Sexual exploitation of minors is a crime against humanity
By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, July
22, 2019 (IPS) - If they pay for
it, men tend to believe they
have the right to do anything
to a woman’s body. You pay
for your own entertainment
without a thought about who
you are paying and what cause
you are supporting. Money
is used as an excuse for and
a means to oil a machinery
that generates lots of profit
while keeping pimps and other
perpetrators out of the reach of
the law.
Jeffrey Epstein is a generous
benefactor of world-renowned
scientists and has intimate
ties with powerful men like
Donald Trump and Bill Clinton,
as well as star lawyers like
Alan Derschowitz. This multimillionaire
has recently been
charged with sex trafficking,
prompted by investigative
reporting by Julie Brown.
In November last year, she
published in Miami Herald a
three-part series exposing a vast
sex trafficking operation – 80
victims were identified, some as
young as 13 at the time of the
alleged abuse. Furthermore,
Brown revealed a government
cover-up that in 2008 made it
possible for Epstein to get away
with an exceptionally light
sentence. A “non-prosecution
agreement” was secretly
negotiated by prosecutor
Alexander Acosta, who provided
Epstein immunity from federal
prosecution. After that Epstein
apparently continued his
sexual misconduct. Ironically,
Acosta was by President Trump
appointed as United States
Secretary of Labor, among
other tasks responsible for
combatting sex-trafficking.1
How could a sexual predator
of children year after year avoid
being convicted for his crimes?
Can wealth and influence be an
answer? Soon the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Second Circuit
will hopefully release 2,000
pages of documents connected
with the Epstein case, revealing
sexual abuse by “numerous
prominent American
politicians, powerful business
executives, foreign presidents,
a well-known prime minister,
and other world leaders.”2
The current President, Donald
Trump, now declares:
I wasn’t a big fan of Jeffrey
Epstein. That I can tell you.
I didn’t want anything to do
with him. That was many,
many years ago. It shows you
one thing — that I have good
taste.3
However, in 2002 Trump
stated, in a rather revealing
manner, that Epstein was a
terrific guy, a lot of fun to be
with. It is even said that he
likes beautiful women as much
as I do, and many of them are
on the younger side.4
The case of Jeffery Epstein,
as well as that of another child
abuser, George Aref Nader,
reveal an outrageously low
bar when it comes to sexual
child abuse by wealthy and
well-connected offenders.
Nader, a businessman, and
liaison between U.S. politicians
and the Arab States of the
Persian Gulf has over the years
repeatedly been charged with
sexual exploitation of minors.
During Trump´s presidential
campaign Nader did at various
occasions meet with the future
president´s closest associates,
allegedly siphoning financial
support from the Middle
East. On June 3, Nader was
arrested by federal agents for
”bestiality and possession of
child pornography.”
Such wealthy child abusers
are just the tip of an iceberg.
Contributing Writers: Azad Ali, Tangerine Clarke,
George Alleyne, Nelson King,
Vinette K. Pryce, Bert Wilkinson
GENERAL INFORMATION (718) 260-2500
Caribbean L 10 ife, July 26–Aug. 1, 2019 BQ
In most European cities
you may find ”provocatively
dressed” women lining the
thoroughfares. Most of them
have, after being lured from
their homes in Eastern Europe
or Nigeria, been forced into
prostitution by pimps who
lurk in the shadows, or over
smartphones control their sex
slaves. Even if there are many
lucciole (“fireflies”, Italian
slang for street prostitutes),
their numbers cannot be so
overwhelming that they
might explain why police
and authorities are so utterly
incapable of saving these
victims of organized crime.
