Decreasing the Demand in our Everyday Lives

Anyone who knows basic economics knows that if the demand increases then the supply has to increase. Heck, anyone with common sense can understand this.

So how can we decrease the demand for sex trafficking in our everyday lives? How can we decrease the number of women, men and children who are being forced or coerced into sex slavery?

Well let me tell you.

It’s true that there are women and men who aren’t being forced into selling sex. However, a majority of the individuals the Reno Police Department runs into are.

Sergeant Ron Chalmers of the RPD, who heads the Regional Street Enforcement Team, said that as many as 80 to 90 percent of the prostitutes they come into contact with are actually being exploited. This means they are making little if any money because they’re turning it in to a pimp at the end of the night.

The act of buying sex is also something that our society has deemed acceptable. It is not a biological need as some people would like to claim. Sure sexual intimacy is innate in us, but buying sex from strangers is not, especially when many of them are modern-day slaves.

Like I said, buying sex is a societal concept that we’ve turned into a norm and we justify it by treating women as objects. So what are some simple ways we can stop justifying the buying of women?

All right, I’m going to say something unpopular but it needs to be said; stop watching porn.

“As evidenced by one experiment…desensitization to the sexual objectification of women can occur quickly through repeated exposure to pornography,” according to the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology.

Even though we would all like to believe that every woman we see in porn enjoys being there, Jenna Jameson can attest that this is rarely the case. The world’s most famous and successful “porn star,” stated in her autobiography, “ The job of a porn star is not a calling – or even an option – for most women.”

So let’s stop supporting it.

The last way we can decrease the demand for sex trafficking is by ceasing to support legal prostitution . According to the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, since Victoria, Australia legalized prostitution, “Trafficking has increased to supply the new brothels.”

An investigative report by Victoria’s Age newspaper in 1999 found that the largest growth in the sex industry since legalizing prostitution was in the illegal division. The over 100 unlicensed brothels outnumbered the “legitimate” sex establishments in 1999 and had tripled in 12 months.

Therefore legalizing prostitution didn’t serve its purpose as it was supposed to, “minimize harm,” and the explosion of illegal brothels only increased the demand for sex slaves.

On the flip side of the coin, according to the American Bar Association, since Sweden criminalized prostitution and raised penalties for sex traffickers and buyers, “The National Criminal Investigation Department has received signals from Europol and national police forces in other European countries that Sweden no longer is an attractive market for traffickers.”

Bottom line? We can decrease the number of women and children who are being forced into the sex industry by refusing to buy sex and refusing to justify the buying of sex. Prostitution, legal or illegal, and pornography are not victimless and only increase the need for modern-day slaves.

Alex Mosher is a third-year journalism student at the University of Nevada. She loves writing and is passionate about serving the people in the city of Reno, Nevada. When she can do that with writing through exposing issues, it’s a win-win!

The post Attacking Sex Trafficking at the Root: Guest Post by Alex Mosher appeared first on Awaken.