It is appalling to discover how easy it is to dismiss acts of social injustice that occur globally and even in our own backyard. We live in a world that often turns a blind eye to adversity and seem to be complacent when personally unaffected.
Psychic numbing, according to Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times, refers to a deprivation of compassion, a deadening of feelings that occurs when one is confronted with appalling images, facts, or statistics that overwhelm the mind. It takes a concentrated effort to stay up on global happenings, let alone what is going on in our own neighborhood. Author and Professor Walter Brueggemann states, “Clearly, human transformative activity depends upon a transformed imagination. Numbness does not hurt like torture, but in a quite parallel way, numbness robs us of our capability for humanity.”
Human trafficking is a modern-day form of slavery. Victims of human trafficking are subjected to force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labor, which can include various forms of involuntary servitude such as work in quarries, sweatshops and farms, and enslavement of child soldiers. Researchers say 80 percent of human trafficking victims are female and half are children. The federal government says it is second only to the drug trade as an international criminal industry.
Down the Rabbit Hole is an art installation that will graphically depict a realistic environment of a working / living area of a hostage of sex slavery. Magazine cutouts of American pop culture icons will be taped on one wall next to a bare, putrid mattress, and a stash of penicillin, ‘’morning after’’ pills, and misoprostol – an anti-ulcer medication that can induce abortion. A video projection of an innocent girl playing in the park will be projected into a crib symbolizing a stolen childhood. Also, a clip of Alice in Wonderland will loop on a television set to signify the exploration of escapism. There will be a haunting sound design that will affect the viewer’s emotional state.
Guests will leave Down the Rabbit Hole uneasy but hopefully moved to seek awareness about human trafficking that looms over San Francisco and throughout the Bay Area. Each guest will take a blindfold as they exit that has printed websites of agencies fighting against this horrific travesty to allow guests to respond to the effort to stop human trafficking.
The most often cited numbers come from the U.S. State Department, which estimates that 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked for forced labor and sex worldwide each year -- and that 80 percent are women and girls. Most trafficked females, the department says, are exploited in commercial sex outlets. Relying on research from the Central Intelligence Agency, the State Department estimates there are 14,500 to 17,500 human trafficking victims brought into the United States each year -- but does not quantify how many of those are sex victims. Some advocacy groups place the number of U.S. victims much higher, while others criticize the government for overstating the problem.
“It makes me sick to my stomach,” said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. “Girls are being forced to come to this country, their families back home are threatened, and they are being raped repeatedly, over and over.”
California is a top destination for human traffickers who coerce people into the sex trade or hard labor through force or fraud. The report by a 19-member task force of the California Alliance to Combat Trafficking and Slavery says California is particularly vulnerable to human trafficking because of its international border, ports and airports; its booming immigrant population; and a large economy that includes industries that attract forced labor.
There are at least 90 massage parlors in San Francisco where sex is for sale, according to the online sex Web site myredbook.com. The site has been around since 1997 and has more than 55,000 reviews of Northern California sex workers. It is used by johns, yet is also a main monitoring tool for law enforcement. On average, there are about eight women working in a massage parlor, police say. That would mean more than 700 Asian sex masseuses working in San Francisco, based on 90 illicit parlors listed on sex websites and on police interviews.
Today the sex trade is thriving, both globally and in the U.S. In fact San Francisco is host to 43 percent of all trafficked women entering California. The Tenderloin District has been a host to the sex slave industry and contributing to this growing issue.
San Francisco’s liberal attitude toward sex, the city’s history of arresting prostitutes instead of pimps, and its large immigrant population have made it one of the top U.S. cities for international sex traffickers to do business undetected, according to Donna Hughes, a national expert on sex trafficking at the University of Rhode Island.
Women trafficked for the sex industry are predominantly from Southeast Asia, the former Soviet Union and South America -- lured to the United States by promises of lucrative jobs as models or hostesses, only to be sold to brothels, strip clubs and outcall services and extorted into working off thousands of dollars in surprise travel debts to their new owners.
Because of the human trafficking phenomena, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) made human trafficking a federal crime. It was enacted to prevent human trafficking overseas, to protect victims and help them rebuild their lives in the United States and to prosecute traffickers of humans under federal penalties. Prior to 2000, no comprehensive federal law existed to protect victims of trafficking or to prosecute their traffickers.
“Trafficking is a transnational criminal enterprise. It recognizes neither boundaries nor borders. Profits from trafficking feed into the coffers of organized crime. Trafficking is fueled by other criminal activities such as document fraud, money laundering and migrant smuggling. Because trafficking cases are expansive in reach, they are among the most important matters - as well as the most labor and time-intensive matters - undertaken by the Department of Justice.” Remarks by Attorney General John Ashcroft, in February 2003.
To raise public awareness about this problem, the U.S. Senate approved a resolution on June 22, 2007 to establish, declaring every January 11th in California as National Human Trafficking Day.
Your project description is really interesting... I wish I could be in SF to see it. It grabs me in two ways - one, I'm always fascinated by people's attempts to replicate "real" environments, especially if they are trying to replicated reality as they believe others perceive it; and two, I would love to see the reactions of people after they've seen (interacted?) with the installation. Perhaps I missed it in the description, but if you haven't thought about this yet please consider finding a way to capture people's thoughts.
ReplyDeleteMy two cents: I don't recall what polling places (for voting) look like in CA, but here in DC they set up tables with a cheap cardboard divider - its just high and deep enough to create the feel of a cubicle (minus the chair). I would do something like that, include those little pencils (you know the ones), and make sure the divider is high enough so that people can't see each others' faces. You could give blank notecards or paper, or offer two or three prompter questions, such as the basic basic "This exhibit made me feel...." or, more provocatively, "do you know anyone (including yourself) who has purchased the services of a sex worker?", and if "yes," "were any of the sex workers younger than the legal age of consent and/or from a foreign country?" - and if "no," "should a 'john' bear the responsibility of checking whether a sex worker is of legal age and isn't being coerced before engaging in a sexual act?"
I suggest this sort of viewer feedback thing for two reasons - I would imagine that somewhere among the comments you get you might find inspiration for a following project, and also because there is a critical missing piece of the puzzle when it comes to the issue of human trafficking. I work on the public policy side of this issue, and while there is growing public awareness of slavery, no one is talking to the actual or potential *consumers* of these services. The attention is all on the "supply" side of the equation; very little focuses on the "demand." And yet, when you think of the sheer number of underage and non-citizen women trafficked for this form of slavery - think how much bigger the number of men who purchase these services is.
I believe most anti-prostitution laws punish the worker but not the consumer - its one of the most blatant examples of sexism still on the books. And I've never seen anything from the U.S. pro-legalization community that talks about the consumer's responsibility. I believe the federal anti-trafficking law is silent on penalties for consumers. Funny how consuming an illegal substance - drugs - can put you in prison for years, but consuming a slave gets you a slap on the wrist.
Food for thought. Good luck with you exhibit.