Forum

       Posting in part:

First paragraph:

     What looks like prostitution is not prostitution.  What's called human trafficking is nothing less than slavery.  For modern-day abolitionists like Kathy Xian, the executive director for the Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery (PASS), the real world war is on the streets and online, and the worst crimes are committed against women and children.

Second paragraph:

     "You have to understand," says Xian, "the human brains doesn't stop developing until around age 24 or 25.  If these children suffer abuse and are recruited into this trade, it will affect their brain development, Our society blames the victim, instead of the ones who are really responsible--the pimps and the johns."

Fourth paragraph:

     Political theorist Hannah Arendt famously stated that "The calamity of the rightless is not that they are deprived of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, or of equality before the law.  Their plight...is that no law exists for them."

Sixth paragraph:

     First lady Nancie Caraway, who was the director of Women's Human Rights Projects at the Globalization Research Center, says it is essential to address the "supply and demand" factors of human trafficking.

Seventh paragraph:

     "Trafficking is a labor problem, a public-health problem, a gender  issue, a migration problem and a global criminal problem," says Caraway in an anti-trafficking task force statement.  "Our own consumer habits fuel global slavery."

Heartbreaking paragraph:

     While sexual exploitation of girls is well documented, boys are often overlooked.  According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV), sex-trafficking can be linked to early childhood cases of incest and sex abuse, and most children are forced into the sex trade as early as age 12 or 13.  By the time they're 20, almost all are addicted to drugs or dead. 

Hawaii paragraph:

Hawai'i is currently one of five states in America that has not passed a human trafficking state law, or laws effectively addressing human trafficking as a felony offense while protecting the victims .  With current bills in legislation in South Dakota and Massachusetts, Hawaii may in fact become a trio of states remaining in which labor trafficking and sex trafficking will continue to thrive. 

john paragraph:

     Keith-Agaran believes the debate about human trafficking needs to be an open one.  "We need to decide if we are looking at this as a law enforcement issue, or as a paradigm that all prostitutes are victims.   Because that seems to be part of the underlying issue.  I think law enforcement certainly isn't ready to say that [all prostitutes] are victims."

International paragraph and US military:

     In Victor Malarek's book, Inside the New Global Sex Trade, he points out that prostitution sprang up in Bosnia in 1995 to serve the United Nations troops.  Malarek highlights the irony of these supposed "emissaries of civilization" feeding a barbaric industry.  The author gives descriptions of 60-year-old US military officers showing up at social events with their 14-year-old sex slaves.

"Future of Hawaii" paragraphs:

     Without legislation, Hawaii will continue as an international hub for sex crimes.  Young girls will be trafficked throughout Honolulu, and what was once a family-tour-ism destination will become a sex-tourism destination.

     It is the girl, repeatedly forced into sex that is put behind bars.  Until lawmakers are awakened to the horrors inflicted by human trafficking, the war on slavery in Hawaii will persist.