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Tech Bros Bought Sex Trafficking Victims Using Amazon and Microsoft Work Emails (newsweek.com)
An anonymous reader writes:
Newsweek's National Politics Correspondent reports on "a horny nest of prostitution 'hobbyists' at tech giants Microsoft, Amazon and other firms in Seattle," citing "hundreds" of emails "fired off by employees at major tech companies hoping to hook up with trafficked Asian women" between 2014 and 2016, "67 sent from Microsoft, 63 sent from Amazon email accounts and dozens more sent from some of Seattle's premier tech companies and others based elsewhere but with offices in Seattle, including T-Mobile and Oracle, as well as many local, smaller tech firms." Many of the emails came from a sting operation against online prostitution review boards, and were obtained through a public records request to the King County Prosecutor's Office.
"They were on their work accounts because Seattle pimps routinely asked first-time sex-buyers to prove they were not cops by sending an employee email or badge," reports Newsweek, criticizing "the widespread and often nonchalant attitude toward buying sex from trafficked women, a process made shockingly more efficient by internet technology... A study commissioned by the Department of Justice found that Seattle has the fastest-growing sex industry in the United States, more than doubling in size between 2005 and 2012. That boom correlates neatly with the boom of the tech sector there... Some of these men spent $30,000 to $50,000 a year, according to authorities." A lawyer for some of the men argues that Seattle's tech giants aren't conducting any training to increase employees' compassion for trafficked women in brothels. The director of research for a national anti-trafficking group cites the time Uber analyzed ride-sharing data and reported a correlation between high-crime neighborhoods and frequent Uber trips -- including people paying for prostitutes. "They made a map using their ride-share data, like it was a funny thing they could do with their data. It was done so flippantly."
"They were on their work accounts because Seattle pimps routinely asked first-time sex-buyers to prove they were not cops by sending an employee email or badge," reports Newsweek, criticizing "the widespread and often nonchalant attitude toward buying sex from trafficked women, a process made shockingly more efficient by internet technology... A study commissioned by the Department of Justice found that Seattle has the fastest-growing sex industry in the United States, more than doubling in size between 2005 and 2012. That boom correlates neatly with the boom of the tech sector there... Some of these men spent $30,000 to $50,000 a year, according to authorities." A lawyer for some of the men argues that Seattle's tech giants aren't conducting any training to increase employees' compassion for trafficked women in brothels. The director of research for a national anti-trafficking group cites the time Uber analyzed ride-sharing data and reported a correlation between high-crime neighborhoods and frequent Uber trips -- including people paying for prostitutes. "They made a map using their ride-share data, like it was a funny thing they could do with their data. It was done so flippantly."
Not to mention, you could tax it. Just make it a job like an artist or a performer.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
It's not that there aren't people who want to work in the sex industry - there absolutely are. However, as studies repeatedly bear out, the number who want to is far below the demand; most people who work in the sex industry don't want to be there, and abusive trafficking is an inevitable consequence of this situation.
Making prostitution symmetrically illegal doesn't solve the problem. By making it illegal and aggressively policing it, yes, you cut down on part of the demand. But you also cut down on the supply. And since the ratio of clients to sex workers is far greater than 1, it's much easier to crack down on the "supply" side of the equation, thus increasing the trafficking motive. On the other hand, making it fully legal causes a boom in demand (and especially sex tourism), which usually is associated with a trafficking boom.
I'm personally a fan of the Nordic system: purchasing sex is illegal, as is pimping, but selling sex is perfectly illegal. After all, if your goal is to stamp out trafficking and protect abused women, why would you throw them in jail? The Nordic system cuts demand without cutting supply, thus heavily damaging the trafficking motive; it's been very successful. There are some things you have to be careful about, of course - for example, in the first version of the Swedish laws they had problems with landlords kicking prostitutes out, out of fear that they'd get caught up in anti-pimping / anti-brothel laws (the laws were later amended to address this). But in general it's been shown to work well. It also makes it so that prostitutes are unafraid of having to deal with the police, which means better crime reporting and an all-around better environment for them.
"I can get my own men." "Yeah, you better go check your traps."
Here's a story about prosecutors throwing people in jail for talking about prostitution by intimidating them with trumped up charges to get them to plea. Many got fired from their jobs. Others lost their friends and family and one man committed suicide. It's like how some cities resort to public shaming Johns which is such a horrific practice that even 18th century America stopped doing it. http://reason.com/archives/201...
All of these anti-trafficking organizations use Superbowl TV commercials of women and/or child being sold as slaves (which is extremely rare) but if you read what their true goal is, they want to stop all prostitution. They even consider 100% voluntary prostitution as trafficking. Amnesty International has the right solution which is to legalize prostitution so that women aren't forced into the underground where they are victimized by their Pimps and by the Police.
On one those 'anti-trafficking' organisations, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation* (better know by their old name of Morality in Media, they rebranded because they were a laughing stock) features a 'dirty dozen' list every year of the twelve organisations they consider most destructive to sexual morality. Amnesty International is on the last two lists because they support decriminalisation of prostitution.
They also list the American Library Association (for opposing government-mandated filtering), Amazon (for selling pornography), youtube, Comcast (for not blocking pornography by default) and HBO (for making Game of Thones, with "with copious amounts of gratuitous nudity, sex, and sexual violence.").
There's a lesson to be learned here: Sometimes organisations try to veil their real goals. The National Center on Sexual Exploitation sounds like an organisation dedicated to protecting women, superficially, and their front page supports this interpretation - boldly claiming "NCOSE has a proven track record of changing corporate and government policies that previously facilitated sexual exploitation." But dig a little deeper and you find that their definition of 'exploitation' includes not only trafficking, but consentual prostitution and even the very absolute softest titillation of pornography - they have called upon Steam to ban Mass Effect: Andromeda as too racy. Dig a bit deeper still and you find they have campaigned for schools to block gay rights websites for 'promoting the homosexual lifestyle.'
*Abbreviated NCOSE, by their own choice. Probably to avoid confusion with the NCSE, the National Center for Science Education.
Every notice how you never or rarely heard of sex trafficking before yet starting a few years ago
Not really, even if you limit yourself to the US and "modern day history".
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