Sorry I'm keeping you waiting til late tonight, readers. (I know, I know - but hey, I'd like to pretend there are some readers waiting patiently on their laptops for me to update).
Confession: I just finished watching Jennifer Love Hewitt's Lifetime original movie The Client List.
First thought: Wow, that's pretty convenient that "Sam" has perfect recall and can remember all 69 of her clients. (Isn't it also convenient that Sam has 69 clients?)
Second thought: I wonder what implications this has on young girls who are watching this movie.
While I thought the movie was fine - pretty predictable storyline with a neatly resolved ending - I have to wonder: does this glorify the prostitution industry?
Spoiler alert: All the women got off with a fine and 30 nights in jail in exchange for giving up the names of the "johns" they saw regularly.
As I'm sure none of you know, human trafficking is a cause very close to my heart. Because I know it is a term often thrown around, I'll paste the definition of sex trafficking (taken from the 2010 Trafficking in Persons report):
When an adult is coerced, forced, or deceived into prostitution – or maintained in prostitution through coercion – that person is a victim of trafficking. All of those involved in recruiting, transporting, harboring, receiving, or obtaining the person for that purpose have committed a trafficking crime. Sex trafficking can also occur within debt bondage, as women and girls are forced to continue in prostitution through the use of unlawful “debt” purportedly incurred through their transportation, recruitment, or even their crude “sale” – which exploiters insist they must pay off before they can be free. It is critical to understand that a person’s initial consent to participate in prostitution is not legally determinative: if they are thereafter held in service through psychological manipulation or physical force, they are trafficking victims and should receive the benefits outlined in the Palermo Protocol and applicable domestic laws.
It should also disturb you to know that as many as 2 million children are sexually exploited as trafficking victims at any time around the globe.
I understand that it's probably a tad bizarre that that is what I'm thinking of as I relax and watch the Lifetime channel, but it is what it is. I think the movie didn't explore the women's backgrounds realistically enough. One woman loved sex and described this as her perfect job, while one (supposedly legal) girl said she ran away from home to audition for American Idol and couldn't return home to her Pentecostal family. Now, that's all fine and dandy for a Jennifer Love Hewitt movie, but in the real world, things are nearly as picture-perfect.
If you want to learn more about human trafficking, please visit The A21 Campaign's web site at www.theA21Campaign.org. To listen to the 2010 TIP Report (and to see the supporting documents), please visit: http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2010/142747.htm.
I know that's a lot of heavy information to leave you with so late at night, but it's an issue that people need to know about - and one that doesn't stop when the night falls.
@ClaireMBiggs
Little known fact: Did you know you can see human trafficking portrayed in such music videos as Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" and Mr. J Medeiros' "Constance"?
P.S. - That's not me in the photo. Credit goes to http://feelingelephants.wordpress.com/category/polaris-project-fellowship/.
“The blunting effects of slavery upon the slaveholder’s moral perceptions are known and conceded the world over; and a privileged class, an aristocracy, is but a band of slaveholders under another name”–Mark Twain
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