 This is Steentech Hawaii. Community matters here. Happy Aloha Friday. Welcome to Perspectives on Global Justice, Steentech Hawaii Program. This is your host Beatrice Cantelmo. December 15th is designated as the Bill of Rights Day in the United States. Day of Remembrance of the Democratic Peaceful Action by which these rights were gained. I must say peaceful because it was a gnarly and bitter battle over the ratification of the U.S. Constitution for quite a few years and so many objections raised by anti-feralists in exhausting meetings and compromises before the amendments were able to be rectified on December 15th of 1791. I invited to take some time to become internally familiarized with at least the fasting amendments of the U.S. Constitution and also hold conversations with your loved ones, neighbors, classmates and students about the meaning of each amendment. Take some time individually and collectively to reassess the present meaning in their living worth in today's American society. And if you enjoy your personal freedoms and rights and having clear limitations on the government power in the judicial and other proceedings and specifically declarations that all powers not specifically delegated to Congress by the Constitution shall remain reserved for the states and the people then I hope you will find new and additional ways to mobilize for both freedom and human rights in this country and across the globe. Today's Perspectives on Global Justice program episode will be devoted to address an extremely marginalized group of society not only in the United States but across the globe, sex workers. Some refer to them as prostitutes, whores or hookers, and many other names. But we will talk about the history of criminalization of sex workers globally in the United States, discuss the main reasons why and how criminalizing consenting sex adults who wish to engage in consenting sex work jeopardizes their most basic human rights to safety, protection and access to health as well as their rights of living life free from being further marginalized and persecuted. We will do a brief overview of where Hawaii is at as a state as far as current laws pertaining to sex work is concerned as well as past and current efforts made by local and national social justice activists to amend current laws in the state of Hawaii. So the sex work between consenting adults can be decriminalized and their human rights be also equally respected and protected. But we will also talk about the difference between sex trafficking and sex work between consenting adults which are very distinct from each other because a lot of people mix them up and also because it's not the same thing and in fact in our state in 2015 our legislature changed its laws to make it so it's conflated between sex work and sex trafficking. Despite the fact of the testimony of Amnesty International which is the largest and one of the most respected human rights organizations on the globe pointing out the differences between both sex work and consenting adults and sex trafficking survivors as well as the human rights issues that the state of Hawaii would be violating by not making such distinctions not providing training and guidelines to law enforcement and members of the criminal justice system to differentiate between both groups. I cannot think of a more special guest to join us to have this conversation today than Miss Tracy Ryan. Tracy is the Executive Director of Harm Reduction Hawaii and she's also a fierce applicator in human rights of our state. She has done significant work in the fields of harm reduction advocacy in the state of Hawaii as well and she's been working very hard to also advocate for the decriminalization of sex work between consenting adults in the state of Hawaii. We've got a lot to cover and I want to make sure to also highlight the Hawaii Harm Reduction Conference which is just around the corner on January 9th of 2018. On that note, welcome to our program. Thank you for having me on the show. Absolutely. So we have a lot of things to cover and why don't we start with the conference which is just around the corner so that our viewers can get a little taste of what the conference is about its history and what are we going to cover this year? Alright, well the Harm Reduction Hawaii is a local nonprofit and its chief activity is to put on conferences mostly attended by social workers and social service providers which discuss usually a variety of issues homelessness, addiction, sex work is often part of them but other things as well. This is a special conference kind of fitting into our usual every two year harm reduction conferences. It's mainly going to focus on this one topic. It's called Deconstructing Sex Work and Sex Trafficking. It's going to be held January 9th of this coming year at the Almona Hotel in the Banquet section, the Hibiscus Ballroom in some of the smaller rooms and people who are interested should visit the website which is just Google Harm Reduction Hawaii and click on the website that says Conference 2017 and they will go to a tab for special events. So again, Harm Reduction Hawaii Conference 2017 website and click on special events and everything you need to know is there. Right, so that's wonderful because today we are going to be talking a little bit about the basic differences between sex trafficking and sex work between consenting adults because I think a lot of people mix them up, they think it's the same or they don't understand the difference. Could we have a picture with I went to Google today like most people can do to get a definition of human trafficking and so I picked one from the United Nations because I think they set the tone globally for how we look at this and so the definition from the United Nations is that human trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring a receipt of passes