speech but excuses for the Guardian to pander to middle-England prejudices (and have a good, Carry On giggle in the process).

September 3, 2011

Surge in “escort” ads in cities hosting political conventions

Filed under: Economics, Media, Politics, USA — Tags: — Nicholas @ 10:46

It should be no surprise that the cities hosting the Democratic or Republican party conventions have a brief spike of activity in certain businesses:

The sex workers of Tampa, Florida, and Charlotte, North Carolina, can get ready for a spike in business at the end of next summer: the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, respectively, are coming to town. In the last electoral cycle, the political jamborees were held in Denver and Minneapolis — and there seems to have been a coincidental surge in the local market for sex.

The economists Scott Cunningham and Todd Kendall discovered this by examining advertisements in the “adult services” section on Craigslist, the online ad service. (Craigslist has since closed down this section.)

Using postings in Seattle and Philadelphia as a control group — these cities did not have almost 50,000 visitors descending on them for a few days — the economists estimated that advertisements selling sexual services increased by 29-44 per cent in Minneapolis during the Republican visit and 47-77 per cent in Denver when the Democrats arrived. I’m not going to make jokes about oversexed politicians, largely because the majority of visitors appear to have been journalists.

An even more amusing letter was posted to The Economist on the same general topic:

SIR – You note that call girls are being drawn from far and wide to service America’s political conventions (“On the trail”, July 3rd). While standing in line to register for an American Economic Association annual meeting some years ago, I overheard someone remark that the prostitutes of New Orleans look forward to the arrival of economists in town. While glancing at my colleagues in their ill-fitting suits and dragging cardboard suitcases, I heard the following clarification: “It’s their opportunity to take a week off.”
Robin Watson
Berlin

August 24, 2011

Australian government risks defeat over MP’s brothel expenses

Filed under: Australia, Government, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:40

Australian politics are so much more interesting than our boring old Canadian version:

A political scandal involving alleged payments to prostitutes by an MP, which threatens Australia’s minority government, deepened on Wednesday when the politician’s former union asked police to investigate his union credit card bills.

The move by the Health Services Union (HSU) increases the likelihood that police will launch a criminal investigation into the union’s former boss Craig Thomson over alleged payments using credit cards to a Sydney brothel.

Thomson, who is now an government MP, has denied any wrongdoing. But if he is charged with a criminal offence and then found guilty, he would be forced to leave parliament, prompting a by-election that could bring down Julia Gillard’s government, which has a one-seat majority.

May 20, 2011

Salesmen get rewarded for whoring their wares

Filed under: Europe, Germany, Randomness — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:09

At least, according to this story, the best salesmen at Munich Re were rewarded with whores:

However, this being a German-run orgy, it was not an unseemly free-for-all, but an efficient affair in which the prostitutes “had worn colour-coded arm-bands designating their availability, and the women had their arms stamped after each service rendered”.

Handelsblatt‘s informant told the paper: “After each such encounter the women were stamped on the lower arm in order to keep track of how often each woman was frequented.”

He elaborated: “The women wore red and yellow wrist bands. One lot were hostesses, the others would fulfill your every wish. There were also women with white wrist bands. They were reserved for board members and the very best sales reps.”

This was back in 2007, according to Handelsblatt, a German business publication. I’ve worked at companies where the sales force seemed to be extravagantly over-rewarded with various goodies, but this seems to be a few steps further.

February 8, 2011

Hookers with Blackberries on Facebook

Filed under: Economics, Politics, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:17

The latest round of moral posturing by politicians has accomplished great things: more sex workers now use Facebook to communicate with prospective clients, fewer are using Craigslist. Success?

A study by sociology professor Sudhir Venkatesh on trends in the world’s oldest profession, published by Wired, estimated that 25 percent of hookers’ regular clients came through Facebook compared to only three per cent through Craigslist.

Five years before that, in 2003, nine per cent of the prostitutes regular clients came through Craiglist and none through the then infant Facebook.

“Even before the crackdown on [Craigslist’s] adult-services section, sex workers were turning to Facebook: 83 per cent have a Facebook page, and I estimate that by the end of 2011, Facebook will be the leading on-line recruitment space,” Venkatesh writes.

Venkatesh says that there’s another key indicator for those who frequently hire prostitutes:

Curiously, he found one of the three main ways a sex worker can boost her earning potential is not to get a boob job but to buy a BlackBerry. “This symbol of professional life suggests the worker is drug- and disease-free,” Venkatesh explains.

Of prostitutes that own a smartphone, 70 per cent have BlackBerries while just 11 per cent own iPhones. Feel free to write your own hilarious jokes using that information.

