Why We Don't Pay Attention to Human Trafficking

As previously discussed, human trafficking, or modern day slavery, is not a common household topic. Two possible reasons for this have been purported in CES 301 discussions: the contemporary obsession with celebrity culture, and the view that women are disposable creatures.

In the past, Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon model dictated the way in which people viewed each other and their world. If every person thought they were being watched and judged based on their actions, but wasn't entirely sure if they were in fact being watched, they would behave with the best behavior possible. Such a model would lead to people showing compassion for others, particularly those in need of help, like slaves. There were many movements of such humanity during slavery in the United States in the 1800s, such as the Underground Railroad. The people in the North helped escaping slaves partly because of the culture they were brought up in, but also because they might have wanted to appear to others compassionate. People in the South who might have been sympathetic to slaves might not have acted on those feelings because they were afraid they were being watched and judged by others; the Panopticon model can thus influence actions both positively and negatively.

Currently, however, society has moved past the Panopticon model into a culture that is crazed by celebrities. Instead of watching each other, people watch the few and base their behavior around those that they want to emulate. This decreases the likelihood of modern day slaves receiving help for multiple reasons: people remain completely ignorant of how people around them live because they are solely focused on celebrities; the media bypasses the chance to raise awareness in order to focus on celebrities and thus receive higher ratings and more advertising dollars; when cases of slavery or abuse are exposed, such as the recent case involving Jaycee Dugard, the media and its viewers focus only on that one individual instead of illuminating how countless others worldwide suffer in a similar manner. The sensationalized media feed the celebrity culture that detracts from awareness of real world issues, such as human trafficking.

Melissa Wright in Disposable Women and Other Myths of Global Capitalism discusses another reason why issues such as human trafficking fail to attract the public attention they deserve. Wright explores the mentality regarding female factory workers in China and Mexico, and how their bosses view them as disposable body parts, not as fully functioning human beings. This attitude can also apply to the way in which most people view victims of human trafficking: since the majority of those victims come from third world countries, and a lot of them are women forced into sexual labor, they are mentally dehumanized by the people who deal with them. Certainly the men who engage in sexual acts with women forced into prostitution do not care whether their partner is a real person; they only see the woman for the body parts she presents for their use and disposal. The men forced to work as manual laborers are also only valued for their useful body parts, but in their case their muscles, arms, hands, and strong backs are more important. And once these body parts fail to operate in an efficient manner, the people who belong to these body parts are disregarded and disposed of by their exploiters.

The combination of the celebrity culture and the disposable mentality can help explain why human trafficking is largely ignored, especially by developed Western nations such as the United States.

Click HERE to open the feedback tool.

Images About Human Trafficking: A Unequal Focus on the United States

From my cursory research into the topic of human trafficking, I have noticed an interesting phenomenon: most of the websites I have come across focus on human trafficking in the United States. I know that my own post a few weeks ago also discussed the United States, and that was partly because it is easiest to find information about this region, while other regions of the world are not as heavily researched.

This correlates to images depicting human trafficking. Most of the images online are used to raise awareness, which is very important, but they are focused on awareness of human trafficking only in the United States.

The above image, for example, is a very eye-catching and appropriate for the topic of human trafficking because it emphasizes that people are treated as commodities for sale to the highest bidder. The text of the image, however, solely focuses on the United States: "It happens here. It's happening now." Though the 50,000 people stuck in human trafficking in the United States do deserve exposure and all the help they can get, they are only a fraction of the 12 million people worldwide. The people viewing this image, after feeling surprised and then concerned, are impressible--this image has the power to entirely shape their opinion of human trafficking, and their willingness to become an advocate for those who are victims of trafficking. But since the image only focuses on those in the United States, the millions of other slaves worldwide remain helpless and ignored.

The same could be said for this image, with a blonde white woman being shipped against her will. This image has no facts on it, but it does not depict the reality for most people suffering from human trafficking. The majority of those trafficked are of non-white races, and though they are transported in dangerous situations, a suitcase is probably not one of them. These images are gimmicky, and intended to attract attention and raise awareness, but images depicting the reality of modern slavery would be more effective.

This image, though still using visual stereotypes of slavery (barbed wire instead of jars or suitcases), at least gives a better idea of what human trafficking must be like to experience. The sadness in this girl's face is real, and viewers of this image would be much more likely to become interested in helping stop human trafficking after seeing this.

I am not arguing that human trafficking in the United States is not important. However, I am saying that if the many groups whose goal is to raise awareness and garner support want to truly reach out and make people see how horrible this global affliction is, they must use tactics which force people to acknowledge what modern slavery truly looks like, not what it represents in a cutesy, witty way. This is a very serious issue which needs to be confronted by all the citizens of the world.

Click HERE to open the feedback tool.