by improper means such as force, abduction, fraud or coercion for any improper use including labour of sexual exploitation. So Tracy, I know that when we do our advocacy work here in the state of Hawaii and I think across the globe, across the nation we have a lot of people who make this confusion between the distinction and consider sex work, sex trafficking. Why is that? Because the federal government in 2001 has started putting out hundreds of millions of dollars to promote the idea that sex work is sex trafficking because some people have as a political point of view that we should be abolishing all prostitution by saying that it is all sex trafficking but it kind of undermines our American system of justice first of all because it disregards the need to have evidence in criminal cases and it also puts people into various defined boxes and defines their characters and what they're doing without knowing the individual themselves and what they're actually doing and what their actual life experiences are. So there's a box for someone who purchases sex which is called John often and that's defined a certain way and the individual situation is not part of that definition. There's a box for someone who sells sex and that's being defined as someone who is either being controlled by some vicious controller or someone who is so terribly desperate they can't do anything else and is desperate to leave prostitution. Okay so then we're getting into boxes we're not looking at evidence of those things and we're not looking at individual stories or listening to anyone telling their own truthful story that doesn't fit into the box. And so if we go to the definition of sex work, I picked this one from the World Health Organization which is also part of the United Nations so sex work is the provision of sexual services for money or goods and I may add between consenting adults and sex workers are women, men, transgender people who receive money and goods in exchange for sexual services consciously define those activities as income generating if they do not consider sex workers at their male occupation or an occupation. So if you compare both definitions we clearly see that sex work does not meet the threshold of sex trafficking Of course not, I mean it's simple it's a simple thing do we understand the meaning of force, fraud and coercion or not? They have common language definitions if we simply apply those and look at actual evidence we're fine, we won't have this discussion but that's not how people are proceeding currently they're prosecuting a lot of the people who are managing massage parlors and that's locally going on as a way of say taking the profit out of prostitution they're not finding that the women who are working there are being forced or coerced at all however this is part of their effort apparently to fight sex trafficking to arrest and prosecute people who clearly aren't abusing or enforcing other people or using minors at all so it's a problematic activity I think they like the both of us have followed very closely the changes in the state legislation in 2015 on how by law now there is a completion a definition that sex work and human trafficking are the same and so it really gives room for criminalization of sex work because the assumption is that a sex worker is being trafficked or being a sex worker is a crime of trafficking too I'm not sure about the definition that you're referring to because what they did was they took the statute called promoting prostitution in the first degree which described a person who did the things we talked about in terms of trafficking in terms of forced fraud or promoting the prostitution of a minor and they changed the title of it from promoting prostitution in the first degree to sex trafficking that's what they did so now there is a definition of sex trafficking which is separate from the definition they're using for promoting prostitution because now they have promoting prostitution in the first degree as anyone who profits from prostitution fraud, coercion minors, or at all in that other statute which is a lesser crime but it's still ten years in prison is the one that the law enforcement seem to be spending all their time pursuing rather than sex trafficking which I gather is harder for them to make cases well the thing is I think that part of the problem that I see as a social justice advocate not only in this country but across the globe when it comes to the criminalization aspect of sex walker is the lack of education number one in the definition of both groups but also how systems create new problems that really put more hardship for a person for example who is a sex walker without considering the ramifications in their lives so like Amnesty International for example they've done a very lengthy study across the globe on the conditions of sex walkers and what were the issues that they were struggling with and across the globe when you criminalize a profession like this and marginalizes there are a couple of issues there the abuse of law enforcement which I'm sure you can talk about it the lack of access that they are prevented from having with regards to health care cause I think a lot of sex walkers do know want to be targeted and reported you know for being a sex walker when they go to the doctor and there's also the issue of safety because if you're really trying to you know walk to combat sex trafficking it's least likely that when you put a profession like sex walk underground that people will come forward all people in this country have to do is understand the situation we had during the prohibition of alcohol to realize that when you create a black market economy and anything take over abuse rules and everything is worse for everybody so the criminalization of sex work is not helping people who are trafficking victims one iota it's hurting a lot of