NPR's "Fresh Air" is very disturbing today

[Jack_Dawson]

Topic: Sex slavery.

www.kpbs.org

[Gato Moteado]

1. did they mention neil bush....

....with the underage prostitutes in china?

[Jack_Dawson]

11. Did that really happen? Link?

[patmacsf]

20. Neil Bush and his Asian Prostitute Problem (link

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/11/25/bush.brother.reut/

Poor Neil had the unenviable problem of Asian prostitutes showing up at his hotel rooms so he brought them in and "ministered" to them in only the way a Bush Family member could ...

[Jack_Dawson]

22. OMG how come I didn't hear about it?

I watch the news pretty regularly...

[dpibel]

31. That's a joke, right?

If not, you've answered your own question. ;-)

[DK666]

2. Depends

Is it a "How To" or an "Expose" ?

[Jack_Dawson]

4. NY Times Magazine author - comes out Sunday

It's so fucked up. 4-year olds being gang-raped, etc.

[mopinko]

7. this is a sick comment

i guess you earned your 666 the hard way.

[DK666]

8. WTF

Why is it sick ?

Thank you for judging me.

BTW how are things in the ivory tower ?

[mopinko]

18. this is not sick?

"Depends Is it a "How To" or an "Expose" ?"

are you saying that the subject is not depressing if it is a "how to"? sorry, but that is just sick that the words "how to" could even be on your mind when someone says child sex slavery. if you meant it some harmless way, please explain it.

[LincolnMcGrath]

19. Pretty sure it was a joke

Can we all get along?

[mopinko]

21. yeah, by not making such sick jokes.

[LincolnMcGrath]

23. Or we could not flame up

when our feelings get hurt. Not everyone has the same idea of "funny"

[DK666]

24. Because

It did NOT say child sex slavery, it just said sex slavery. So if you have a proiblem with that its your problem. What is wrong with B&D, S&M, role-playing.

[mopinko]

30. i apologize for conflating 2 posts

the original post said sex slavery, this is the post that you replied to. the post after yours mentioned that it discussed gang raped 4 year olds. i did not keep a close track of the order of posts, and you probably did not have this particular bit of info.
however, the original post said it was a very disturbing show about sex slavery. get it? slavery. how to is, you strip someone of their freedom and personhood. you rape them, get it? the depressingness of it does not depend on anything.
just for the record, i am in favor of free people having all the sex they want. i am even in favor of free women selling their bodies if they so desire. if you own it, you should be able to sell it. if you can't sell it, you don't really own it. (although i will point out that lack of decent legit opportunities, as well as a history of childhood sexual abuse are the factors that lead a lot of women to make this "choice")
HOWEVER, that was not the topic of the show. it was not sex, it was not the sex trade, it was sex SLAVERY. there is nothing funny about it.

[iverglas]

32. don't, and thanks

Even if the article in the original post was not about child sex slavery, it was still about a topic that is simply not a fit subject for jest among decent people.

If the topic had been simply "slavery", would someone have responded by asking whether it was an exposé or a how-to ... and expected appreciative responses? Is the fact that the victims of the practice in question are women (dare I guess whether the jester is?) perhaps the determining factor here?

I've had to read rather extensively, for my work, on the issue of what is more commonly called "trafficking in women", and I have not found a single thing in my reading that would prompt a snicker, or an urge to crack jocular, even in private. Why someone would feel that urge, let alone act on it in public, let alone think that s/he oughta be able to do so with impunity, is beyond me.

.

[DK666]

35. I agree

n/t

[wuushew]

3. The whole afternoon has been a downer..

I had to sit through the demonic rantings of Grover Norquist on "Talk of the Nation".

[mopinko]

6. this sucker is not

on this planet, at all. i heard him a while ago on fresh air, and he is just plain NUTS.

[barbaraann]

5. The sex industry is evil.

Period.

[DK666]

9. The sex industry is not evil.

Certian factions of the sex industry is evil and criminal.

[barbaraann]

15. Which part of the sex industry is good?

n/t

[LincolnMcGrath]

16. Adult book stores

Adult video ind.
Adult sex toys
dancers
Bunny Ranch workers
sex therapists

[wuushew]

17. Pornography and regulated prostitution are not evil

Goods and services being exchanged for a fair price which meet a market demand is a good thing.

[iverglas]

33. regulated child labour is not evil

Hey, I'm just as entitled to my opinion, eh?

Goods and services being exchanged for a fair price which meet a market demand is a good thing.

Hmm, I wonder what a fair price for a child's labour might be.

Just as I wonder what a fair price for a woman's sexual services might be.

And I wonder what it is about the concept of exploitation that is so hard for some liberals to grasp and do something with.

Nonetheless, this thread was not about prostitution, it was about sex slavery.

Some people see a significant difference, although it generally does elude me, given that I've pretty much managed to figure that exploitation stuff out.

