Proposed Federal Trafficking Legislation Has Surprising Opponents: Advocates Who Work With Trafficking Victims (InJusticeToday)
Read the full article by Melissa Gira Grant on InJusticeToday.com
The legislation is meant to protect victims of sex trafficking, but many advocates who work directly with people who have been trafficked oppose both bills. “They think that shutting down any online platform is going to miraculously end human trafficking,” Jessica Peñaranda, director of strategic initiatives at the Sex Workers’ Project, told In Justice Today. “They think it’s an easy way to do this.” But real solutions aren’t so easy, she says.
The position she and other advocates are voicing against SESTA and FOSTA is one that tends to get drowned out. Typically, high-profile anti-trafficking lobbying groups that lead the charge for federal legislation, such as World Without Exploitation (led by former Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Lauren Hersh), or Christian right groups like the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (formerly known as Morality in Media), oppose not only sex trafficking but sex work itself.
[...]
Sex work and trafficking are not the same thing, LeMoon and other advocates explain. At different points in their lives, some people choose sex work or are forced into sex work, or do sex work because they have few other choices. Like LeMoon, some people who have been trafficked may also use Backpage to advertise independently as sex workers. If Backpage closes down, they and other sex workers could be pushed into more dangerous situations.
[...]
Megan Mattimoe, executive director and staff attorney at Advocating Opportunity, which assisted 150 victims of trafficking this past year, says she has seen Backpage provide information about trafficking victims captured in ads along with data on advertisers to aid in prosecutions. “In our cases,” she says, “Backpage not only complied with prosecutors’ requests, but they would also send someone to trial to testify that those business records were authentic.” Since Backpage closed its adult advertising section in January 2017, Mattimoe says, her organization has seen “victims advertised on sites housed outside the U.S.,” where federal prosecutors have neither subpoena power nor Backpage’s cooperation.