We’re working to create a world where no person is bought, sold, or exploited. Read more about our latest efforts here.
We know that chattel slavery in the US was built on a foundation of sexual violence in a myriad of forms. The land theft, resources appropriation and genocide of Indigenous peoples were also characterized by sexual violence. The same can be said of the colonization of Latin America. This history explains today's over-representation of women and children of color in the sex industry.
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the inequalities at the root of so much suffering, exploitation and violence at every level in our relationships, communities, institutions and society. For many working to end gender-based violence, the issue of commercial sexual exploitation has long played a similar role in unmasking the historical and intersectional legacy of privilege and oppression being laid bare in the present moment.
Online porn has become a primary source of sex education for boys and young men around the world. Prior to 2000, most would first encounter soft-core pornographic images in magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse. Since 2000, the internet has become the main vehicle for porn, and hardcore porn is just a click away—it is free, violent, and based on the degradation and abuse of women.
The sex trade is being glamorized as never before – from the promotion of sugar dating, to films and shows that portray rich, independent "sex workers" choosing handsome, rich, kind johns who treat and pay them well, to advocacy from “sex workers” who argue that fully decriminalizing the sex trade is a move to empower women. Yet the reality of legalized prostitution looks far different than the rosy picture painted in popular culture.
We cannot discuss the sex trade in the U.S. without addressing colonization, slavery, and the institutionalized inter-generational oppression of women and girls. Ignoring this history has led to the continued exploitation, and too often criminalization, of women and girls of color.
Pornhub is the largest and most popular pornography website in the world. It is generating millions of dollars in advertising and membership revenue with 42 billion visits and over 6 million videos uploaded per year. And visits have only increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet it has no system in place to verify reliably the age or consent of those featured in the pornographic content it hosts and profits from. And indeed, mounting evidence shows that films of the rape, abuse and trafficking of both women and children are hosted on Pornhub with disturbing regularity.
The testimonies of those who have survived sexual exploitation and human trafficking are the driving force behind our World Without Exploitation work. Credible research and statistics can help us to contextualize those survivor stories, making the systemic nature of this human rights and gender justice problem even more clear. In service to that goal, Katie Feifer – Research Director at The Voices and Faces Project – spearheaded a project whose goal was to survey and assess a large body of U.S.-based research on sex trafficking and exploitation. The resulting report, Get the facts: What we know about sex trafficking, sexual exploitation and prostitution in the U.S., identifies data that can be cited confidently in our advocacy and communications efforts.
The COVID-19 virus is impacting the United States, and the world, in unprecedented ways. In response to our changed social, economic and political landscape, online commercial sexual exploitation is changing as well. In “Online Exploitation Ecosystems: Short-term impact of COVID-19 on human trafficking in the US,” Rob Spectre, a technologist and the creator of childsafe.ai, an artificial intelligence platform protecting kids from online predators, considers how and why this global pandemic is affecting the online ecosystem that fuels human trafficking.
As a new decade begins, World Without Exploitation is more focused than ever on the fight to create an exploitation-free world. We’re advocating for the adoption of The Equality Model, a survivor-focused response to sexual exploitation. We’re reaching out to candidates from across the political spectrum and at all levels of government. And we’re continuing to educate the public on the impact that trafficking and exploitation have on victims, families, and communities.
