Image by Imagens Evangélicas via Flickr
with Chris Hedges
On Contact Archive on Apr 6, 2022
Originally from RT America on Jul 2, 2016
In this week’s episode of On Contact, Chris Hedges sits down with two anti-trafficking campaigners discuss how to combat the sexual exploitation of women and girls. Suzanne Jay, co-founder of Asian Women Coalition Ending Prostitution, and Taina Bien-Aime, Executive Director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, delve into the controversial topic of decriminalizing prostitution. RT Correspondent Anya Parampil reports on the global scale of sex trafficking.
From the archives:
OGADEN: Ethiopia’s Hidden Shame by Graham Peebles
Abby Martin and Peter Kuznick: The Untold History of Imperial Japan and the Bomb
The Intimately Oppressed by Howard Zinn (repost)
Abject Poverty or Domestic Servitude by Graham Peebles
Killed Beaten Raped: Migrant Workers are Slaves by Graham Peebles
Dandelion Salad 
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Pingback: Abby Martin: Buying a Slave – The Hidden World of US-Philippines Trafficking – Dandelion Salad
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First of all: thanks for posting this. The evidence presented here was deeply moving and politically informative.
That said: While I must celebrate the compassion Chris demonstrated when summarizing his interviews with victims of sexual trafficking, I am a little disturbed by his imposition of political narrative on this history of trauma. Prostitution is an ancient profession, and some of its early practitioners became influential politically (possibly including Pericle’s consort, Aspasia). I doubt that lesser women did not feel the same kind of trauma as modern prostitutes do, in an era that long predated capitalism.
The problem is the one framed by the women here interviewed: catering to masculine aggression to the point of self-indulgence that undermines men’s capacity to establish mutually rewarding relationships. That Chris consistently interrupts the development of this point to impose his narrative is a disturbing form of cultural expropriation. While his anti-capitalist rhetoric is an important element in defining his market, I think that in this case it weakens the message.
Capitalism is not the only framework that crumbles under the burden of masculine aggression – in fact, I don’t know of any that doesn’t. By substituting “capitalist” as an abstraction of this universal problem, I think that we are disengaging from truth, and thereby weakened in our attempts to address it.
Thanks for your comment, Brian.
Thank you Chris again an issue very dear to me. Like I always say if have more slaves now then when slaves were legal.
I had an opportunity to meet a family from Ogaden, lovely people.
I am sorry to hear they too are victims.
Keep me updated please
Your friend
Leonor
Thanks, Leonor.
Did you see this blog post? https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2016/06/25/ogaden-ethiopias-hidden-shame-by-graham-peebles/
No but I certainly tomorrow good nite
You may wish to not use your email address in the section for your name. I’ve edited it out in both your comments today.
Am I working with you I am lost here thank
Sorry, you are not filling in the info in the boxes correctly. Not sure if you have a website/blog, but you put in “WordPress.com” in the that box, and obviously that isn’t your blog. In the name section you put in your email address. It’s not a good idea to post your email address publicly because others can take it and use it for spam messages.
On your previous comments, I edited your name, deleting your email address. Should I do the same with this comment, too?
You are very kind I spend so much in advocacy I am good computers. OK I will later
Namaste