People Are Not For Sale

By Angela Tooley

It was a few years ago when I first heard the term – sex trafficking.

What? People taken and used as sex slaves?  Modern day slavery in a country that outlawed slavery over 150 years ago?

Sadly, this is the horribly true reality.

How did this happen?  What are the conditions that allow such a monster to exist?  Well let’s just start with the Super Bowl. A “market” drives demand for prostitutes every year in each Super Bowl city. For this reason,

January is Human Trafficking Awareness Month.

As I’m learning more it is heart breaking to me that children and adults are trafficked for sexual exploitation and forced labor. It happens through the means of force, abduction, fraud or coercion. It is indeed modern-day slavery as criminals profit from controlling and dehumanizing human beings. This trafficking exists in every corner of our country and throughout the world.

So how does pornography play a part in sex trafficking? The links between pornography and sex trafficking are undeniable.

  • Pornography is used as a “tool” to train young children and women so that they will “know” what to do in performing sex acts.
  • Pornography users often seek to act out what they have viewed in porn.
  • Pimps are operating more and more online as it becomes easier to connect with potential buyers and to remain anonymous. Most social media sites including Facebook and Snapchat as well as classified ad sites like Craigslist and the infamous Backpage have become “virtual brothels” where one can quickly find prostituted women and children to engage in sex acts.
  • As addictions to pornography increase, users seek more and more disturbing and violent material.
  • Porn users do not and cannot distinguish between trafficked women, prostitutes, and porn stars. [1]

All of these things fuel pornography and in turn fuel the global sex trade by driving demand into mainstream society. One should never ever think that viewing pornography is harmless.

Pornography is prostitution on screen.

The onscreen image is a human being, someone who is a daughter or son, a sister or brother. There is no excuse to allow trafficking to exist because

PEOPLE ARE NOT FOR SALE.

[1] The National Center on Sexual Exploitation. (2011, April 19). Talking Points: Porn & Trafficking. Retrieved from Porn Harms Research: http://pornharmsresearch.com/2011/04/trafficking/