The woman testifying in federal court in Lower Manhattan could hardly have seemed more insignificant. She was an immigrant from South Korea and a prostitute, who spoke little or no English. She worked, she said, in brothels throughout the United States.
She did not offer a portrait of the good life. Speaking through an interpreter, she told about the time in Washington when a guy came in who looked "like a mental patient, a psycho." Frightened, she wanted nothing to do with him. But she said the woman who ran the brothel assured her everything would be fine. It was fine if you consider wrestling with Hannibal Lecter fine. The man clawed at this woman, gouging her flesh, peeling the skin from her back and other parts of her body. She was badly injured.
In prior eras, the slave trade was conducted openly, with ads prominently posted and the slaves paraded and inspected like animals, often at public auctions. Today's sex traffickers, the heirs to that tradition, try to keep their activities hidden, although the rest of the sex trade, the sale of the women's services, is advertised on a scale that can only be characterised as colossal. As a society, we're repelled by the slavery of old.
But the wholesale transport of women and girls across international borders and around the US -- to serve as prostitutes under conditions that in most cases are coercive at best -- stirs very little outrage. Leaf through the telephone directories in some American cities and you'll find pages upon pages of ads: "Korean Girl, 18 -- Affordable." "Korean and Japanese Dolls -- Full Service." "Barely Legal Indian Doll -- Pretty and Petite."
The Internet and magazines have staggering numbers of similar ads. Thousands upon thousands of women have been brought here from Asia and elsewhere and funnelled into the sex trade. This human merchandise -- whether imported or domestic -- is still paraded, inspected and treated like animals.
What's important to keep in mind is the great extent to which the sex trade involves real slavery (kidnapping and rape), widespread physical abuse, indentured servitude, exploitation of minors and many other forms of coercion.
This modern-day variation on the ancient theme of bondage flourishes largely because of the indifference of the rest of us, and the misogyny that holds fast to the view of women -- all women -- as sexual commodities. Those who think that most of the women in prostitution want to be there are deluded.
Surveys consistently show that a majority wants very much to leave. Apologists love to spread the fantasy of the happy hooker. But the world of the prostitute is typically filled with pimps, sadists, psychopaths, drug addicts, violent criminals and disease.
Jody Williams is a former prostitute who runs a support group called Sex Workers Anonymous. Few women want to become prostitutes, she told me, and nearly all would like to get out. "They want to quit for the obvious reasons," she said. "The danger. The physical and emotional distress. The toll that it takes. The shame."
