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Google Donating $11.5M To Fight Modern Slavery
walterbyrd writes "Google announced today that it will donate $11.5M to groups dedicated to ending modern day slavery. 'In what is believed to be the largest-ever corporate grant devoted to the advocacy, intervention and rescue of people being held, forced to work or provide sex against their will, Google said it chose organizations with proven records in combating slavery.'"
Its called simple economics. Provide clean, healthy, drug and disease free prostitutes in a crime free, regulated environment and Johns will flood there especially if the price is reasonable (which it will be if the prostitutes only have to work for themselves.) The market for illegal prostitution would almost certainly dry up, forcing pimps into another line of business.
As for slavery, there are places all over the world where women are kidnapped and made drug addicts to keep them under control. You are right, that many women choose this lifestyle because its the best they're going to do under their personal life circumstances and most of their alternatives are dark and sad. That doesn't make them slaves, but it is a problem, on dozens of levels. From the spread of disease to the funding of international organized crime, this is a trade that destroys our humanity and undermines the societies it invades.
As well, significant number of sex slaves are children. Adults from the all over the western world go to the far east to trade in child sex slavery. This is a practice that should result in the harshest of punishments, particularly from the government officials who profit from the trade.
I didn't have time to listen to the audio interviews you linked, but I don't think the Catholic News Agency story you linked necessarily shows a causal relationship between use of pornography and use of prostitution.
Some of the data points -- such as the prostitutes reporting that pornography was made of them -- don't seem related at all. (Sex workers find themselves involved in the sex industry, news at 11.)
I think it's true that hardcore porn is more pervasive now, but that's mainly because it's available over the Internet, which allows people to access it in the privacy of their own homes. More people are more likely to access such material when they're convinced no one else will find out. Going out and paying for prostitutes still seems like a lot harder thing to rationalize for your typical Joe.
Anecdotal evidence: I know a lot of people who've looked at hardcore porn. Maybe all of my friends have; it wouldn't surprise me. I only know one person who has admitted to visiting a prostitute, though, and then only once. I find it unlikely that the rest of them are all doing it in secret.
On a side note, my own main concern about the prevalence of pornography is simply that it seems to give young people unrealistic or warped expectations about sex. I don't base this on what the guys I've met say -- guys have always bragged about a lot of things -- but the young women I talk to sometimes seem to have a lot of issues around what they perceive is expected of them in the bedroom, and it leads me to believe they're probably not having very good sex.
Breakfast served all day!