perfessor multigeek's Journal: Sex Slaves: What Should We Be Doing?

So, women (and a few boys) being kept and sold as sex slaves is an expanding modern plague. Economies and law enforcement from the Ukraine to Chiapas have collapsed, cheap travel and communications make trafficking much easier, and an anonymous society leaves plenty of cracks in which the repulsive creatures who run such operations can operate.
As in the Victorian era, we are engulfed in a vast wave of public self-righteousness disguising a riptide of exploitative vice.

And, as usual, the Times misses several key aspects, from the implications for creation of drug-resistant strains of AIDS to the warping of entire economies, from that of towns to that of Thailand.

Wow, that was fun; do ya feel all morally outraged and superior now?


That's nice. Goody for you.

So, limiting yourself to things that can actually get funded (both administratively and able to get voted in by the appropriate legislatures) and including rough estimates of cost and timelines, what can we do about it?

Keep in mind that historically, approaches to prostitution that do not address reducing demand usually work about as well as localized enforcement of drug laws. All they do is move the problem about and undercut the credibility, morale, and effectiveness of law enforcement. Also, increased penalties (again, as with drug laws) only go so far towards reducing demand.

Ideas built around private organizations with realistic funding (say, ten million dollars and under) are fine but keep in mind that government will probably be antagonistic to whatever you do unless you can find a way to give them most of the credit, which will usually then dry up your funding.

And one last thing. What do we do for all those hundreds of thousands of emotionally crippled and unwanted women, boys, and girls left stranded by all of this should such rings be successfully prosecuted or otherwise dispersed? Remember that "mainstreaming" such victims doesn't tend to work well unless carefully managed and that they have been deeply shredded in terms of their ability to exercise initiative.

Go to it,

Rustin

Prostitution has same solution as drugs

[Sloppy]

Legalize, deregulate, etc. Wal-Mart could run the pimps right out of business. They'll get the girls down to working for $7 per hour, while Wal-Mart takes a 2% markup.

Then the question just becomes: where, inside of the store, do you put the brothel? By the gardening section? Or by the checkouts, to encourage impulse quickies? (e.g. "Oh yeah, I just remembered I need some gum, batteries, a BJ, a copy of The Weekly World News, and some marijuana cigarrettes. Oh damn, that puts me over 20 items. I gu

Re:Prostitution has same solution as drugs

[perfessor multigeek]

Would this mean that MIT could finally get open public funding for those Real Girl mods I keep hearing they are working on up there?
Would that be under DARPA, Commerce, or Health, Education, and Welfare?

Rustin

Hmm...

[Planesdragon]

So, limiting yourself to things that can actually get funded (both administratively and able to get voted in by the appropriate legislatures) and including rough estimates of cost and timelines, what can we do about it?

Well, legislatively:

* Make slavery--buying, selling, or owning--a capital offense. If a given country doesn't have the death penalty, fine--lock the slaver up in prison forever, or deport them to the US--whatever. Slavery is at least as bad a crime as murder.

* Reduce prostition to a low

the open source philosophy

[js7a]

Sex wants to be free? Just kidding.

I generally believe that legalizaton of prostitution would cut significantly into sex slavery. The devil is in the details, though, because in some ways it might make it easier and perhaps more prevalent. There will always be more than a few so-called perverts who want whatever they aren't supposed to have, for no other reason than that they fetishize the forbidden. Lots of people, e.g., most teenagers, do that to some extent.

It will be interesting to read about the u

Excellent Question

[NixLuver]

I think that the problem lies with the fact that it's much 'better', even for the 'johns', when it's illegal. If prostitution is legal, and prostitutes are registered, where would the illuminaries of our society go? The mayors, the councilment, the congressmen, etc? Inasmuch as such liasons are verboten, it's tougher to find out such is going on. If there are registered prostitutes, it simply becomes a problem of staking out the prostitute's location while fishing for profitable news fare.

The solution is a

Covert "ACTION"

[perfessor multigeek]

But don't call girls already work out of huge hotels like Marriotts? I was under the impression that prostitution has long known many ways to obscure/obfuscate/generally foobar money trails and locations.

I would like to think that legalization and "healthy outlook" go hand in hand, with each encouraging and strengthening the other.

But I do see your point. How about the kind of thing they already do in places like Nevada, where prostitutes are required to be subjected to medical exams and registration but