It’s completely limiting free choice and voluntary interactions between consenting adults. A huge personals section just got shut down. Unless you think 100% of personal ads are coerced sex trafficking, which would be rather crazy opinion.
If you truly wanted to curb sex trafficking, you’d legalize prostitution, not drive it farther underground.
But at a certain point, it's reasonable to start objecting that an outcome was so obvious that people claiming they didn't intend it are either dishonest or incompetent, and in either case unfit to make the decision.
In this case, I suspect the answer is a little of each - a lot of anti-trafficking campaigns are run by people who openly oppose voluntary sex work, and also Congress is grossly incompetent at knowing which technology laws will limit free choice.
Given all that - I agree that it's worth knowing whether this was intended, but I worry "not our intent" becomes a shield for Congress to hide behind when they do things with horrible outcomes they were warned about well in advance.
Intent and actual outcome are completely different things until you manage a country. Then you gotta be 1000% goddam sure you’re coercing others for the good reasons, and your responsibility can’t be levied for an “Oops I did it again”.
I feel like one is taken for a fool's ride if you lead discussion on legislation based on legislative intent, rather than function. Where does one find the purpose of voter literacy laws? Or California's Proposition 8? Based on the overt statements of individual legislators?
it's still limiting if you define it to broadly. if i defined a law that said every owner of a home will be punished if somebody in that home smoked weed or did drugs.
Right now prostitution is associated with sex trafficking because it is illegal. There is no legal way to do the world's oldest profession.
If prostitution was legal and well-regulated like it is in many countries, then workers would have to be documented, they'd get workers' rights, etc. There are people willing to do sex work of their own free will, and if you create a normal market for it, then people will not resort to illicit, lower-quality secondary markets dependent on sex trafficking.
Here's the analogy: to reduce drug violence, legalize drugs.
Legal prostitutes can call the police for help from pimps or others trying to abuse or coerce them, without fear of arrest.
Legal prostitutes are incentivized to work with the police to report others being coerced, it’s competition.
Bringing things out into the open helps clean them up. Keeping them in the dark allows evil to multiply. The next time Prohibition helped the people it was trying to protect will also be the first time.
Also, and directly related to your Prohibition comment, and to war on drugs - it's a matter of economics. Supply and demand. There is strong demand that you can't really eliminate. If you keep supply illegal, then supply becomes handled by organized crime, and all proceeds from the sale of goods/services go into growing organized crime.
Thanks for your comment, and the others in the thread too. I think I must be tinted by how it works in Sweden. First of all, the word "trafficking" there is most of all associated with the trade of minors. Also, soliciting sex ("prostitution") is not illegal for adults. Buying the service is. This has some interesting implications. It caters to the "conservative base" who does not want to see fully legalized prostitution. It also protects "workers" who can always go to the police. It also makes it very clear, that unfortunately, there is a market for sex slaves, especially for children. Some will apparantly make an extra effort to pay for abusing a child. Given human nature, I expect these low-lifes must exist in the US too.
Which is why the Prohibition thing rings false with me, especially the alcohol one. Alcohol was pretty much enjoyed by everyone to various degrees. Buying sexual services, while popular, not as much. So it's an analogy, but not the greatest. (Also ignoring that most sexual services are bought by men, while alcohol was/is used to a much larger degree by both sexes.)
Whores don’t go to the police in Norway not because they won’t help with assault and such but because the police will get them evicted from their flats.
Traffickers would be even less likely to operate in Sweden if the penalty was death by crucifixion. Do you also support that?
Forgive me if I’m not especially impressed by the think of the children rhetoric. Drawing a line from Lutherans to modern day Sweden isn’t exactly hard. The judgmental attitude hasn’t changed one iota.
You're missing the fact that virtually no one wants to have sex with slaves. If a legal, regulated industry existed for people to get what they wanted, the illegal market would go away. AFAIK Nevada doesn't have a huge issue with sex slaves.
If you truly wanted to curb sex trafficking, you’d legalize prostitution, not drive it farther underground.