Anyways! As some of you know, I've been working on a research paper on human trafficking for my Sociology class at Carthage. At the beginning of the semester, we were able to pick any topic to research by using interviews, surveys, observation, experiments, and "scholarly" articles. Since I was already researching human trafficking with Cara, I asked my professor if I could write my paper on it. Being an advocate for victims of sexual and domestic abuse herself, she was more than willing to let me do so!
So, as part of my research, I posted a survey on Facebook about human trafficking. My goal in the survey was to find out what people know about human trafficking, and how informed people are on the issue. I received a total of 70 responses from people in the US, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, England, Scotland, and Switzerland. How cool! Looking back at the results, I wish I would've made two separate surveys for those who are living in the States and for those who are not. I would've been interested to see the level of awareness in the US compared to other places. Unfortunately, I didn't think that far ahead!
So with all that being said, I wanted to post some of the survey results for you guys to see. I was pleasantly surprised at the number of people that are aware, or at least somewhat aware, of what sex trafficking is.
- When asked if they knew what human trafficking was, 80% responded with a confident "yes," while roughly 18% responded with "somewhat" and 2% responded with "no."
- When asked to give a definition of sex trafficking, the answers were all over the place (and with good reason!) Even so, most people were able to give an accurate explanation of what sex trafficking is.
- When asked where they first heard of human trafficking, 44% of people said "the news" and 37% said "the movie Taken or other movie/TV show."
- When asked where sex trafficking occurs most, 21% of people responded with "other", to which their answers ranged from "everywhere" to "I have no idea." The second highest response was a tie between North America and Thailand at 17%.
- When asked what age group sex trafficking effected the most, 64% responded with "13-17" and 24% responded with "7-12."
- This last question's results were the most interesting to me, and I'm so glad I decided to include this question. I asked what the differences between prostitution and trafficking are. Because this question was short answer, I don't have a percentage, but an overwhelming amount of people considered prostitution to be a choice, while stating that human trafficking is obviously not the choice of the victim. I understand why people would think this; there is a horrible stigma that most cultures associate with prostitution, and understandably so. However, through our research, we have discovered that 9 times out of 10, if given an alternative, a prostitute would escape. I think back to the quote from "The Johns Next Door" that I posted the other day:
"Prostitution is like jumping from a burning building - you could say they made their choice to jump, but you could also say they had no choice."
Through all of my research thus far, this is one of the things that has stood out to me the most. The majority of prostitutes do not choose to sell their bodies just for fun. Women who enter into prostitution are almost always forced in one way or another, whether a pimp is literally forcing them or because it is their desperate attempt to stay alive somehow. Melissa Farley, author of "Prostitution, Trafficking, and Traumatic Stress" puts it this way: "There is a virtual dictionary of lies that conceal the harm of prostitution: voluntary prostitution, words that imply that she consented when in fact, almost always, she had no other survival options than prostitution." Obviously this is not the case for every women who gets into prostitution, but it is fact that most people are unaware of. These women do not need our stigmas and our judgement. They need compassion, and, like the rest of us, they need Christ.
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