\\jciprod01\productn\H\HLG\35-2\HLG201.txt unknown Seq: 1 11-MAY-12 9:44 NO END IN SIGHT: WHY THE “END DEMAND” MOVEMENT IS THE WRONG FOCUS FOR EFFORTS TO ELIMINATE HUMAN TRAFFICKING STEPHANIE M. BERGER* Introduction .................................................... 524 R I. Framing the Discussion: The Feminist Debates ............ 527 R A. What is Prostitution? Perspectives Behind Different Legal Frameworks for Sex Work ...................... 528 R B. What is Human Trafficking? .......................... 533 R 1. International and U.S. Law Set the Definition of Trafficking ...................................... 534 R 2. The Problem with Conflating Prostitution and Trafficking ...................................... 537 R II. The Rise of End Demand Legal Reform ................... 539 R A. What is Demand? ................................... 539 R 1. Who Buys Sex? .................................. 539 R 2. Do Sex Buyers Drive Sex Trafficking? ............. 542 R B. Legal Frameworks and Programs that Punish Demand . 544 R 1. Legal Frameworks Embracing End Demand Efforts Without Criminalizing the Actual Buying and Selling of Sex .......................................... 544 R 2. Criminalizing the Buyers and Decriminalizing the Sellers: The Swedish Model ...................... 548 R 3. Growing Use of John Schools and Other Shaming Methods to Curb Demand ........................ 550 R III. The End Demand Movement Gains Traction in the U.S. .... 554 R A. U.S. Federal Law’s Enshrining of End Demand Ideals . 554 R B. End Demand Efforts End Legal Sex Work in Rhode Island .............................................. 558 R C. New Trafficking Law in Massachusetts Focuses Extensively on Ending Demand for Prostitution ........ 560 R * J.D. Candidate, Harvard Law School, Class of 2013. I would like to thank Profes- sor Janet Halley for her support and inspiration. Thanks also to Professor Halley’s Fall 2011 Trafficking & Labor Migration seminar and Professor Catharine MacKinnon’s Fall 2011 Sex Equality class. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Lisa Kelly, Anne Gallagher, and Professors Aziza Ahmed and Ummni Khan for their invaluable sugges- tions and contributions to my research. Finally, thanks to the fantastic staff of the Harvard Journal of Law & Gender for its hard work, dedication, and support, without which this Article could not have been possible. \\jciprod01\productn\H\HLG\35-2\HLG201.txt unknown Seq: 2 11-MAY-12 9:44 524 Harvard Journal of Law & Gender [Vol. 35 IV. Demanding an End to the Rhetoric: Recommendations for a More Productive Approach to Reducing Trafficking and Improving the Lives of Sex Workers ....................... 564 R A. Fighting Fire with Fire: The Need for Work Position Feminists to Respond Directly to End Demand Strategies ........................................... 565 R B. Refocusing the Lens: Moving Away from the Abolition Versus Decriminalization Debate Toward Real Progress ............................................ 566 R Conclusion ..................................................... 569 R INTRODUCTION There is no dispute that human trafficking is a pervasive problem. The International Labor Organization and the United States State Department es- timate that there are more than 12 million people in “forced labor and sexual servitude” worldwide.1 The State Department estimates that between 14,500 and 17,500 people are trafficked into the United States annually.2 Sex traf- ficking, specifically, undoubtedly occurs in the United States—all one needs to do is read the local newspaper to find horrific accounts of women and children3 enslaved and abused in major cities across the country.4 However, 1 U.S. DEP’TOF STATE, BUREAU OF PUB. AFFAIRS, TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS: COER- CION IN A TIME OF ECONOMIC CRISIS (2009), available at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/scp/ fs/2009/124871.htm. 2 U.S. DEP’TOF STATE, TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS REPORT 23 (June 2004), available at http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/34158.pdf. 3 This Article focuses on trafficking of adult women. Although men and transgender people are also trafficked, the majority of data and scholarship available pertains to the trafficking of women and children. See, e.g., Aziza Ahmed, Feminism, Power, and Sex Work in the Context of HIV/AIDS: Consequences for Women’s Health, 34 HARV. J.L. & GENDER 225, 240 (2011) (describing the relative “invisibility of transgender and male sex workers”). This Article therefore reserves commentary on male and transgender sex workers for future scholarship. In addition, although the Author acknowledges that large numbers of children are trafficked for both labor and sex work worldwide, this Article focuses on adult women under the assumption that all sex work by children is forced. However, the