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A bit of editing

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I woke up this morning, made my husband’s lunch, kissed him on the front doorstep and sent him off to work. I did a few small things around the house and made a to-do list for the day. I wasn’t feeling much of anything special until I read an article. An article about a Christian radio personality who has apparently been charged with sex crimes. While I was disgusted by the entire thing overall, and disappointed that yet another person who claims to align himself with the attitudes and actions of a follower of Jesus Christ has a secret life that in no way matches that, I was particularly irked at the way the article was written and by some of the comments that I deem to be quite ignorant.

First of all, the actual text of the article in question can be found here. The summary sounds a little something like this:

There’s a dude in northern Michigan by the name of Balyo. He happens to work as a radio personality for a Christian radio program. The article says he’s been charged because he “allegedly paid another person, who is a defendant in another child exploitation case, to arrange for sexual encounters with minor victims.”  

Keep in mind that the federal definition of human trafficking is this:

Under U.S. federal law, “severe forms of trafficking in persons” includes both sex trafficking and labor trafficking:

  1. Sex trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purposes of a commercial sex act, in which the commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age, (22 USC § 7102; 8 CFR § 214.11(a)).
  2. Labor trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purposes of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery, (22 USC § 7102).

The article goes on to say that Balyo has been arrested “on charges of first-degree criminal sexual conduct.”

Next, an “expert” weighs in on the matter. The article states:

As Cooley Law professor and human trafficking expert Chris Johnson explains it, Balyo is accused of being a customer. “I think the terminology would be a ‘john’ — that in itself is not going to be human trafficking,” Johnson said. “The person he went to in order to secure the child would be the one who would be guilty of human trafficking.”

And that’s one of the things that’s got me all salty this morning. This dude Balyo allegedly (I understand innocent until proven guilty) sought out another person, by the name of Moser, who was already being investigated under a state and federal sting operation. This guy Moser, according to this article, was a real piece of work. It states that “He ran a website offering paying customers sex with underage boys.” (by the way, there was no “allegedly” to that statement. It had already been established that he ran such a web site.)

So here’s the first guy, Balyo, paying the second guy, whom he knows to run a web site that offers sex with minors, yet this expert says that Balyo is just a “john” and that he wouldn’t be considered a human trafficker. Hmmm. The federal definition says that “Sex trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purposes of a commercial sex act,…in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age.”

Did this many Balyo not recruit an underage boy for sex? Does it matter that he used a mediator to make provision for him to obtain an underage boy for sex? If he had cut out the middle man and grabbed a kid off the street, we would call him a trafficker, but since he went about it the sophisticated way and paid a “professional” trafficker, we’re just gonna call him a “john” instead, right? What the heck!?

Is this man not the REASON there is sex trafficking? Balyo allegedly supplied the one thing this world needs to ensure that children are sexually exploited: the demand.

Which brings me to another point that has me all fired up this morning. This article continues to use language that is harmful in the fight against human trafficking.

The “expert” makes another statement: He apparently says “pimps with prostitutes who are underage are not uncommon.”

There is no such thing as a “prostitute who is underage”. There are only trafficking victims who are minors. According to the same federal definition above, a person who intends to sell a person under 18 is a trafficker, and that underage person is a victim of trafficking. Simple as that. There’s no such thing as an “underage prostitute”. Hear me?

The expert goes on to say that “Many times when you do have a brothel that’s raided, you do end up finding child victims, unfortunately, that are involved in the commercial sex trade…according to the Department of Justice, the average age a person enters prostitution in the United States is between the age of 11 and 13 years old, so there is quite a prevalence of people who have sexual appetites with children.”

“…there is quite a prevalence of people who have sexual appetites with children.”

This statement bothers me to no end. To me, simply saying that there are lots of people who apparently have this “sexual appetite” for children almost makes it sound as if that’s a normal thing. It sounds almost as nonchalant as saying there is quite a prevalence of people who have a craving for vanilla ice cream over chocolate. Totally normal, viable preference, right? No.

To me, semantics matter. BIG TIME. In a world where so many of us are trying to fight against human trafficking, the exploitation and sexualization of our youth, and the criminals who make all that happen, I think it’s high time we start paying more attention to the words we use when discussing the whole thing.

Stop allowing “experts” to use words and phrases such as child prostitute. It has been well established by now that we legally can’t define anyone in that way, and the fact that this person did so, no matter how credentialed he may be, disqualifies him as an “expert” on the matter in my eyes.

