The new abolitionism
Rich Lowry writes about human trafficking.
Ambassador John Miller is head of the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. But he has a simpler word for what he is combating: “slavery.” Trafficking, or “modern-day slavery,” as Miller calls it, is fast becoming one of the early 21st century’s foremost human-rights issues.
Friday 21 Jan 2005 | Jacobse | General, Trafficking |
Currently the MSM would be hard pressed to focus attention on this issue without making the Bush Administration look fairly good for trying to do something.
Kate O’Bierne, in 2002, noted the appauling lack of attention the Clinton Administration gave to this issue: “Hoping to rescue the tens of thousands of women held in similar sexual bondage, Smith wrote landmark legislation to pressure countries to end this barbaric practice. In the past, [Chris Smith's (R, New Jersey)] efforts were dismissed by a complacent international community, and opposed by the Clinton administration. But in 2000, when Smith’s bill passed unanimously in the Senate (with the indispensable help of Kansas senator Sam Brownback), and nearly unanimously in the House, President Clinton took credit ? characteristically ? for the legislation his administration had strenuously opposed. Clinton’s Interagency Council on Women (honorary chairman:Hillary Clinton)had lobbied unsuccessfully to narrow the definition of prohibited sexual trafficking to exclude “consensual” prostitution. The Clinton view that prostitution is a legitimate career option for women reflected the position of some feminists, notably Ann Jordan, director of the International Human Rights Law Group’s Initiative Against Trafficking in Persons. Last year, Jordan offered an analogy, quoted in The American Prospect: “We don’t support a woman’s right to choose because we think abortion is a great thing, but because we believe fundamentally that women should have control over their own reproductive capacity. The same argument can be made for prostitution. Women who decide for whatever reason to sell sex should have the right to control their own body.”
Here’s my prediction: should a Democrat win in 2008 (President Hillary?) the MSM will “discover” the issue of human trafficking, and will couch it in the context of a Democratic Administration taking up the cause of women worldwide, while a Republican Congress stonewalls all efforts to pass meaningful legislation on what is rightfully described as nothing less than slavery.