Our obsession with outrage in conversations about human trafficking leaves victims playing oppression Olympics to get our attention.
The reasonably decent person wants to end human trafficking.
In the most basic sense, human trafficking is a global societal ill that thrives on exploitation.
Countless celebrities, dignitaries and luminaries have devoted time and money to awareness campaigns. Their goal is to teach the world about the horrors of human trafficking.
Activists in faith-based and feminist communities alike have also taken up arms. They work to raise awareness and serve human trafficking victims.
When Awareness Depends on Sensationalism
Unfortunately, this global desire to end human trafficking relies heavily on sensationalism.
Campaigns use slogans emblazoned with “modern-day slavery.” They also use pictures of malnourished children and women of color in foreign slums.
Those images appear throughout digital and print spaces devoted to fighting human trafficking.
Raising awareness of the horrific things human beings, read: traffickers, can do is certainly useful.
However, it can discourage victims from coming forward when their experiences do not fit that sensationalized mold.
Fraud and coercion often make it difficult for a person to grasp the full extent of the exploitation.
Awareness campaigns that focus heavily on physical force can erase other forms of control.
Those less visible forms of control also perpetuate and sustain trafficking.
Force Is Not the Only Form of Control
American laws against human trafficking center on a person’s lack of agency and consent.
They also examine whether an exploiter received a commercial benefit from that lack of consent.
An exploiter may compromise consent through force, fraud or coercion.
When that happens, the law generally recognizes the person as a victim of human trafficking.
Yet media platforms tend to highlight stories involving physical force.
They give far less attention to the fraud and coercion that traffickers use to manipulate victims.
In essence, popular messages about human trafficking shock-jock us with greater and greater incidents of violence.
Every victim’s story should be told, including the most heinous ones.
However, public discourse often focuses almost exclusively on the most salacious and outrageous experiences.
Competing for Outrage
This fixation on the most sensational cases creates demand for even more sensationalism.
That is what it takes to maintain the public’s attention.
Reporting these stories in this manner is dangerous.
It can force survivors into an “oppression Olympics” to receive services and protection from law enforcement.
Many agencies that serve human trafficking victims depend on donor funding.
As a result, they may feel pressure to present survivor testimonies that generate sympathy, outrage and financial support.
This creates an environment where donors, service providers and the public begin drawing false conclusions.
They may decide that someone was not truly trafficked unless she was a child, kidnapped at gunpoint, raped daily or beaten by the hour.
If we truly desire to fight human trafficking, we must create safe spaces for victims to come forward.
We must also let go of the notion that horrific stories must first shock us before we feel compelled to act.
About the contributor: Aisha Lewis-McCoy practices law in New York City, where her work focuses on the criminalization of sex-trafficking victims. She lives in Manhattan with her husband.