As Prostitution Persists, Anti-Human Trafficking Activists Look to Root Causes
At Geebo, we and our customers come together with shared values and shared goals to create a community. And, like our customers, we’re about more than just the bottom line. We care as much about how we do things as what we do. We like the way it feels to make ethical decisions, and we like being a part of a community that supports us in that.
In our last blog post, we wrote about social responsibility and cause-based marketing. We know that many of you are committed to a crime-free internet, which is why you do your selling and buying on Geebo, and why you’ve supported us in removing our online personal adds. We’ve learned that, through such ads, many children have been and are sold for sex on sites like Craigslist and Backpage, and we didn’t want to be any part of it! While we can’t control everything and everyone, we make every effort to create a safe space, especially for children, so we took all personals off our site, and we’ve been thriving ever since. We’ve even urged other online classified sites to do the same. We are proof that business and ethics can–and should–go hand-in-hand.
We recently saw the words of some of our fellow anti-human trafficking activists in the Opinion Pages of The New York Times, in a section entitled “To End Prostitution, Start with the Demand Side. Norma Ramos, Executive Director, Coalition Against Trafficking in Women; and Pamela Shifman, Director, Initiatives for Girls and Women, NoVo Foundation; respond pointedly and passionately to Al Baker and Tim Stelloh’s, As Other Crimes Recede, Prostitution Keeps Its Wily Hold. We hope you’ll take a few moments to read the article and Norma and Pamela’s responses, and as you do, remember that the average age of entry into “prostitution” in the United States is twelve. Twelve! Twelve year-old kids really don’t enter prostitution, they get forced, defrauded, and coerced into sex slavery.
When we read pieces like this, and Norma and Pamela’s eloquent responses, we know that making the right ethical decision was, and is, good business. And we know that’s part of why you do you business with us. We wanted to say thanks, again, for your support, and reaffirm our commitment to a safe, transparent, and prosperous community.
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Anuj 12:21 pm on June 6, 2012 Permalink
Can I remind merbmes that we have longstanding resolutions on this issue of trafficking and suggest that you might cite the ones below in advocacy or look to them for possible actions:Human trafficking violates human rights (2010)The 30th IFUW Conference resolves that:1. National Federations and Associations (NFAs) educate their merbmes about the issue of trafficking as it relates to their countries, including addressing the primary causes that contribute to the practice;2. NFAs urge their respective governments to ensure that they have not only signed, but have also ratified the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons (2003); if their countries have done so, NFAs monitor the status of their government’s implementation of the Protocol and take appropriate action where needed; and3. IFUW use its standing committees, its consultative status with ECOSOC, its website and member networks to advocate for measures that would reduce the incidence of trafficking.Trafficking and Exploitation of Women and Children (1998)The 26th Conference of IFUW resolves that NFAs:-urge their governments to support and implement the Declaration and Actions of the World Declaration Against Commercial Exploitation of Children, Stockholm, Sweden, 1996; and-urge their governments to protect women and children, both male and female, from exploitation by: 1.. implementing and enforcing laws prohibiting any type of exploitation of women and children especially trafficking and enforced prostitution; 2.. developing and supporting educational and training programmes to raise women and children’s awareness of how they can avoid becoming victims of trafficking and ensnared or enforced prostitution; 3.. developing and supporting educational and training programmes to raise public awareness of the social, cultural and financial implications of sex trafficking and other forms of sexual exploitation; 4.. implementing and enforcing laws prohibiting sex tourism to foreign countries; 5.. ensuring that work permits, if applicable, for foreign workers are not just shields for exploitation of women and children; and 6.. assisting those who become victims of trafficking and exploitation.