Author Topic: Re: Pseudopod 453: The Toyol - Crime Statistics Discussion  (Read 10083 times)

rendall

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"Estimates indicate between 100,000 and 300,000 children are trafficked for sex in the US each year, with the average victim being just 14 years of age."

I'll quote from my favorite myth-debunker, because she does so eloquently.  But with a little thought, you should see that those numbers are absurd.

"That myth is a distortion of an absurd estimate from the Estes & Weiner study of 2001, which estimated that number of “children, adolescents and youth (up to 21) at risk of sexual exploitation”.  “Sex trafficking” was the least prevalent form of “exploitation” in their definition; other things they classed as “exploitation” included stripping, consensual homosexual relations and merely viewing porn.  Two of the so-called “risk factors” were access to a car and proximity to the Canadian or Mexican border.  When interviewed by reporters in 2011, Estes himself estimated the number of legal minors actually abducted into “sex slavery” as “very small…We’re talking about a few hundred people.”"

https://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/resources/frequently-told-lies/

She demolishes a couple of other of those myths on that page and throughout her blog.

Please, people, don't spread stupidity.  Especially, don't disrupt a venerable institution such as Pseudopod to do it.  

« Last Edit: September 28, 2015, 03:21:36 PM by Talia »



Sgarre1

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Reply #1 on: September 28, 2015, 12:30:04 AM
And the actual episode, the actual point of the endeavor? How did you feel about that?

Everyone else - Please take note: many less children and women are being enslaved for sexual ends than one particular group claims. Many still are, just that the actual numbers are indeterminate and debatable. Please do your own research and determine how many tens, hundreds or thousands of women and children right now are actually being enslaved for sexual use, how close that number is to zero, and how you personally feel about how low or high that number is in relation to your conception of the world as a place to live in. And then live with that knowledge.

Thank you.

Your venerable editor.



rendall

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Reply #2 on: September 28, 2015, 01:53:31 AM
"And the actual episode, the actual point of the endeavor? How did you feel about that?"

I'm sorry, I couldn't get beyond the ... I hesitate to call it politics.  I'm "triggered" when people foment dangerous moral panics.  In the 80s, this episode would have just as seriously intoned about the terrible dangers of satanic cults.  We give up rights "because children".  We give up money and resources to charlatans "because children".  We throw innocent people in jail and ruin their lives "because children."  We need the thoughtful editors of Pseudopod et. al. *not* to spread dangerous myths, but to *dispel* dangerous myths.  The real-life horror is that otherwise intelligent people stop thinking as soon as a politician, or an NGO short on funds, trots out the "won't you think of the children" cliche.

There are 74 million children in the US.  If there were even 100,000 sex trafficked children (the low end of the statistics you cite), that would be 1 sex slave in 740 children.  You're honestly want to frighten people by saying that it's more likely that a child will become a sex slave than a child will, oh, die of any cause whatsoever?  You really don't understand why this would be more distracting than your fiction story?


Anyway, sorry.  I'll stop.  I just needed to seriously spank you guys over this one.  I won't go on about it, though.  'Nuff said.
« Last Edit: September 28, 2015, 02:38:42 AM by rendall »



starktheground

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Reply #3 on: September 29, 2015, 12:13:10 PM
Who cares about the number? One is too many. What an awful, awful thing that this can happen, and happen frequently.



wintermute

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Reply #4 on: September 29, 2015, 01:20:18 PM
Who cares about the number? One is too many. What an awful, awful thing that this can happen, and happen frequently.
Yes, one is too many, and it is terrible that this can happen (though "frequently" seems to be in doubt). But we care about the number because it informs the proportionality of our response. It is a sad fact that we do not have infinite resources, and we need to take care to distribute them where they will have the most good. Should we devote more attention to preventing sex-trafficking, or to children being abused by their legal guardians? To car safety or to gun safety? Cancer or food poisoning?

These questions have a moral calculus that is larger than the raw numbers, and everyone will come up with their own weighting for which is most important / urgent, but without an understanding of how many people will be aided by our actions, no coherent policy (either on an individual or societal) can be considered.

Science means that not all dreams can come true


C.S. Walker

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Reply #5 on: September 30, 2015, 05:16:02 AM
I spent a few years working for a residential program for "troubled" kids. In that time I met several kids we either knew or strongly suspected were some kind of trafficking victim.

It was never something they'd talk about directly but y'know..... 14-year-old with a 20-something "boyfriend" that keeps a tight leash on them, disappears into the city to "go to parties" for days at a time sometimes, keeps ending up with assorted STIs, the math isn't really difficult.

Are the originally quoted numbers very likely wrong? Sure. And we should absolutely care about getting it right. But comparing this issue to the "Satanic Panic" of the 80s (a moral panic supported by no actual evidence and essentially made up out of whole cloth), or writing it off as an overblown "think of the children" issue (especially given how clear the endnote information is about the range of people this affects) is grossly, massively dismissive of the real people affected by this issue, however many they actually are.



lisavilisa

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Reply #6 on: September 30, 2015, 02:04:40 PM
The satanic panic of the '80's attacked innocent parents.

Who would a panic of sexual slavery hurt? I'm just saying it's easy to fake memories of satanic rituals, it's harder to fake a brothel full of prisoners.




Fenrix

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Reply #8 on: October 10, 2015, 12:08:25 AM

All cat stories start with this statement: “My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...”


C.S. Walker

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Reply #9 on: October 14, 2015, 03:28:11 AM
Yyyyyyyyyup.



dmoser22

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Reply #10 on: October 29, 2015, 01:33:29 PM
I know I'm late to this discussion, and others have made my primary point, to wit: the number of victims cited after the story are probably grossly inflated.  But here's a good read from Reason Magazine that goes into much more detail, including the reasons why it's harmful in many ways to overstate or misrepresent the problem:

reason.com/archives/2015/09/30/the-war-on-sex-trafficking-is/






Fenrix

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Reply #14 on: March 10, 2017, 02:26:16 AM

All cat stories start with this statement: “My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...”


Sgarre1

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Reply #15 on: October 19, 2017, 11:55:38 AM
In what I've come to the think of as the "Rendall Memorial Human Traffiking Thread"

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/10/84-children-rescued-in-nationwide-fbi-sex-trafficking-investigation-involving-120-arrests/