other people who are not trafficking victims it doesn't do any good for anybody absolutely and plus it does not address the rights that sex walkers have to have the same access to respect and protection and value that a sex trafficked individual would have in the human rights of sex traffickers i'm sorry the sex trafficked individuals is as important as the human rights of someone who is a sex walker and i think that that's what's the disconnect is still as a society yeah because currently we have established a two tiered system for people who commit acts of prostitution if you claim that you're a sex trafficking victim to the police you might avoid going to jail you may not have a criminal conviction and if you do have one you can probably get it cleared from your record which is very important in getting on with your life if you're not claiming sex trafficking victim you get to go to jail you get to be shamed because you did something deliberately on your own you get to have a criminal record and create all sorts of problems in your life so it's it's unless there's a deliberate effort to get people to falsely claim sex trafficking status this situation makes no sense and it's very deceitful so we're going to take a quick break and get back at this conversation hello everyone I'm DeSoto Brown the co-host of human humane architecture on Think Tech Hawaii every other Tuesday at 4pm and with the show's host Martin Desbang we discuss architecture here in the Hawaiian Islands and how it not only affects the way we live but other aspects of our life not only here in Hawaii but internationally as well so join us for human humane architecture every other Tuesday at 4pm on Think Tech Hawaii what on the list is who's going to drive it's nice to know you're going to get home alive plan for fun and responsibility choose the DT captain of our team it's the DT for every game day a sign a designated driver welcome back to Perspectives on Global Justice Think Tech Hawaii program this is Beatrice Contelmore and I'm back with Tracy Ryan so Tracy we were talking about how the laws really have been changing and it's actually quite deceitful to set people into that place of if you're caught doing sex work and it's a crime here you're also being given a choice to declare that you were sex trafficked and so you have all of these bonuses for the rescuing industry the issue of providing a two tiered system is problematic one of the presenters at our conference will discuss a labor trafficking case from about 15 years ago up in Canada where she interviewed a bunch of people who allegedly had been human trafficked into Canada from China but after they were denied asylum in Canada and they were going to go back she interviewed them and all of them said they lied about being trafficked 100% of her sample because they wanted the benefit that doesn't help our system at all this criminalization of prostitution unless you're a sex trafficking victim doesn't work if you don't think that sex trafficking victims should be prosecuted and they absolutely shouldn't then why are we prosecuting consensual people who are not being trafficked by anyone it doesn't make any sense well the thing is you have a system that is trying to help sex traffickers but I don't think that they are doing in the right way one of the issues that Amnesty have brought globally and it's actually I think the state of Hawaii was the first state in this nation to actually have the money provided during legislative session during a time that was very crucial to address the differences between sex trafficking and sex work and to say look you shouldn't do this because number one the very distinct groups you can't conflate them because then you're starting to run into all of these problems in the human right violations too and you're still not helping sex workers thrive and their human rights are being violated and you're not helping sex traffickers individuals either unfortunately the testimony is given to a legislative body which is responsive to whatever amount of fear and hysteria exist among their constituents and not really particularly interested in any kind of reason or logic or facts which are presented in testimony so it's our job as people who want to deal with problems of human trafficking in a logical way and not hurt consensual sex workers to try to get a better conversation going which is part of the reason we're doing this conference we want people to come together from around the state people who can sit around and talk civilly explain their points of view and what they see is problematic and work out a better system than what we have because what we have right now is no good and part of this is education and that's the starting point and I think talking about anything that has to do with sex is very difficult you know it is a taboo I think in most societies and it's something that I bring up frequently when we're talking about trafficking because as you know in amnesty is very aware that human trafficking exists in a lot of areas in sweatshops on these fishing boats we're hearing about and farm labor various even domestic services you know maids and butlers could be victimized in non sex trafficking situations but of all of these things let's go out and make being a maid a crime or arrest everyone who hires farm labor because you know because there is trafficking there you know but our solution to sex trafficking is let's abolish the whole industry and the only reason that it seems to make a difference is because people are seeing sex is something that is just distinctly different and have an issue with it and some of the stuff that I've read from some of the people who are promoting this you know that this prostitution is slavery idea when you start reading it it sounds like warmed over Victorian advice that mothers gave to their daughters about the horrors