.

[Jack_Dawson]

10. Sex Slavery is Evil

Not the whole industry.

[DK666]

12. TY

n/t

[htuttle]

13. Next week on Fresh Air...

Steroids, the Hidden Killer.

:eyes:

(wonder who's making the programming decisions over there nowdays...)

[Jack_Dawson]

14. Probably not Bush

It's NPR.

[DK666]

25. Yep

Nothing like seeing one of my 16 yo athletes in intensive care for a hole in his heart because he took that crap.

[blondeatlast]

26. NOT last year's steroids--I heard the program.

They are not talking about overseas, they are talking about right here: San Diego, Los Angeles, Phoenix, points all the way east.

This isn't about sex practices of CONSENTING ADULTS, or even last year's steroids--it's out and out rape, imprisonment, and involuntary servitude.

Just trying to bring this thread back a bit.

[htuttle]

27. Amnesty and other NGOs have talked about this issue for a long time

Here, overseas, everywhere (case in point: DynCorps' sex slavery side-business in Kosovo). The US has been prominently on the list of countries with active sex slavery 'industries' for just as long.

I'm not downplaying the problem, but please pardon me if I see Bush's sudden interest in it with a modicum of skepticism...He totally lied about his support for helping to solve the AIDS epidemic in Africa, and already cut the funding he had promised. I have little doubt that his committment to this issue, important as it is, runs no deeper than the other ones meant to make him seem 'compassionate'. So my outrage at the issue is tempered by more than a little bit of cynicism about it's sudden importance.

[alfredo]

28. The US is #1 in the sex slave business. Even then we are outsourcing

to Mexico.

[cally]

29. Can we please take this thread back to Sex slavery

I'm always disturbed at how these threads take tangents into the legitimacy of prostitution or whatever. This issue is so different. It is about young girls (12-20) or maybe young women being enslaved into sexual slavery. It's wrong and evil.

If we move into whether two consenting adults have the right to engage into selling sex then we minimize the evil at what is happening to too many women,girls, boys, and men. Slavery, and sexual slavery, is wrong.

[iverglas]

34. great idea -- but a better term

Ask Google for "trafficking in women". There are nearly 50,000 results on my list.


http://www.catwinternational.org/
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women

It is a fundamental right to be free of sexual exploitation in all its forms. Women and girls have the right to sexual integrity and autonomy.

http://www.hrw.org/about/projects/traffcamp/intro.html
Human Rights Watch campaign

Trafficking in persons — the illegal and highly profitable recruitment, transport, or sale of human beings for the purpose of exploiting their labor — is a slavery-like practice that must be eliminated. The trafficking of women and children into bonded sweatshop labor, forced marriage, forced prostitution, domestic servitude, and other kinds of work is a global phenomenon. Traffickers use coercive tactics including deception, fraud, intimidation, isolation, threat and use of physical force, and/or debt bondage to control their victims. Women are typically recruited with promises of good jobs in other countries or provinces, and, lacking better options at home, agree to migrate. Through agents and brokers who arrange the travel and job placements, women are escorted to their destinations and delivered to the employers. Upon reaching their destinations, some women learn that they have been deceived about the nature of the work they will do; most have been lied to about the financial arrangements and conditions of their employment; and all find themselves in coercive and abusive situations from which escape is both difficult and dangerous.

On the qualms expressed about US commitment to action on the problem:

http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/06/traffickingreport.htm

The U.S. State Department's third annual trafficking in persons report fails to meaningfully evaluate governments' efforts to combat trafficking in persons, Human Rights Watch said today.

http://www.unhchr.ch/women/focus-trafficking.html

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has taken an active interest since 1998 in the problem of trafficking in persons, focusing in particular on trafficking in women and children.

The High Commissioner has made public her decision to give high priority to the issue of trafficking. Concrete steps - including the allocation of additional human and financial resources - have been taken to implement this decision.

... The OHCHR Trafficking Programme was established in March 1999. Its objective is to work towards the integration of a human rights perspective into international, regional and national anti-trafficking initiatives. The emphasis is on legal and policy development. The Programme does not aim to undertake large projects or to duplicate initiatives that are being undertaken elsewhere. Instead, as far as possible, OHCHR tries to act as a catalyst and a support for the work of others. The information given below covers a selection of Programme activities developed or launched during the period March 1999 – March 2001.

... At the international level OHCHR has focused attention on the negotiation of two Protocols to the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, which were adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in November 2000. The first Protocol deals with trafficking in persons, especially women and children.

There are many people and organizations engaged worldwide in combatting the traffic in women, and there is consensus that this is, first and foremost, a serious human rights issue.

.

[DK666]

36. I vividly remember

A story about trafficking in Ukranian women/girls and it was so sad. How come the US cant put any resiources into fighting that even in our own borders.