rescuers

I have been aware for years of men who claim to rescue women and girls from prostitution. Usually they are British or American Evangelical Christians. Usually the women and girls are from poor tropical countries. I have dealt with some of this on my page trafficking, especially about the International Justice Mission.

They may sometimes do some good, but often they harm the people they claim to want to help. Sometimes this is because they are fraudulent, but sometimes it is because they don't understand what they are doing.

I shall mention two briefly, Tim Ballard and Adam Whittington. There is information about them elsewhere so I won't write about them. Danny Smith is someone I only know about because of his book Shouting into the Silence.

On page 173 in Chapter 13 (RESCUE THE CHILDREN) he writes about Mumbai's red light district.

"Suicides were spoken of factually. Anyone caught trying to escape was beaten severely when they returned. One girl, Mina, tried to jump out of a top-floor window but fell and broke her back. She had been caged for seven years and was forbidden to leave her room. Usually the girls were confined for two to three years before they were allowed out on their own."

I don't know if I believe this account, but it is interesting that there is an account of  a Thai sex worker detained after a brothel raid who tried to escape.

"Rather than face a potentially long period of detention, some rescuees took matters into their own hands, knotting sheets together to escape shelters – one was hospitalized with back injuries when she fell during an escape attempt."

So who do you think I'm going to take more seriously, a Christian man or investigative journalist Noy Thrupkaew?

On page 211 of Danny Smith's book he starts writing about the Philippines.

"I became aware of modern slavery in 1992, on my first day in the Philippines. I learned that young girls were trafficked to Japan by criminal gangs with links to the Yakuza (Japanese Mafia). The gangs used recruiters, frequently women, who enticed girls with the fake promise of a job and a better life, with money for their family."

This is not true. This is what Rhacel Salazar Parrenas has to say about it. She spent nine months in Tokyo working as a hostess in a club. She is also Professor of Sociology and Gender and Sexuality Studies at Princeton University.

"Yet the US State Department cites the “dohan” as an indication that Filipino hostesses are sexually trafficked in Japan. Such false assumptions led to a US policy that prompted Japan, in 2006, to reduce the number of visas for Filipina hostesses by 90 percent. Anti-trafficking and anti-prostitution crusaders counted this a triumph. But no trafficking and very little prostitution was stopped, and 81,000 Filipinas lost their livelihoods."

So who do you think I am going to take more seriously, a Christian man or a woman who has worked in Japan and is a Professor of Sociology?

Also on page 211 is an account said to have come from Father Shay Cullen (an Irish Catholic missionary priest).

"Jean and Mia were twins, born of a father they never knew, raised by a mother who didn't care, who sold them off to a pimp when only fourteen years old. They were raped in a sex bar the following week. I heard about their abduction and started an investigation."

A couple of paragraphs on he writes this.

"Inside the club, the girls were paraded as they were taught. They looked sad and sultry, caged and cringing, behind the make-up and the mascara. This was the modern-day auction. No more the wharf-side platform lined with disembarked wrecks of suffering slaves cringing beneath the blows and whips of the slave seller. Now we had soft lights and music, and the even softer sell."

After Father Cullen's torrid account Danny Smith tells us that Operation Pentameter 'uncovered trafficking rings that delivered thousands of girls and women into Britain'. There were two interesting Guardian articles about Operation Pentameter by Nick Davies. I have found a similar one from the Mail on Sunday. Operation Pentameter was a complete failure.

Danny Smith also states that 'It was well known that slave auctions were held at Stansted Airport in 2006, with girls taken directly to British brothels'. This statement is a bit odd, because the CPS said one auction was at Gatwick Airport. The CPS went on to say 'Others were believed to have been staged at Heathrow, Stansted and other UK airports'.

So the CPS said that they thought one slave auction occurred at Gatwick Airport, and that there may have been other auctions at other airports - including Stansted. A bit different from what Danny Smith wrote in his book, but he doesn't seem to want to bother with getting his facts straight. Neither do the people who give him money and help him in his crusade to rescue sad and sultry girls.