of the wedding night that the whole idea of having sex with a man is something that you had to bear in order to be a good wife and mother you know this very strange idea in our modern context for people to think this way but a lot of people who are describing themselves as feminists are using very much the same argument that this is a sex is a harmful thing in its in and of itself to women if it involves a man but I think also that there is the assumption that sex work is only primarily done by women we have men in the industry we have out of it exactly and so we need to broaden the perspective on sexuality and sex and the truth of the marriage actually a couple months ago I had to do a training that would address the differences between sex trafficking and sex work and I've given an example of just a couple that you know live together they did share the money but the wife really didn't work much so the guy had more money so she kind of got an allowance but without explaining that part of it we're really explaining what the relationship and what their you know his desire of like how often he wanted to have sex buses you know what how reality was of like no it's not happening and then I described also an example of just a couple that met you know for sex exchange in the sex work industry and people could not differentiate and that was exactly the point if you are two or more consenting adults and you have decided that you're going to engage in a sexual activity and you know you're all in agreement with what that's going to be it's nobody's business and you know but we still particularly in a state you know we talked about it being Bill of Rights Day just things which aren't in the Constitution Bill of Rights are the words from the Declaration of Independence saying life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness not in the Constitution but they are in the state of Hawaii's Constitution so in the state of Hawaii people are guaranteed liberty so that's the default position so for the state to come in and the legislature to pass a law against anything they should have a burden to prove that this law is doing good to show that it's necessary to show that it's reducing harms and not creating harms but they don't seem to feel they have any burden at all actually let's talk a little bit about the burden because the part of being really charged with sexual because you have a criminal racket so I actually read this really quickly so the implications of that and the collateral consequences so evictions deny of public housing benefits no access to students or financial aid unlimited employment options loss of child custody and even risk of deputation and those are just a legal problem and these are just a legal problem not the social ones of having that shame you may not really find a husband it's maybe alienated from your family and all sorts of other jobs teaching positions etc may follow you around but what is basically a crime of a 10 second conversation between two adults on a public street at 2 in the morning that's the crime that most people are carrying around for decades affecting their later life and that is the one thing I think we need to also focus in terms of the decriminalization aspect of it is look at all the burden that we could lift off of sex workers who actually are consenting adults who are engaging in sex work knowingfully and eye control of their situation too I think there is this perception that they are cultured, very poor marginalized and it's like they could be but it's like there are people who practice what's called survival sex who are selling sex who are basically really hardcore addicts and these people are not being trafficked by anybody because traffickers are not hardcore addicts because they don't generate much money or their teenage runaways again by definition by some definitions everyone under 18 is a sex trafficking victim but most of minors who are selling sex are not being controlled they are mostly runaways who are doing survival sex so it's still something there's a lot of problems with it but we need to understand that the services and the reaction to it is as you said there are plenty of women adult women, transgender people men who are selling sex simply it's money they're making money on it just like people do with all sorts of jobs they may not love the job, they may not hate the job but it's what it is, it's labor and for these people we need to allow them to make that choice to make their living to not arrest them and certainly not try to arrest all of their clients to try and save them which is some people's idea of being helpful we're helping you by arresting the clients that cutting off my income is not helping me for children under the age of 18 or younger adults teenagers under the age of 18 I think the part that's very hard even with survival sex is that by law they are not considered that age to make that decision but I do agree with you that children under the age of 18 who are engaged in the sex work industry should never be criminalized for it? I think that the change we made in the law recently that made it a violation subject to family court for people under 18 selling sex was good the logic was continuing to make it a crime for adults which is backwards from every other rule we have about young people for smoking, for drinking, for a hundred other things what's legal for adults is not for children, here it's more legal for children than for adults just bizarre I can't believe how quickly our program you know went through 30 minutes just like that people remember to come to the conference and to register at that website that we mentioned we'll be in good shape may this be the first of many visits that you pay us and thank you so much for being here for your expertise and your passion and thank our viewers and see you next Friday, we hope