SAVE THE DATES! CONFERENCE APRIL 4-9, 2011
SLAVERY IN THE 21ST CENTURY: HUMAN TRAFFICKING
Programs and Speakers to be announced. Check back on our site!

Our vision of the 2011 conference

Trafficking of Girls and Women: Prostitution at Any Age

As abolitionists we do not compartmentalize child and adult or foreign vs. domestic human trafficking. Our conference programs attempt to break down the compartments and expose the real and underlying issues of sexual exploitation, sex slavery and male entitlement within the context of racism, class distinction and manifestations of gender inequality, which give power to men over females.

Current statistics are informing us of an increased demand for children. Prostitution research also puts age 12 as the median age in which children enter into prostitution. Childhood is an optimum time for traffickers and pimps to manipulate and exploit some of the most vulnerable, particularly if that child is homeless or living in an abusive home. The majority of prostituted persons report histories of sexual abuse, incest, homelessness or other disturbing and violent pasts. The overwhelming majority of prostituted women report that they would like to exit the sex industry. This is true for females who entered prostitution at 12 or over the age of 18. The prostitution of others is not an issue of chronological age. It is a human rights issue.

In order to speak about child sexual exploitation and indeed, all sexual exploitation, our 2011 conference will focus on facts specific to childhood vulnerability, issues of child prostitution and the transition to adult prostitution. We will look at how this happens, how attitudes towards prostitution shift in the context of child vs. adult, how laws and services reflect the unfortunate and unjust compartmentalization of sexual exploitation categories, and why we must shift our own attitudes to look more critically at the demand for paid sex in place of disputing criteria such as age.

Past Conferences:

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