Combating Sex TraffickingEssay Preview: Combating Sex TraffickingReport this essayCombating Sex Trafficking:Advancing Freedom for Women and GirlsDonna M. HughesProfessor and Carlson Endowed ChairWomens Studies Program, University of Rhode IslandKeynote AddressNortheast Womens Studies Association Annual ConferenceUniversity of Massachusetts DartmouthMarch 5, 2005Activist ScholarshipI have always considered Womens Studies to be the academic arm of the Womens Liberation Movement. I have pursued my research and scholarship with the goal of advancing womens freedom and equality.
I have done work on women and science, but my most activist scholarship has been on the trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and girls. My goals have been to document the violence against women that is inherent in sex trafficking, analyze the factors that cause and contribute to this complex system of violence and exploitation, raise the consciousness of concerned citizens about sex trafficking in their neighborhoods and around the world, and engage law and policy makers to create new remedies to assist victims and hold perpetrators accountable.
I have conducted research projects on sex trafficking in Ukraine, Russia, the U.S. and South Korea, and the use of new information technologies, particularly the Internet, to traffic women and girls in Europe, Cambodia, and the United States. I have researched the involvement of mail-order-bride agencies in the trafficking of women in the countries of the former Soviet Union. And I have been involved in contemporary theoretical and policy debates on sex trafficking and prostitution.
The term “sex trafficking” replaces the term “white slave trade” used at the turn of the 20th century. When feminists in the second wave of the womens movement again took up the work against trafficking, they used the word as an umbrella concept to encompass all practices of buying and selling women and childrens bodies. According to Dorchen Leidholdt, one of the early activist lawyers against commercial sexual exploitation:
“Trafficking, as we understood it, included American pornography, temple prostitution in India, military prostitution in the Philippines, street prostitution in Peru, and sex tourism from Europe to Asia.”
Now, the term “trafficking” has been narrowed by legislation, a U.N. Protocol, and common usage, so that one must now say sex trafficking, prostitution, and pornography to be comprehensive.
I got involved in anti-trafficking work in the late 1980s and for ten years all the work I did was of the sort you can do with no money. I included material on trafficking in the courses I taught, participate in conferences, and wrote papers based on data that can be collected with few resources.
Researching Trafficking in a Sexist Culture and Authoritarian Political SystemIn 1998 and 1999, the U.S. government awarded the first grants for research on trafficking and I was a recipient of two of them. One was to research the trafficking of women and girls into the United States and the other one was to research the trafficking of women from Ukraine.
The National Institute of Justices joint research project with Ukrainian researchers was a unique and educational experience. It was the first time that NIJ funded a joint research project with international research partners. I learned a lot about the trafficking of women from Ukraine, and I also learned a lot about conducting research in a sexist culture and authoritarian system.
In Ukraine, I found myself immersed in a culture with deeply sexist beliefs about womens nature, behavior, and motivation. Still following Soviet ideology, national interest was considered more important than individual rights. I learned how blatant corruption and authoritarianism can be.
When I questioned police, government officials, and academic experts about trafficking, the responses I got often left me wondering if I was researching the trafficking of women or the manifestations of sexism.
I was told that the reason so many women were being trafficking from Ukraine was because Ukraine had the most beautiful women in the world, so it was not surprising that they would be in so much demand for prostitution all over the world. I was reminded of the lyrics to the Beatles song “Back in the USSR:” “Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out. They leave the west behind.”
Several academics and officials said that the disappearance or migration of so many beautiful women was a threat to Ukraines gene pool – the collective DNA of the nation. They were afraid that only the ugly women were going to be left behind to breed in Ukraine.
I was told that so many women had gone abroad, with the assumption that many of them were trafficked, that villages were left without young women and children. The problem was so severe in places that elementary schools were closing for lack of young students. If the trend continued, one can see this as a demographic problem. The Ukrainians considered this to be a looming national disaster. Since Im always thinking of solutions to problems I wondered if I was going to have to recommend that women should stay home and have babies.
A number of the male experts I spoke to believed that trafficking didnt really exist. Most believed that women went abroad voluntarily to be in prostitution and made a lot of money.
When one academic expert told me this, I pointed out to him that Ukrainian victims had been identified in the Balkans. He countered by saying that these women just claimed to be victims so that they would receive free travel expenses from NGOs to return home.
At the end of these conversations or interviews I was often left wondering whether I was studying sexism or trafficking.In this project, I was matched with an excellent Ukrainian researcher by the name of Tatyana Denisova. She was head of the criminal law department at Zaporozhye State University and was the highest ranking woman – a colonel in the Ukrainian militia or police force. She was able to use her extensive contacts among police to get us good information and interviews. We were the only woman-only research team and we worked well together, so much so, I think we became a threat to the head Ukrainian administrator who was promoting the researchers he controlled. I got some lessons
I was told about the story by other colleagues and my former research group. The information was of great interest to her, so I wanted nothing to do with it.When I contacted the man who was behind the prostitution ring, he told me that only he could tell me what I was looking for. I did not care, because I knew what I was looking for. And this was how it came right out of nowhere.After getting a very serious interview with our new Russian researcher, I was told that I should stay with a friend who works in Ukraine, so I went to see him at his farm. I went home and I met his new client. I went to the house, and there I met one of the men who had a huge story of how he could pay his wife $80K to have sex with a rich woman, and had her take him out to dinner on his farm. In fact, the two men were already going through a financial crisis.I was so shocked to find out: I knew what I was doing was going to make a difference to the lives of many women, especially Russian-speaking women (especially women from Eastern Europe), who have to live in huge poverty. We were so used to getting that story together that in my second interview with Rosta, in June 2006 we broke up the marriage and left his wife and four children.He said all I had to do was have sex, but it wasn’t my responsibility because I had taken him out of his father’s life – and he couldn’t take him out of my husband’s life. We didn’t even really talk about divorce as an option since he wanted the same rights as we did in our home. The real thing that made me think it was his wife was not going to pay for him.He was making a lot of money in Kiev, but he was also running out of money, so he was trying to put up a good life in Kiev.So, we just made it as one big business in Kiev, then let the money run out and let the money go down. After having to make up for lost time, we started to move to Zaporozhye’s military and police department and a few years later we were able to get a job teaching people in the Ukrainian military.I can’t describe how excited I was after being able to start applying for jobs in Zaporozhye State University, and I could tell our Russian colleagues that this would be a great opportunity to get a better education for Ukraine.In 2004 I was granted the post as honorary editor of the Ukrainian National Newspaper of the Ukrainian National Congress, and it was the first time I was invited to the board of the Ukrainian National Newspaper of the National Congress, in Kiev, just before a very important national convention. It gave