Melisa on "Human Trafficking" Has Become a Meaningless Term

In "Human Trafficking" Has Become a Meaningless Term, Noah Berlatsky explores the usage of the term "Human Trafficking" and how politicians and activists take advantage of the term's vagueness to appear to be defending victims of sexual exploitation. "Human trafficking" is usually interpreted as sexual slavery but it actually consists of many things like domestic, construction, and agriculture labor.

I thought that this issue was very interesting in the way that Berlatsky presents the phoniness of people who claim to be fighting the trafficking of people when in actuality this is a way to push for laws and policies that punish people who aren't being sexually exploited. Many times these laws have a bigger impact on minorities that engage in labor that doesn't align with the negative impression "human trafficking" brings to mind. Numerous people have been arrested on accounts of loitering, a crime that is not too serious, not selling children to sexual predators as it may seem.

The perception of "human trafficking" as sex slavery can misleading because it includes those who engage in consensual sex labor. Pro sex worker rights organizations try to communicate the true meaning of "human trafficking" and who it includes because it frequently isn't the victims of forced sexual labor as the term seems to be targeting.  For example, runaway teenagers who are in difficult situations at home often do not have someone forcing them to partake sexual labor such as a pimp, most of the time they are trying to support themselves on their own after leaving the toxicity of their homes. They suffer from the laws against trafficking but do not have other ways of being able to fend for themselves.

There are several organizations that fight for the rights of sex workers because they can be forgotten or shunned by society due to the idea that people who engage in sex work are sinful or deliquents. They are also humans and the legalization of sex business would help get these women the worker rights and protection from pimps they deserve. In the Women's March in Washington, the rights of sex workers were also included in the conversation for change and protection.


How can the language used to refer to sexually exploited women be changed to not also put other laborers in the same category and avoid misconceptions?