Traffick911’s Statistical Misrepresentation and Misandry

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Paul Elam [1] and Bernard Chapin [2] have exposed the evil campaign perpetrated by Change.org [3] and Traffick911 [4] to draw attention to the scourge of domestic sex trafficking. Through statistical hyperbole and by lumping men, in general, with a few pathological sex traffickers, those activists have sacrificed men and used the Super Bowl as the chopping block.

Traffick911 perpetrated male universal criminality by employing NFL player Jay Ratliff in their PSA [5] in which he stated “And I’m mad [about sex trafficking]. Men I’m talking to you.” One wonders which men is he talking to? He shouldn’t talk to me; I’ve never trafficked anyone. Talk to the men (and women) who sell children into sexual bondage.

Ratliff goes on to say, “Real men don’t buy children. They don’t buy sex.” Some “real men” do buy children, unfortunately. After all, androids aren’t doing it. But “real good men” don’t do it. Ratliff conflates the two because it has more mass appeal. And he goes a step further by saying that “real [good] men” don’t buy sex. That is debatable and depends on the definition of the word “buy”.

On the supply end, Traffick911 produced another PSA in which a youthful looking “All-American” boy type intimated that he was the face of sexual trafficking. Not the ex-con with tattoos on his face. He, the everyman, was a sexual deviant. And his clients are “just like us”: they are fathers, husbands, teachers, and lawyers.

Vanillaizing, Americanizing, domesticizing, demonizing. That is the tactic activists utilize by spouting these myths to drum up support for their cause du juor. Twenty years ago it was domestic violence [6]; today it is sexual trafficking.

Now that Messrs. Elam and Chapin have elucidated the macro mechanism that allows activist organizations to foist their lies onto a sympathetic and unsuspecting mass, and considering that these groups are vying for precious resources – time, attention, and money – it is necessary to inspect the quality of the statistics that Traffick911 is using to conjure up sympathy for their cause.

In their high-gloss pamphlets [7] set for release in the Dallas area, Traffick911 offers these facts:

100,000 to 300,000 U.S. children are forced into sexual slavery each year for the pleasure and profit of their perpetrators.

Initial estimates cited in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) put the number of trafficking victims entering the United States at 50,000. Since then, the estimate has been reduced to between 14,500 and 17,500 [8].

Traffick911 doesn’t provide a citation for its statistics although it seems to be traced back to an article published in 1996 [9] by the Christian Science Monitor (it seems likely that this article is the source of the number, which includes the United States and Canada, because they use another citation from this article in another one of their bullet points). But the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services cited an estimation that between 244,000 and 325,000 American youth were at risk for sexual exploitation. The researchers responsible for these figures, University of Pennsylvania professors Estes and Weiner, suggest that the numbers be used with caution [10]:

These estimates…reflect what we believe to [be] the number of children in the United States “at risk” of commercial sexual exploitation, i.e. children who because of their unique circumstances of runaways, thrownaways, victims of physical or sexual abuse, users of psychotropic drugs, members of sexual minority groups, illegally trafficked children, children who cross international borders in search of cheap drugs and sex, and other illicit fare, are at special risk of sexual exploitation. The numbers presented in these exhibits do not, therefore, reflect the actual number of cases of the CSEC in the United States, but, rather, what we estimate to be the number of children “at risk” of commercial sexual exploitation.

Despite the caveat, the researchers used a curious methodology to arrive at their “at risk” estimate. They provided a list of “feeder” characteristics or markers that suggest an increased risk for becoming a child sexual trafficking victim. These at risk youth were tallied up to arrive at the large number being cited. For example, 14,329 American youth, ages 13-17, living within driving distance of Mexico or Canada were added to the “at risk” pile.

If anything, the number of domestic youth sold or forced into sexual bondage is much lower than the numbers cited in Traffick911’s literature.

Our society, with the normalization of commercial sex and the glamorization of pimping, is driving the horrific crime against our children. One pimp said, “we don’t have to groom our girls anymore, society is doing it for us.”

Ah, from the mouths of pimps.