February 4, 2011

Superbowl XLV storyline: sportscasters in the frigid cold

Filed under: Football, Humour, Media — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:03

The Two Scotts spend a bit of time talking about the teams, but most of their column talking about how the brave network sports guys are bearing up under the unexpectedly cold weather:

Reid: Top three undeniable facts about Super Bowl XLV:

1. Sports Reporters Are Pussies. So far the most reportable item from the 2011 Super Bowl appears to be that it’s very coldy woldy. We had to spend days listening to ESPN’s Mike and Mike wussy aloud about how cold it was broadcasting outside until they finally moved their show indoors. And it seems every other reporter in Dallas assumes what the football-loving public wants to learn first is how they’re all holding up in the frigid air of north Texas. Yo candy apples, it’s barely dropped below freezing. Grow a pair!

[. . .]

Feschuk: Reid is right — how can you people think about football at a time like the Super Bowl? Have you not read the stories of valour and bravery from north Texas? Are you not aware of the HARDSHIP and SUFFERING being endured by members of media, who have been subjected to horrible injustices such as wind and having their corporate golf junkets cancelled? Reading their harrowing dispatches from the front lines, it’s clear that these reporters are pretty much exactly like the pro-democracy protesters in Egypt, except even more courageous because some of them forgot to bring warm socks. WE STAND WITH YOU, HEROES!

Honestly, did the US networks hire all of their current crop of sportscasters from Toronto? It would explain the whining about the weather . . .

Then again, the reporters had to write about something, and there are only so many times you can go on about Aaron Rodgers’ talent or interview the family of gypsies that lives in Brett Keisel’s beard. One news outlet in New Hampshire was so desperate that it actually ran a story about a local man who has the same name as Packers coach Mike McCarthy. Think about that. Think about how hard-up for a remotely engaging Super Bowl story the editor must have been to say out loud, “There’s someone else on this planet with the name Mike McCarthy?? AND HE LIVES HERE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE???? To the newsmobile!!!“

Aside from the terrible, terrible burden of the weather, the next biggest problem (according to Reid) is this:

There are Not Enough Slutty Women in Texas. In what would constitute a crisis in any circumstance, an embarrassing shortage of prostitutes in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area during the Super Bowl may irreparably damage the city’s reputation among hard-up pigs. It is estimated that 10,000 hookers are needed to satisfy the drunken demands of fat corporate slobs who, left to their own charms, couldn’t pick up a slice of pizza. Dallas currently has less than half this number of ladies of the evening (not mention ladies of the afternoon, the late morning, the early morning and the Warren Sapp). In response, the Dallas mayor has been forced to implement emergency measures: Free tickets for Charlie Sheen and ‘friends’.

September 5, 2010

Craigslist surrenders, problem totally resolved

Filed under: Humour, Law, Liberty, Technology — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:26

Dan Tynan recounts the glorious moral victory scored by unhappy state legislators against the final bastion of sin and decadence, Craigslist:

Bowing to pressure from 17 state attorneys general, Craigslist has begun censoring its Adult Services ads. Visitors coming to any of the 400+ Craigslist sites will encounter a big black CENSORED tab where Adult Services used to be.

As we all know, the scourge of prostitution had been entirely eradicated from modern society before Craigslist came along. And now that Adult Service ads are banned, you can expect all those hard-working gals to pack up their condoms and lubricants and enroll in secretarial school.

Alas, we fear that — despite the best intentions of 17 state attorneys general desperately trying to get re-elected — a ban on Adult Services won’t quite put an end to adult-oriented advertising on Craigslist.

May 24, 2010

Racy archaeology

Filed under: Economics, Europe, History — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 18:45

The theory is that these coins were created to ease language barriers between non-Latin speaking customers in brothels and the (often non-Latin speaking) prostitutes:

This is a spintria. They were used in ancient Rome to request and pay for different “services” in brothels and from prostitutes on the street. Since there were a lot of foreigners coming to the city that did not speak the language and most of the prostitutes were slaves captured from other places the coins made the transactions easy and efficient. One side of these coins showed what the buyer wanted and the other showed the amount of money to be paid for the act.

[. . .]

They may have been used to pay prostitutes, who at times spoke a different language. While this is subject to argument, the numbers on them line up with known prices for Roman prostitutes (University of Queensland reference). Some theorize them gaming tokens, and they may have been produced for only a short period, probably in the 1st century A.D.

So, either an innovative solution to an ongoing economic problem, or the Roman equivalent to the nudie card decks of the 1940s and 50s.

Images at the link. H/T to Radley Balko for the URL.

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