tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/sexual-slavery-39290/articlesSexual slavery – The Conversation2021-07-29T23:13:43Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1588522021-07-29T23:13:43Z2021-07-29T23:13:43ZSex trafficking isn’t what you think: 4 myths debunked – and 1 real-world way to prevent sexual exploitation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413825/original/file-20210729-15-1wvkjnr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C7%2C5061%2C3389&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A billboard in Mounds View, Minnesota, put up by the nonprofit National Human Trafficking Resource Center. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com">Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The idea that sex trafficking is an urgent social problem is woven into American media stories, from reports of Republican U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz’s <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/23/politics/gaetz-probe-public-corruption-medical-marijuana/index.html">alleged trafficking of teenage girls</a> to debunked QAnon conspiracy theories about <a href="https://apnews.com/article/social-media-us-news-ap-top-news-conspiracy-media-9d54570ebba5e406667c38cb29522ec6">a sexual slavery ring run through online retailer Wayfair</a>.</p>
<p>The common perception of sex trafficking involves a young, passive woman captured by an aggressive trafficker. The woman is hidden and waiting to be rescued by law enforcement. She is probably white, because, as the legal scholar Jayashri Srikantiah writes, the “<a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/inlr28&div=23&id=&page=">iconic victim</a>” of trafficking usually is depicted this way. </p>
<p>This is essentially the plot of the “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0936501/">Taken</a>” movies, in which teenage Americans are kidnapped abroad and sold into sexual slavery. Such concerns fuel <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/california-ikea-trafficking/">viral posts</a> and <a href="https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/tiktok-sex-trafficking-hoax-bloodbathandbeyond/">TikTok videos</a> about alleged but unproven trafficking in IKEA parking lots, malls and pizza shops. </p>
<p>This is not how sex trafficking usually occurs.</p>
<p>Since 2013, I have <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TVAdU9IAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">researched</a> human trafficking in the midwestern U.S. In interviews with law enforcement, medical providers, case managers, victim advocates and immigration lawyers, I found that even these frontline workers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/705237">inconsistently define and apply</a> the label “trafficking victim” – especially when it comes to sex trafficking. That makes it harder for these professionals to get trafficked people the help they request. </p>
<p>So here are the facts and the law.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411320/original/file-20210714-25-jllauk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Small crowd stands on a lawn, some holding signs like 'Free the Children'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411320/original/file-20210714-25-jllauk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411320/original/file-20210714-25-jllauk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411320/original/file-20210714-25-jllauk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411320/original/file-20210714-25-jllauk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411320/original/file-20210714-25-jllauk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411320/original/file-20210714-25-jllauk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411320/original/file-20210714-25-jllauk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demonstrators gather May 1, 2021, outside of the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio, to protest against pedophilia and sex trafficking.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/demonstrators-gather-outside-of-the-ohio-statehouse-to-news-photo/1315672937?adppopup=true">Scott Olson/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What is sex trafficking?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-106publ386/pdf/PLAW-106publ386.pdf">Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000</a> provides the official legal definition for sex and labor trafficking in the United States. </p>
<p>It makes “trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age” a federal crime. </p>
<p>In short, to legally qualify as sex trafficking, a sex act involving an adult must include “force, fraud, and coercion.” This could look like someone – a family member, a romantic partner or a market facilitator colloquially described as a “pimp” or “madam” – physically abusing or threatening another adult into sex for money or resources.</p>
<p>With minors, any and all sexual exchanges – that is, trading sex for something of value like cash or food – are considered sex trafficking.</p>
<h2>How common is sex trafficking?</h2>
<p>Data on human trafficking is <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo23044232.html">notoriously messy</a> and <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo23044232.html">difficult to measure</a>. Survivors may be hesitant to disclose their exploitation out of fear of deportation, if they are undocumented, or arrest. That leads to underreporting.</p>
<p>One way to approximate how many people are being trafficked in the United States is to consult federal grant reports, as suggested by anti-trafficking nonprofit <a href="https://freedomnetworkusa.org/press-kit/">Freedom Network USA</a>. </p>
<p>For example, the federal <a href="https://ovc.ojp.gov/program/human-trafficking/ovc-efforts">Office for Victims of Crime</a> served 9,854 total clients – some of whom identified as trafficked, others who showed “strong indicators of trafficking victimization” – between July 2019 and June 2020. The Department of Health and Human Services <a href="https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/otip/otip_one_pager_victim_assistance_fy19.pdf">Office on Trafficking in Persons</a> served 2,398 trafficking survivors during the 2019 fiscal year. </p>
<p>Data from the same office also shows that 25,597 “potential victims” of sex and labor trafficking were identified through calls to the National Human Trafficking Hotline.</p>
<p>Again, this data is incomplete – if survivors have not accessed these particular resources or called these specific hotlines, they are not represented here.</p>