If one reads the litany of feeder characteristics listed by researchers, victims are commonly poor and abused. “Society” isn’t grooming girls for anything; they are falling into it because they have few viable options, or they are preyed upon by a small number of bad men.

As for “glamorization of pimping”, take that up with the leftist propaganda arm previously known as Music Television [11].

1 out of 3 children who become homeless are sold into sexual slavery within 48 hours of hitting the street.

This is the most egregious lie of the entire campaign. The willingness to lie to this extent calls every single one of Traffick911’s statistics and motivations into question. Here’s what a discerning person should know:

The original citation of this statistic came in a 1996 article published in the Christian Science Monitor. The author stated [12]:

Within 48 hours of hitting the streets, a juvenile will be approached with an offer of money, food, or shelter in exchange for sex.

This isn’t cited either, but it is still much less benign than the picture painted by Traffick911. The group would have us imagine that gangs of men are roaming the streets black-bagging runaway youth and forcing them into sex. Instead of being forced, they are solicited for sex in order to “get by”.

The tactic of these activist groups is to shorted the window of opportunity for us to act on this very urgent problem. By making sensationalist claims, giving us a 48 hour window to save these youth, the activists hope to force a critical mass of people to make irrational decisions with their money, time, and attention.

A war of attrition. War of attention. Same difference.

The Department of Justice designated the I-10 corridor as the number one route for human trafficking in the U.S.

Traffick911 brings this up because the interstate runs several hours south of Dallas, where the Super Bowl is being held this year.

But I-10 [13] is an interesting highway because it runs contiguously along the southern portion of the country. It begins in Jacksonville, Florida, touching the Atlantic Ocean; moves down to the mouth of the Mississippi River; stops in Houston, Texas – a major port; then touches El Paso – which is damn near Mexico; and it ends up in California.

I bring this up because Traffick911 is concerned with domestic sex trafficking. But being so close to major American entry points like El Paso, Houston, New Orleans, and Jacksonville indicates that trafficking victims are both non-domestic and not necessarily used for sex. Which brings up a whole other part of this debate that isn’t being discussed: labor trafficking and the use of male victims.

Using the Super Bowl and Conclusion

Curiously, Change.org has made a national case by honing in on the Super Bowl and its fans, calling thousands of them “rapists” and demonizing men. This reeks of the tactics used by domestic violence activists back in the early 1990s who conjured up false claims about the prevalence of domestic violence on Super Bowl Sunday.

But why focus on the Super Bowl? There are large conventions held in American cities all year long. Las Vegas’ modern existence is based on them. If sex trafficking is as big a problem as activists claim, why not focus on those venues? By leveraging a “masculine holiday”, they are able to kill two birds with one stone. The draw attention to their cause and they diminish an event that is heralded and looked forward to by men across the world. Not only this, but they use an occasion where men are smashing their heads into one another to draw attention to their issue and then turn around and paint all men with one brush.

That loose cabal of feminists are employing macro and micro tactics to destroy masculinity.

1. Paul Elam. http://avoiceformen.com/2011/01/18/a-new-super-bowl-hoax-that-eclipses-the-last-one-in-its-sheer-depravity/

2. Bernard Chapin. http://www.youtube.com/user/pinegrove33?feature=chclk#p/u/0/-_sYi6jteAs

3. Change.org. http://humantrafficking.change.org/blog/view/why_wont_the_2011_super_bowl_committee_protect_kids_from_rape

4. Traffick911. http://www.traffick911.com/

5. Traffick911 PSAs. http://www.traffick911.com/page/im-not-buying-it

6. Super Bowl Domestic Violence Myth. http://www.fair.org/extra/9304/superbowl.html

7. Traffick911 pamphlets. http://traffick911.com/uploads/web%20brochure.pdf

8. U.S. Health and Human Services document. http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/07/HumanTrafficking/LitRev/

9. Ibid.

10. Estes and Weiner. http://www.sp2.upenn.edu/restes/CSEC_Files/Exec_Sum_020220.pdf

11. MTV’s Pimp My Ride. http://www.mtv.com/shows/pimp_my_ride/season_5/series.jhtml