Sex-Trafficking, What is being Done?
Over time, the perspective and lens that are used to look at sex crimes have developed and changed. Through these developments, certain opinions have been molded for the better, and others have discreetly made things worse.
For example, the case of Elan Seagraves, a soccer coach convicted of attempting to sex traffic two minor girls, has provoked questions regarding what is being done to prevent these occurrences from continuing and growing-occurrences such as sex-trafficking increasing in cities like Sacramento. The opinions on the matter have generally agreed to the opinion that it is morally wrong and the people in charge are doing their best efforts to end sex-trafficking. Yet, those in charge can only have so much power.
The story in general is a sad, unfortunate one to hear. However, what makes the story, like many others who are sex-trafficked and sexually discriminated, is how little and inefficient the work that is being done has deflated. Although there are many emotional and psychological perspectives to look at these occurrences in, we need to initiate a legislative action to begin the ending of sex crimes. We need more grants, more enforcement, and a significant effort to provide this sort of action.
After having these news go viral, a misconception allocates the wrong idea that something is being done: people are becoming aware. And yes, something is being done. It’s almost amazing to see how quickly and significantly news spread in today’s media. But the job isn’t quite finished.
A certain discussion arose in my political science class at the University of California, Riverside regarding the political engagement citizens, specifically young citizens, efficiently participate like. A fellow classmate critiqued the entire “political participation” we, young twitter followers, engage and define as being “politically active” as not enough. What my peer defined as what we thought was development in our political engagement was the fact that we are all becoming more aware. That’s it. That is all we are doing. Nothing further.
Just as we are all becoming more politically and socially aware of what is going on in the world, it is essential to do more than just know what’s happening. A local community member of the Sacramento County stated that so much is being done to prevent sex-trafficking from continuing, but not enough resources and tools to not only aware and educate the community on what is happening, but also provide them with essential tools with how to positively deal with it for the long-term run.
In Sharon Marcus’s article Fighting Bodies, Fighting Words: A Theory and Politics of Rape Prevention, Marcus advocates to implement the destruction of allowing rape culture to unfold. She states, “To construct a society in which we would know no fear, we may first have to frighten rape culture to death.” (Marcus, 401) Although sex-trafficking is not necessarily the same but falls under the same misfortune of social injustice, the same idea that is trying to be articulated applies. As numbers and data have demonstrated that sex-trafficking is increasing in Sacramento, a sense of normalization has started to consolidate the continuity of sex-trafficking and in essence, all sorts of social injustice.
This is what needs to be stopped. As Marcus states, in order to prevent it from expanding and occurring, we must “frighten” rape to death. And as my peer stated, simply becoming aware of the problem is not enough to make a difference. We all must seek to promote and advocate for social change in these misconducted sexual acts that are only expanding.
I’m not asking you to leave your hometowns to rally and protest against the justice systems cities like Sacramento’s, but rather to initiate this sort of protest in your own home state, city, municipal, or place.
After becoming social aware comes the act of attempting to change what happened so it doesn’t happen again. Reporters acknowledged that there are many stories just like these victims’, yet not much is being done to prevent it from happening again. Although there is a $400,00 grant that is donated annually to provide for programs and trainers to give training on how an individual can become involved to stop sex-trafficking, it has not stopped and has steadily increased.
Another problem that arises from this grant is the fact that it was given because of the significant increase in sex-trafficking. Tell me how this reminds me of, “if your symptoms get worse, come back in for a check-up.” We wait until the situation either worsens or goes away before we have an official reaction or action taken towards it. I understand why such ideals are continued to be endorsed. We don’t want to act on something we are not sure about yet. But the truth is that this fragile and sensitive situation of being sexually harassed, embarrassed and used is not something we are no longer sure about, but refusing to be sure about.
Because if we wait for these instances, like sexual assaults and sex-trafficking, to “worsen” or “go away” to develop these programs, organizations, protests, and rallies to create laws to make it stop, how do we expect to stop it so abruptly and suddenly if we waited for it to get worse?
These grants are a start for cities in high number of sex crimes, but why wait for these events to worsen when we can stop them in our own hometowns?
