A Short History of Sexual Slavery

ally uncovered and the 1990’s saw several legal proceedings seeking A Short History of compensation for the victims. At first denying any govern- ment knowledge or complicity in the scheme, Japan eventually Sexual Slavery issued what many victims thought February 1, 2007 - - TheCityEdition.com science of New England abolition- to be a lame apology. It also es- This article is included in the anthology ist Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose tablished a small, first come-first Sexual Enslavement of Girls and Women served “Asian Women’s Fund”. Worldwide (2009). Uncle Tom’s Cabin helped ignite BY ROSEMARY REGELLO the Civil War. The Philippines likewise allocated some money to help a number of erodotus and other By the turn of the 20th century, its own women who had suf- ancient historians a white slave trade had sprung fered all their lives, many in silent tell us the Greeks up in Europe and North America, shame. But the vast majority of were famous for involving thousands of young victims and their families have carting off young women who were transported yet to receive any compensation women after battles. The human as sex slaves, often to Mexico. for being raped hundreds, even booty was consigned to lives of The White-Slave Traffic Act of H thousands of times. servitude, either as concubines or 1910 was adopted to prosecute In 1949, another treaty out- domestic servants. the criminals. Better known as lawing trafficking in women was In Rome, at the height of its the Mann Act, the F.B.I. has been adopted by the international com- far-flung empire, one in every using it ever since to prosecute munity. Remarkably, the United three persons is thought to have anyone who transports a prosti- States was among the few coun- been a slave. While enslaved men tute across state lines. The crime tries that refused to ratify it. toiled as laborers, girls and wom- is known as domestic trafficking. In the 1970’s, the U.S. military en were more likely to be chan- Across the Atlantic, European tossed its trousers into the sex neled into entertainment avenues. feminists began raising hell over trade when Secretary of Defense It’s interesting to note that a century ago because so many of Robert McNamara arranged for prior to 4000 B.C., or what has their own governments had been cities in Thailand and elsewhere been dubbed “pre-history”, implicated in sex slavery schemes. to establish brothels. These busi- evidence of sexual servitude and International treaties were adopt- nesses were specifically set up to slavery are largely absent from the ed in 1904, 1910, and 1925 outlaw- handle thousands of U.S. service- artifacts of human culture. Fol- ing the trade in women. men on leave from fighting in lowing the Indo-Aryan invasions During World War II, the Japa- Vietnam. Naturally, it was un- into the Near East at around that nese army surpassed the inhu- derstood that the women in these time, evidence suggests that the manity of even the ancient Greeks ventures were to be paid and not temple sexual rites common to when it enslaved a quarter million forcibly enscripted. the Neolithic Age were converted women in sex camps to service After the first Gulf War in into a practice far less consensual its soldiers. The women came 1991, the New York Times reported and now involved the payment from Korea, China, Burma, the on a navy fleet as it dropped of money. Hence, the business of Phillipines and Indonesia. About anchor at Pataya, Thailand, which prostitution was born, not of pros- half died from injuries, illness and had maintained its sprawling sex titutes, but of pimps. starvation at the hands of their work operation over the decades. During the African slave trade, captors. Thousands of Thai girls were already well underway by the 13th Unlike the concentration waiting as American servicemen century, women fetched prices camps in Europe, however, disembarked from their ships, much higher than that of men. In the plight of the jugun ianfu, or each provisioned with a supply the 19th century, the sexual ap- comfort women, went largely of taxpayer-funded condoms . petite of the southern plantation unreported in the media. Gen- Tipped off in advance about what owner here in the United States eral MacArthur classified official was to come, some U.S. military also figured into the picture, and documents implicating Japan to wives showed up in Pataya as this abomination, perhaps more avoid any bad press or public well. than any other, stirred the con- outcry back in the United States. continued Some of the material was eventu- McNamara’s sex work venture routinely swapped details about including the United States under proved so lucrative for all parties their experiences (sharing even the Clinton Administration. concerned that he brought the the particulars about individual