I just came across this story in thecrier.com about an outfit that tries to get women “off the streets” in Bangkok. Typical of almost all groups that crusade against trafficking, their real focus is on prostitution.
In Thailand, it is estimated that more than two million women are involved in prostitution in Bangkok alone.
With a population of approximately 6,355,144, about half of which are men, the female population comes to roughly 3 million. So, two out of every three women in Bangkok (including babies, children, and grandmothers) is a hooker, right?
Going to the NightLight website, the numbers are a bit less inflated, but still just as intentionally deceptive. First they define trafficking.
Human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world. Through force, fraud and or coercion people are recruited, harbored and transported for the purpose of exploitation. Trafficking generates billions of dollars each year as people are transported around the world to work in prostitution, pornography, sweatshops, construction, housekeeping, agriculture, restaurants and more.
Prostitution is only one element of trafficking among many. then they start in with the numbers.
According to a CIA report, 700,000 to 2 million women and children worldwide are victimized by traffickers each year. The UN estimates that around 4 million people [not just women] a year are now traded against their will to work in some form of slavery.
So, according to thecrier.com article, Bangkok has more women involved in prostitution than are involved in all categories of trafficking in women and children in the entire world. Given the absurdity of their numbers, why would anyone want to believe what they say, much less repeat it as if it were credible news.
Unfortunately the NightLight website is not the exception. Almost all anti-prostitution crusaders use the same scam of spewing forth huge statistics that encompass all forms of trafficking and then talk exclusively about prostitution, with special emphasis on children. If that weren’t enough, the numbers are guesses as evidenced by the huge range covered. That 2 million is the top end of the range, but NightLight, not satisfied working within that range, further claims the numbers “may represent an underestimation of trafficking”.
The redefinition of prostitution (and the sex trades in general) as trafficking is a relatively new strategy promoted by a partnership of left and right. Those on the right who see the fight against prostitution as a moral and religious mission while those on the left see it as a human rights struggle and a fight against exploitation which they loosely define as anyone who makes money off the labor of another, which, if you think about it even for a second, encompasses all forms of commerce. Because sex work is so vilified by both liberals and conservatives, is is political suicide for politicians, mainstream political organizations, or even the media to advocate for legalization. As a result, they can and do get away with printing the kind of utter nonsense so clearly illustrated in the thecrier.com.