One reason for the inertia
may be that human trafficking
is a lucrative business. In
2017, the International Labour
Organization (ILO) estimated
that 3.8 million persons were
globally trapped in forced
sexual exploitation, 21 percent
of them being children under
the age of eighteen.5 Annnual
profits from this sex trade were
in 2015 approximately USD 100
billion.6
Profits per victim are highest
in forced sexual exploitation,
which can be explained by
the demand for such services
and the prices that clients are
willing to pay, and by the low
capital investments and low
operating costs associated with
this activity. With a global
average profit of US$ 21,800
per year per victim, this sector
is six times more profitable
than all other forms of forced
labour.7
Most migrant prostitutes
live in a world of misery and
violence unknown to most of
us. One of countless examples
is the fate of Maria, a Romanian
girl who was working as a
prostitute in Spain. After her
“rescue” she told a journalist
that you’re alive but you’re not
really existing. Not one of the
men who paid to sleep with me
asked me if I was there out of
choice, or whether I wanted
to be doing this. They didn’t
care either way. People always
ask: “Why didn’t you just run
away or go to the police?” but
they don’t know what they’re
talking about. You can’t just
stop a random person on the
street and ask for help, because
someone you love could get
killed. The police in Romania
are often corrupt. You think,
why should it be different
here?”8
Maria had been brought
from Romania to Spain by a
boyfriend she thought was
bringing her there on a holiday
trip. He drove her over the
border using their EU residency
cards and within 24 hours she
was on the streets. Maria was
told she had to pay off a debt
of 20,000 before she could go
back home. The traffickers
threatened to kill her mother
or sister if she did not pay off
her debt and while she was
under their control they hit her
with hundreds of tiny charges;
payment for clothes, rent for
the corner where she worked,
for condoms and sanitary
towels. If she did not bring back
enough money, she was beaten.
This is the sordid reality for
hundreds of thousands ”sex
workers” around the world
and you might imagine the
suffering of minors forced into
a world like this.
Jeffery Epstein is by New
York prosecutors indicted on
old and new sex trafficking
charges, Acosta was forced
to resign as labor secretary,
while George Aref Nader is in a
Virginian jail awaiting his trial.
Are these signs that something
is about to change? Hopefully,
though it remains doubtful if
there is any real commitment
to end prostitution and sexual
abuse of minors. For example,
Italian law states that anyone
who practices prostitution or
invites to it, within a public
place is punishable with
imprisonment and a fine
from 200 to 3,000 euros,9
though in a town like Rome
the scantily dressed young
women waiting for customers
have not disappeared from the
streets, on the contrary —
their presence seems to have
increased during the last years.
In Spain, prostitution was
decriminalized in 1995 and its
domestic sex trade is currently
valued at USD 26.5 billion a
year, with hundreds of licensed
brothels and an estimated
workforce of 300,000.10
The inhibited exploitation
of children and young women
must be condemned and banned
from society. There is no valid
excuse for early marriages and
sexual exploitation of minors.
Wealthy and influential
decision-makers covering up
and even partaking in such
abominable crimes against
humanity must be exposed and
shamed. But how?
As in all transactions,
trafficking and sexual
exploitation of children depend
on demand and supply. When
Sweden in 1999 introduced a
ban of the purchase of sexual
services, punishing offenders
with fines, or imprisonment.
The idea was that if there
is no demand, there is no
prostitution. Furthermore,
a gender equality perspective
was emphasized: buying access
to another person’s body is
about power, usually men’s
power over women. A truism
reflected by organized crime,
where women and children end
up as commodities to be bought
and exploited. Defenders of
prostitution may assert that
it should be up to you if you
want to prostitute yourself.
However, such an argument
evades the repugnant, sexual
exploitation of defenseless
children and ignore the
glaring fact that prostitution
and human trafficking are
inevitably linked. Of people
currently in prostitution in
Sweden, three out of four are
women and girls coming from
poor countries.11 Prostitution
cannot be reconciled with a
demand for human rights. A
government believing in the
equal value of all people cannot
accept prostitution and even
less so sexual exploitation of
minors. For the vast majority,
prostitution is a consequence
of either poverty or violence.
OP-EDS
One reason for the
inertia may be that
human trafficking is
a lucrative business.
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