However, Congress made an business model with him when he prostitutes) over the internet. end-around the treaty by adopting served as president of the World At the same time, demand for its own legislation, the Trafficking Bank from 1968 to 1981. Research- trafficked foreign women within Victims Protection Act (TVPA), ers investigating child prostitution the United States increased in that same year. Whereas the inter- claimed the bank’s revamped loan step with aggressive advertising national treaty states that con- requirements effectively trans- in so-called alternative weekly sent of the victim is irrelevant in formed the downtown sectors of newspapers. Prior to the 1980’s, trafficking, TVPA created a giant many developing countries into prostitute ads had been mostly loophole for traffickers by requir- red-light districts. confined to low-circulation, X- ing prosecutors to prove “force, The objective of sex tourism rated newspapers that cost money fraud or coercion” with regard to is to entice men in western coun- to buy. That all changed when the prostituted women. tries to visit places not normally Larry Flint and other purveyors of Predictably, federal prosecu- included on the Club Med circuit. pornography successfully argued tors have since complained that The foreign exchange generated that the Bill of Rights trumped proving force is nearly impossible, from these excursions allows local ordinances banning sexually since most trafficked women are debtor nations to pay back their explicit content. foreigners who entered the coun- loans to the international banks In Western Europe, the market try illegally and are considered more rapidly. for sex slaves skyrocketed with criminally liable themselves. A Seeming to dovetail with this the collapse of the Soviet Bloc in special visa enabling a victim to new initiative were other stipula- 1991. This was the first time since remain in the United States in ex- tions that required loan recipients the white slave trade of the 19th change for her testimony against to appropriate vast tracts of land century that huge numbers of traffickers, on the other hand, for the purpose of establishing Caucasian women were bought enables defense attorneys to argue factories operated by foreign com- and sold for the purpose of sex. that the women are lying for their panies. The loss of their land, in In Japan, corporations began own personal gain. turn, forced rural families to leave offering all-expense-paid sex tour- Still, the Bush Administration their farms and move to the cities, ism junkets to Taiwan as a perk to claims it has secured over 100 con- where demand for prostitutes to their executive personnel. victions under TVPA in the last six was high. Around this time, broth- years. Yet none of the 45 suspects In the 1990s, the mushrooming els also became big business in arrested in highly publicized 2005 sex trade worldwide caught the Israel. Owners were importing so brothel raids in California were attention of nonprofit groups, who many trafficked women from the prosecuted for trafficking. set up networks and mustered Ukraine and elsewhere in Eastern Since 2000, prostitution scan- their forces to try and slow its Europe that it prompted stories in dals involving U.N. peacekeeping expansion. the New York Times and on NBC’s troops and defense contractors In New York, a feminist group Dateline. have been plentiful. In Liberia, called Equality Now began bad- In response, the United States U.N. administrators were impli- gering the state’s district attorney and the Netherlands jointly cated in a scam where food aid to prosecute a sex tourism com- funded a media campaign to warn was used to force girls and wom- pany called Big Apple Oriental women in the affected countries en into servicing peacekeeping Tours. Although the first case about scam employment offers troops and local businessmen. was dismissed by a judge in 1993, and other ruses to disguise the In 2002, an employee of Dyn- the group persisted, and a second debt bondage schemes. cap Corp. testified to Congress prosecution eventually put the An international conference in that fellow workers in Bosnia company out of business. Vienna in 1996 called for tougher had bought girls to keep in their Big Apple was one of many sanctions, and in 2000, the Con- homes as sex slaves. Regardless, outfits arranging sex tours for vention against Transnational the company went on to receive a men to the Phillipines, the Domin- Organized Crime was adopted. no-bid contract the following year ican Republic, Thailand, India and About 80 nations signed and rati- to provide law enforcement and Sri Lanka, among other destina- fied the new treaty - also known prison operations in post-conflict tions. After their trips, customers as the Palermo Protocols - Iraq..

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