And let’s call things what they really are. Instead of saying stuff like “…there is quite a prevalence of people who have sexual appetites with children”  how about we think about our words and say what is really meant by that statement, like “there is quite a prevalence of people who regularly seek out opportunities to exploit children sexually.” That’s what we’re really saying there, isn’t it?  We have got to be more careful with the words we allow when speaking of this evil.

Whether or not this Balyo person will be found guilty remains to be seen. What evidence has been collected to that end, I do not know. But I do know that sadly, this is one of many people who have been accused of exploiting our children directly for their own sick purposes. In my opinion, anyone who participates in that process should be charged with human trafficking. Because the truth is, without the demand, there is no need for the supply. So a person who seeks out some other person person to assist him in exploiting a child is as guilty of trafficking as the person who sells the child for that purpose. Perhaps even more so, because the problem begins with the demand for such a thing. The problem begins with the demand. And as much as we fight against the problem of human trafficking, it will continue as long as the demand continues. It will continue as long as people are able to minimize the thing by talking in terms such as “appetites” and “child prostitutes.” It will continue as long as we don’t think our words really matter all that much.

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Sex trafficking and the Super Bowl?

Today, thousands of people will plant themselves on couches and barstools across the nation to watch two football teams compete for the most valuable prize in the NFL. I don’t know much about football and I don’t really have an interest in it, but tons of Americans love it and have a great time rooting for their teams, eating nachos, and commenting on brilliant advertising campaigns on this day every year. Regardless of how you feel about football or the hype surrounding the Super Bowl, you can’t help but hear about the game results, the commercials, and the intense preparation that surrounds whatever city hosts this phenomenon each year.

And nowadays, you probably can’t help but also hear something about sex trafficking when you hear stuff about the Super Bowl. Am I right? I would bet there’s almost no one who hasn’t heard at least something about a link between the Super Bowl and sex trafficking. Especially if you are on Facebook, you’ve likely seen articles posted and shared, and maybe you’ve even read a few yourself. If you have, you were likely flabbergasted by some of the stats presented, or maybe a little confused by some info that kind of seems to contradict other things you’ve heard about this problem.

It makes sense that people would be confused. I’ve seen articles just in the past week that have said the Super Bowl is the largest sex-trafficking event in the nation, while others say there’s absolutely no link whatsoever to an increase in sex trafficking because of the Super Bowl. There are lots of people arguing on both sides, both presenting evidence on both sides, and both sounding pretty convincing, especially if you are new to hearing about all of this.

I learned about sex trafficking about three years ago, which by federal law is: “the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purposes of a commercial sex act, in which the commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age,” (22 USC § 7102; 8 CFR § 214.11(a)). The most appalling thing to me was that it simply existed at all, but also that it happens here in the US in every single state, not just in some rare case in a remote country “over there” that I’ll never visit.

Now, let me come to my point about sex trafficking and the Super Bowl. There are a bunch of people out there right now, disputing the claims that big events such as the Super Bowl increase the demand for sex trafficking. Some articles are quoting that there have been no reported increases in the number of arrests during Super Bowl weekend in the various towns where the event was held. Some who are saying that there’s no proof, no hard statistics about how many people are really trafficked so we can’t say anything about it whatsoever. Some people are even saying that sex trafficking doesn’t really exist at all, but is just an idea made up by women who hate men and hate sex and want to make the rest of the world into a bunch of prudes.

Let me break down some very basic thoughts about sex trafficking and large events such as the Super Bowl.

1. Sex trafficking is most definitely real and happens every single day in every single state in our country, which is deemed the most free, powerful, and prosperous nation in the world. So right here in our backyards, young girls and boys, women and men, are being controlled by others through threats, drugs, violence, and a serious lack of safe options. These controllers are using their victims’ bodies as “merchandise” to sell over and over to people who are willing to pay for illicit sex. To a trafficker, this is nothing but a business. Their greed for money drives them to provide the “product” that is under demand… sex for sale.

