CSEC and Systems of Oppression

In addition to my PE, another meaningful thing I’m engaging with this semester is called Project HONEY, which stands for Helping to Empower Oakland and Neighbors’ Exploited Youth. Project HONEY is a supplementary program to a local non-profit in Oakland called MISSSEY (Motivating, Inspiring, Serving and Supporting Exploited Youth). MISSSEY is a safe physical space where survivors of sex trafficking can go for after-school fun but also provides various forms of social support. The goal of the DeCal is to understand sex trafficking of minors in the Bay Area so we can eventually act as advocates and mentors for the children. The main class activity in the DeCal is to create a workshop to present to the children at MISSSEY to add to their after-school activities program as well as give us base knowledge for a future of working with at-risk youth. I can't even begin to scratch the surface at how much this class has taught me, but I'll try to speak a little about it.


In the DeCal we often discuss the use of language when talking about the clients of MISSSEY. The term that we feel best describes the clients are CSECs, or commercially and sexually exploited minors. We feel like this is an all-encompassing term because it highlights the struggles that these children face: being just a middle-person in a monetary exchange in which they receive no benefit, and being part the process which exploits them sexually. We refrain from calling them “child prostitutes” because we feel that this phrase connotes a level of choice in their situations and lives, but this choice is simply not there. It is true that many girls go back to their pimps after they escape the life, but we must consider that the average age of entry into commercial exploitation of a CSEC is 12 years old. It’s clear that there’s a connection to the return and their own trauma, PTSD and Stockholm Syndrome as a cause for this relapse. When you’re baseline for normal is abuse and exploitation, it requires a lot of counseling and social support to have the courage to leave for good. We are also careful to call them “survivors”, not “victims” because we believe that they are strong and can take an active role in going forth with their lives.


Through this class I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Minh Dang, a survivor and advocate for the movement as well as a new Cal graduate from the MSW program. Minh gave us a very interesting lecture about domestic human trafficking. Why, in a society that supposedly works to protect children, are CSECs not getting the help and support that they need? Minh asserted that our society creates the conditions for this type of slavery to occur, and many systems of oppression are in play to create these conditions. Racism, sexism, homophobia, poverty, and many more all play a role in the commercial and sexual exploitation of minors. To rid society of this system of exploitation, we must also examine issues that appear to be separate because they do in fact play a major role. Minh blog about these issues very eloquently and I’d encourage everyone to check out her blog: http://minhspeakstruth.tumblr.com/

Anti-Trafficking Efforts and Photography

http://www.sfgate.com/art/article/Lisa-Kristine-photographs-slavery-4167748.php#photo-3980832

Take a look at these photographs. In the realm of anti-human trafficking efforts, Lisa Kristine is well known for a collection of photographs depicting modern-day slavery.

This week we read articles relating to the ethics of visual documentation. In The politics of photographic aesthetics: critically documenting the HIV epidemic along heroin injectors in Russia and the United States,” Schonber/Bourgois explain how photos “…might foster critical social engagement through an emotional aesthetic—empathy, horror, awareness, and anger—by documenting extreme levels of social suffering in the heart of the American Dream” (388). Kristine’s article accomplishes this precisely; she took these photographs for a distinct purpose: to reveal to the public that modern-day slavery still exists and to spur these individuals to take action against it.

My PE, Challenging Heights, runs a school and rehabilitation center for child trafficking survivors. In order to encourage people to donate money to their organization, I expected CH to publish pictures of children working on farms or in fishing boats. Once the viewer witnesses this terrible situation, he or she would feel inclined to contribute (via donation) to CH’s cause.

However, CH website consists of no children working as slaves (Take a look here: http://challengingheights.org/). All the photos illustrate children reading, studying, playing soccer, laughing, and just being kids. We often see the stereotypical pictures of African children, who are starving, illiterate, or my PE’s case, slaves. Instead, Challenging Heights does not victimize the children, but portrays them as strong survivors who are working past the injustices they’ve experienced. However, as Schonberg/Bourgois state, is this ‘sanitizing’ the ‘extreme social suffering’ of human trafficking? In my opinion, I do not think so. I think having such photos solidifies the children's identity as slaves...when really, they are trying to move past this label and reclaim a new identity as free individuals with a bright future ahead of them. What do you think? Do you think CH should publish photos like Lisa Kristine's?