If you’re not addressing demand, you’re not actually fighting trafficking…
“Are you telling me that men are paying to rape vulnerable people and that other men are profiting from the transaction?” I asked my friend Esther. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m telling you,” she responded. We were sitting in Esther’s office as she explained sex trafficking to me in a way that was clear, but oddly technical; the jargon she used felt detached and clinical. Seeking clarification, I stopped her with that blunt question and was shocked by her simple answer that yes, sex trafficking is the rape of vulnerable people for profit and it is usually men who are doing the exploiting and the profiting.
“Sex trafficking is the rape of vulnerable people for profit and it is usually men who are doing the exploiting and the profiting. ”
Esther Nelson-Garrett has been recognized as a national leader in the trauma-informed care of victims of both domestic violence and commercial sexual exploitation, which is the technical term for sex trafficking for more than two decades. She has been a friend and mentor to Epik Project since its inception.
At the time of that conversation, I knew that kids were being trafficked and that there were bad guys out there who had to be stopped, but I couldn’t understand how sex trafficking could happen on the scale it was happening. Esther’s explanations made it clear to me that men created the demand for sex trafficking. Her long, patient friendship in this work, along with dozens of other women, (survivors and advocates alike) have taught us at Epik Project that this demand won’t end until better men show up with equal clarity and conviction to disrupt and dismantle it.
It has been nearly 15 years since that conversation with Esther and we have learned so much. We have watched the anti-trafficking movement shift and grow in many positive ways. Vital changes have come about from community awareness to policy. However, after all this time, one thing has become clear to me; if you’re not addressing demand, you’re not fighting sex trafficking.
Now, you may be providing life-saving resources to victims, training law enforcement on effective operational techniques, or drafting effective legislative frameworks, but if you’re not also actively engaged - directly or at least in a practical and supportive way - with demand reduction efforts, you can’t make any legitimate claim to actually “fighting” sex trafficking.
The fact is this; sex trafficking is a supply and demand business system that exploits vulnerable people; these people are the supply for men’s demand and any legitimate claim to be fighting sex trafficking has to take seriously the need to address this reality.
In 2017 the Federal government created the National Advisory Committee on The Sex Trafficking of Youth and Children (NAC). Their mandate was to advise the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Attorney General of the United States on practical policies to improve the nation’s collective response to the sexual exploitation of our most vulnerable. Epik Project Board member JR Ujifusa has chaired this committee since its inception. A report released by the committee in 2017 contained 127 specific recommendations in 9 different categories, all of which represent best practices for a comprehensive community response to the issue of human trafficking. Sitting in the number eight category, for which Epik Project provided input, is demand reduction. The recommendations are unambiguous:
“Comprehensive response models to address sex trafficking must include efforts to reduce demand. Buyers of sex may be among all levels of society, including within the systems and political arena charged to respond to this issue. Therefore, developing, implementing, and enforcing meaningful practices to address demand may face resistance. Raising awareness and a zero-tolerance policy demonstrated by high-level leadership toward those who engage in commercial sex acts with children and youth are the first steps toward implementation.
Proactive implementation of demand reduction efforts may disrupt demand at the point of sale. Examples of efforts to reduce demand at the point of sale include:
Cyber patrols
Illicit massage industry initiatives
Internet and social media outreach
Street-level initiatives, including initiatives at major events that potentially increase demand
In addition, prosecution and diversionary programs may be used to hold buyers accountable and assert that states and communities will not tolerate or normalize the purchasing of sex with children and youth. Such programs focus on the root causes of gender-based violence, educating offenders on the realities of sex trafficking, healthy relationships, treatment for sex offenders, and the legal and public health risks of purchasing sex.”
And yet somehow these considerations are often left out of the public conversation concerning solutions to reduce human trafficking.
Recently, I was invited to Washington DC to meet with senators and representatives along with several federal officials about demand. The trip began with a large convening of NGOs and leaders from around the country. We gathered in a Senate hearing room at the US capital and were briefed for two hours by a parade of legislators. The representatives gave encouraging reports on the progress on things like victim services law enforcement investigations and prosecution tools. All of this was followed by another hour of roundtable conversation with the gathered NGOs.
While it was encouraging to hear about these important efforts, I was also equally discouraged that throughout the convening, no mention was made of the demand that makes all this legislative effort necessary. Thankfully Epik Project, along with our partners at the National Center for Sexual Exploitation and the Coalition Against the Trafficking of Women were able to have follow-up meetings with both congressional and agency leaders to encourage the legislators to raise their awareness of the demand issue. Nevertheless, this experience showed me that even on a broad, national level the “demand” conversation continues to be something many would prefer to avoid.
Instead, the current preference appears to be for stories, real or fictionalized, of dramatic jungle rescues or social media-worthy “gotcha” stings where the bad guy gets busted by the brave and brawny cops. While there’s nothing wrong whatsoever with honest, effective police work or true, lasting restoration for victims, there is so much more to the story than the hero trope.
If all we ever do is celebrate the action heroes and grieve for the victims, but never question the circumstances that created the need for the one and the suffering of the other, what are we really doing?
Why did we need a hero in the first place? What situations are occurring in our communities that are leaving the most vulnerable among us to become victims? Is it enough to simply punish the pimps and traffickers? Are the pimps and traffickers the real villains of this story or are they simply opportunistic entrepreneurs who know a money-making scheme when they see one? Would they even have an opportunity to exploit if it were not for the demand?
My brother-in-law Paul is an experienced cancer researcher at a world-renowned institution in the Midwest. While others are developing helpful medications and therapies to help cancer victims deal with the symptoms of the disease, every day Paul is diligently looking at the deadly threat under a microscope, looking for ways to stop cancer at the root. The demand of men to purchase sex from vulnerable people is the root of the problem. It’s the cancer in need of a cure.
When I think of Paul and the work he is doing I am also reminded of author and scholar Gail Dines, who I once had an opportunity to meet at an event she was speaking at. During her talk, she spoke about the trauma of sexual exploitation and we chatted briefly afterward about the work of Epik Project. Brilliant and intense, Gail poked her finger in my chest and said, “sex trafficking is a problem in the hearts of men and until we deal with that, the best we can hope for is to get good at treating victims and punishing the victimizers, and that’s not good enough!”
What she said not only resonated with me, but it also took me back to those early conversations with Esther and I know that Esther would agree with Gail. Treating victims and punishing traffickers is indeed, not enough.
There are many lanes within the anti-trafficking movement as a whole. All of them are vital in responding to the issue, whether it is by supporting survivors, facilitating safety planning, influencing policy, or any other number of efforts. However, without addressing demand, we’re not actually fighting trafficking.