possibility of voluntary sex work by adult women can and has been debated: Although both adult and child prostitution are part of the commercial sex sector and have strong economic and social foundations, the position on child prostitu- tion is unequivocal, whereas there could be different considerations for adult pros- titution. Children are victims of prostitution, whereas adults could choose sex work as an occupation. International conventions all treat child prostitution as an unacceptable form of forced labour; the goal is its total elimination. In the case of adults, the position is less obvious because it is possible to make a distinction between enforced and voluntary prostitution. INT’L LABOUR ORG., THE SEX SECTOR: THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL BASES OF PROSTITU- TION IN SOUTHEAST ASIA 211 (Lin Lean Lim ed., 1998). 4 See, e.g., Editorial, Senate should move ahead on greater penalties for pimps, BOS- TON GLOBE, June 21, 2011, at A10 (describing the arrest of a Dorchester man for “ab- ducting a 15-year-old girl and forcing her into prostitution”); David Chanen, Woodbury \\jciprod01\productn\H\HLG\35-2\HLG201.txt unknown Seq: 3 11-MAY-12 9:44 2012] No End in Sight 525 there is no way to know exactly how many trafficking victims in general and sex trafficking victims specifically exist in the United States, in part due to the United States’ problematic conflation of human trafficking and prostitu- tion.5 This conflation has enshrined the ideals of abolitionist feminists, who believe that prostitution is inherently coercive and abusive, and has refused to acknowledge the pro-work position that views prostitution on a spectrum including both forced and voluntary sex work.6 Abolitionist ideals have most recently taken hold in End Demand efforts, which focus on criminaliz- ing, punishing, and shaming men who buy sex as purported solutions to both prostitution and human trafficking.7 This Article takes a pro-work position and aims to demonstrate the potential harms of End Demand policies. It also proposes more productive methods for addressing human trafficking in the United States. Part I of this Article examines the fundamental feminist debates over prostitution and human trafficking. It looks at the abolitionist versus pro- work positions regarding prostitution and discusses how those viewpoints have informed the development of international and U.S. definitions of traf- ficking. It then discusses the problem of conflating prostitution and all forms of trafficking when attempting to develop a framework for dealing with sex trafficking and labor migration. Part II.A examines End Demand laws and programs, beginning with a discussion of conflicting studies on whether men who buy sex are disproportionately deviant, violent, and abu- sive. It argues that sex trafficking cannot be reduced to a simple supply and demand equation, but rather that sex trafficking requires complex analysis man gets 11 years in sex trafficking case, MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIB., Jan. 13, 2012, http:// www.startribune.com/local/east/137292453.html (describing the conviction of a man for interstate sex trafficking); Elizabeth Aguilera, Human trafficking on the rise in border region, SAN DIEGO UNION TRIB., Jan. 12, 2012, http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/ jan/12/human-trafficking-on-the-rise-in-border-region (describing a rise in women traf- ficked from Mexico to the U.S.); Annie Sweeney, Bolingbrook man charged in sex traf- ficking case, CHICAGO TRIB., Jan. 3, 2012, http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-01-03/ news/chi-bolingbrook-man-charged-in-sex-trafficking-case-20120103_1_bolingbrook- man-trafficking-case-federal-charges (describing a man who has been arrested for forcing a 17-year-old to work in the sex trade). 5 See infra Part I.B.2. 6 See infra Part I.A. This Article uses the terms “sex work” and “prostitution” fairly interchangeably, with “sex work” favored out of respect for the preference of many sex worker rights organizations. See, e.g., GLOBAL ALLIANCE AGAINST TRAFFIC IN WOMEN, MOVING BEYOND ‘SUPPLY AND DEMAND’ CATCHPHRASES: ASSESSING THE USES AND LIMI- TATIONS OF DEMAND-BASED APPROACHES IN ANTI-TRAFFICKING 11 (2011), available at http://www.gaatw.org/publications/MovingBeyond_SupplyandDemand_GAATW2011. pdf [hereinafter GAATW MOVING BEYOND CATCHPHRASES] (discussing the preference for the term “sex work” over “prostitution”). Where appropriate, however, “prostitu- tion” is used for clarity or to preserve the language used by the position or organization being discussed. In addition, although this Article seeks to acknowledge that sex work exists on a spectrum and that many women who enter the sex trade do so because of undesirable and often dire circumstances including extreme poverty, see infra Part I.A, this Article sometimes uses