I think it's really great that the individual units are police-led. One of the problems, in the U.S., at least, is that police officers who respond to rape scenes themselves practice victim-blaming or victim-doubting, which contributes to victims' reluctance to report their rapes. So it sounds great that this organization is making it clear that the people are supposed to be on the victims' side, are.
I'd just venture that is is about immigration and prostitution in addition to rape and slavery, because it plays so heavily into conceptions about the sexualized 'exotic' woman, their sub-status as (illegal?) inhabitants, and women in sex work. There is, I think, a temptation to disregard the rape and slavery aspects and treat it as if it wereonly an issue of immigration or prostitution and derail the discussion.
This guy represented the police force fantastically as an agent of aid, not blame, and says he investigates saunas, massage parlours and brothels on the assumption that everybody is a victim, and is more inclined to question their assertions that they genuinely want to be here since so many are coerced into saying so by their kidnappers and rapists.
The reason I say that this isn't about prostitution and immigration is not because they aren't connected, but because, as you say, they're sidelines. There are connections and overlaps between the issues, but what this is about, really about, is not prostitution in the slightest, since these police officers know who and where the sex workers are and leave them and their business well alone, and not about immigration in the least because so many of these trafficked humans come here on your average tourist or working holiday visa then get threatened and raped and trapped before they can leave
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I know what you mean. When I go to those things I usually end up feeling naive and useless. I think that a good chunk of feminism is about (as the LJ community says) "afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted"; so you're meant to be made aware of things you hadn't really thought about. I think the best thing we can do (ESPECIALLY if you are considering in working in east asia where the sex trafficking scene is notorious) is keep our eyes and ears open and ask questions when something feels wrong.
That's a great tag-line for feminism, I like that a lot. You're also absolutely right, one of the adverts he showed us was of a girl chatting to a friend about this wonderful chance to go abroad, and all she'd have to do is hand over her passport so she could get a visa- at which point her friend grabbed her shoulders and said, "Stop! That doesn't sound right." The point was to encourage people to talk to their friends about "opportunities" like that, and to raise awareness amongst those friends so they would be able to objectively recognise when something feels wrong
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I'd just venture that is is about immigration and prostitution in addition to rape and slavery, because it plays so heavily into conceptions about the sexualized 'exotic' woman, their sub-status as (illegal?) inhabitants, and women in sex work. There is, I think, a temptation to disregard the rape and slavery aspects and treat it as if it wereonly an issue of immigration or prostitution and derail the discussion.
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The reason I say that this isn't about prostitution and immigration is not because they aren't connected, but because, as you say, they're sidelines. There are connections and overlaps between the issues, but what this is about, really about, is not prostitution in the slightest, since these police officers know who and where the sex workers are and leave them and their business well alone, and not about immigration in the least because so many of these trafficked humans come here on your average tourist or working holiday visa then get threatened and raped and trapped before they can leave ( ... )
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