Tara Burns of the University of Alaska has conducted the most thorough analysis of the new policy and she concluded, “In none of the documents I’ve examined since the law’s inception has it been used to benefit a victim.” She found that prostitutes were still terrified of contacting the police if they were the victim of a crime. In fact, according to Burns’ survey, the police only filed reports 20% of the time in which a prostitute reported being the victim of coercion; the rest were either threatened with arrest or arrested.
“I really never thought that in my career, opposing people who exploit other people, I would actually be advocating against a (human trafficking) law, but I am,” said John Vanek, former head of the San Jose Police
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This complex issue has been oversimplified for too long and that has enabled our State Department to pressure other countries (often reliant upon U.S. foreign aid) into changing their prostitution laws. Our government needs to be cautious when making such recommendations because not every nation has a strong human rights record or a visible rule of law. In many cases, these new anti-prostitution laws are empowering already corrupt police forces. In particular, Cambodia passed tougher anti-trafficking laws in 2008 due to pressure from the U.S State Department. Although, in a brave act, a group of 200 Cambodian sex workers protested the new laws because they had been abused en masse by the police after the new laws were …show more content…
She spent several years there and found that some of the anti-trafficking NGOs exploited the local women. After they were “rescued,” these NGOs put these women to work in sweatshop garment factories. On top of that, Moore revealed that these women are generally paid below market value. That’s particularly appalling as many of them worked in the sex trade to escape the low pay and poor treatment in garment factories, Cambodia’s primary industry for female