2. The supply-demand scenario is the only thing that fuels any business, legal or illegal, anywhere in the world. There’s not really a big demand for parachute pants now that the 80’s have passed and MC Hammer’s songs are not topping the charts. I don’t see a lot of advertisements for parachute pants anymore. Get what I’m sayin?? Every business thrives on supply-demand logic. I saw news reports of pizza shops working feverishly to fold hundreds of extra boxes and quadrupling their batches of dough because they know that the demand for pizza will go up tremendously on Super Bowl Sunday. These are smart businesspeople. These folks know what they are doing. In the NY/NJ area where the Super Bowl is being held, I have no doubt that pizza shops, grocery and retail stores, and sports bars are doing the same thing… increasing their supply of merchandise to meet the inevitable demand that happens when thousands of out-of-towners descend upon their city on a specific weekend. I am pretty sure that people in NY/NJ already eat pizza and chips, and drink beer and soda. But on Super Bowl weekend, when everybody’s coming to YOUR town for the game, you’re going to stock up on the same things that people always purchase, because there will be more people purchasing them that weekend. I don’t have specific statistics to tell me this, it’s just logic and we’ve seen businesses do this over and over throughout the years. Sex traffickers do the same thing. They have a demand on every other day throughout the year, so when there’s a big event coming, they ship more “product” to where the demand will be, and that includes a city where the Super Bowl is being held. I don’t have a big list of proven statistics for that either. But I do know of several survivors of sex trafficking, many of whom personally attest to being taken to various cities around the country where big events were being held (everything from sporting events to doctors’ conventions to God-knows-what-because-half-the-time-they-never-knew-where-they-were-and-that’s-a-big-fat-red-flag-that-someone-is-being-trafficked)

3. Increased demand increases advertising. Ever notice that seasonal items enjoy a blitz of advertising at certain times of the year? Well of course. When we know that Christmas is coming up, we up the advertisements for stocking stuffers. When Halloween is coming down the pike, companies who produce costumes pay for advertising because they know the demand will be there. Business people aren’t stupid… they invest time and money in advertising when they know it will pay off the most. Did you know that advertisements for sex-for-sale (or whatever euphemism they might be disguised under) on web sites such as Backpage.com increase dramatically during the weeks leading up to big events, like the Arnold Classic and the Super Bowl? It’s already happened this week. I have seen it myself, looking online at ads in the NY/NJ area. Traffickers advertise on these sites all the time, but they take lots of extra time and effort to increase advertising tenfold during the weeks leading up to events like this. The supply and demand logic wins out for these people… they know their increased efforts are likely to pay off.

4. There’s a huge lack of “proven statistics” that show the real numbers of sex trafficking victims. You’re damn right there is. This sick business of sex trafficking is an underground endeavor. Our best estimates are probably sorely lacking. Big numbers get thrown around and sometimes that makes us paralyzed to the problem. But I will tell you this… The many stories I have heard from actual survivors who have been through this hell and lived to tell about it indicate that this is a bigger issue than we think it is. With all the awareness and police stings and campaigns that exist now, there are still many, many people trapped in sex trafficking that we have no idea about. Why? Because this is an organized crime. Do we have stats on every person who uses heroin or meth? No, because they do it in secret. The amount of arrests for illegal drug sales don’t in any way indicate how big (or small) the problem really is because those numbers only speak to the ones who were caught in the illegal activity. Duh. Same with sex trafficking. Our best guesses are only estimates based on what we know about this purposely underground crime. A lack of “proven statistics” shouldn’t make us dismiss this as not being a real problem, but should make us realize all the more that what we do know about sex trafficking only scratches the surface, and we need to do more to unearth this evil.

I have looked in the eyes of some of the most amazing women I’ve ever met who told of their experiences. Their true stories sound like horror films to us who have never known that kind of suffering. They tell of places they’ve been where it was not just them who were sold, but houses full of girls. They tell of men who frequent those houses asking for the youngest ones. They tell of being abused in the most horrific ways that we can’t even imagine. They tell of being purchased by well-known and “upstanding” members of communities. They tell of beatings they endured when they didn’t do what they were told. They tell of being left for dead on the side of the road or in a roadside ditch after a “john” had abused them. And they tell of being shuffled from city to city where big events were happening, because their traffickers knew there would be a demand. Their stories are all I need to be convinced that there is, in fact, a link between big events and an increase in sex trafficking. But the real problem doesn’t center around that. It centers around the fact that sex trafficking even exists at all, and that while there are people out there arguing over whether the stats are accurate, there are men, women, and children being abused and sold every single day right here in our city and in every state across the nation. I don’t need proven statistics to stay in this fight.

If there is even ONE person who this is happening to on Super Bowl weekend or any other weekend, I will fight for them, because no one should ever have to endure it.