<h2>What does sex trafficking look like?</h2>
<p>As with <a href="https://www.rainn.org/statistics/perpetrators-sexual-violence">other</a> <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/in-an-abusive-state">sexual</a> <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-48782-002">crimes</a>, like rape, sex trafficking survivors often experience violence at the hands of someone they know, not a complete stranger. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411325/original/file-20210714-27-qttxoi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The 'Taken' movie poster" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411325/original/file-20210714-27-qttxoi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411325/original/file-20210714-27-qttxoi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411325/original/file-20210714-27-qttxoi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411325/original/file-20210714-27-qttxoi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411325/original/file-20210714-27-qttxoi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411325/original/file-20210714-27-qttxoi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411325/original/file-20210714-27-qttxoi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Movies like ‘Taken’ – and its many sequels – present an unlikely sex-trafficking scenario in which an American teen abroad is snatched and sold into sexual slavery.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ec/aa/cd/ecaacdd90753b8820b68bda76a55dd11.jpg">EuropaCorp</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A study from <a href="https://humantraffickinghotline.org/sites/default/files/Homelessness%2C%20Survival%20Sex%2C%20and%20Human%20Trafficking%20-%20Covenant%20House%20NY.pdf">Covenant House New York</a>, a nonprofit focused on homeless youth, found that 36% of the 22 trafficking survivors in their survey were trafficked by an immediate family member, like a parent. Only four reported “being kidnapped and held against his or her will.”</p>
<p>Often, trafficking victims are younger <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/23322705.2020.1690116">transgender people</a> or <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/IJHRH-07-2019-0056">teens experiencing homelessness</a> who exchange sex with others to meet their basic needs: shelter, economic stability, food and health care. Trafficking frequently looks like vulnerable people struggling to survive in a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1474746414000414">violent, exploitative world</a>.</p>
<p>“They are creating sexual solutions to nonsexual problems,” says San Francisco-based researcher <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/domestic-minor-sex-trafficking/9780231169219">Alexandra Lutnick</a>.</p>
<p>Under U.S. law, these youth are trafficking victims, because of their age. But they may <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14616742.2010.513109">reject the label</a>, <a href="https://theappeal.org/not-a-cardboard-cut-out-cyntoia-brown-and-the-framing-of-a-victim-aa61f80f9cbb/">preferring terms</a> like “survival sex work” or “prostitution” to describe their experiences. </p>
<p>Trafficking victims engaged in survival sex <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12456">may well be arrested</a> rather than offered help like <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520281967/control-and-protect">housing or health care</a>. If they cannot prove “force, fraud, or coercion,” or if they refuse to comply in a criminal investigation, they risk shifting from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243203257477">victim to criminal</a> in the eyes of law enforcement. That can mean prostitution charges, felony offenses or deportation.</p>
<p>Such punishments are most commonly used against <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0891243214524623">Black, Indigenous, queer, trans and undocumented sex-trafficking survivors</a>. Black youth are <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/uclalr62&div=40&id=&page=">disproportionately arrested</a> for prostitution offenses, for example, even though legally any underage commercial sex is sex trafficking.</p>
<h2>What is the difference between sex work and sex trafficking?</h2>
<p>Legally and in other meaningful ways, sex work and sex trafficking are different. </p>
<p>Sex work is <a href="https://theconversation.com/sex-worker-rights-hysteria-surveillance-and-threats-to-fundamental-freedoms-120943">consenting adults engaging in transactional sex</a>. In almost all U.S. states, it is a <a href="https://www.nswp.org/sex-work-laws-map">criminal offense</a>, punishable with fines and even jail sentences. </p>
<p>Sex trafficking is nonconsensual, and it is generally treated as a more severe crime.</p>
<p>Most sex workers’ groups acknowledge that sex work is not inherently sex trafficking but that sex workers can face force, fraud and coercion <a href="https://www.hips.org/uploads/6/2/2/9/62290383/hips_statement_swrights.pdf">because they work in a criminalized, stigmatized profession</a>. Sex workers whose experiences meet the legal standards of trafficking may nonetheless fear disclosing that to police and risking arrest for prostitution.</p>
<p>Conversely, sex workers can be mistakenly labeled by police and advocates as “trafficked” and find themselves <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10612-020-09530-4">in the custody of law enforcement or social service agencies</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411322/original/file-20210714-21-16qkeku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Street protest of people wearing face masks and holding signs demanding rights" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411322/original/file-20210714-21-16qkeku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411322/original/file-20210714-21-16qkeku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411322/original/file-20210714-21-16qkeku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411322/original/file-20210714-21-16qkeku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411322/original/file-20210714-21-16qkeku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411322/original/file-20210714-21-16qkeku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411322/original/file-20210714-21-16qkeku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sex workers march against discrimination, the criminalization of their job and sexual violence in Queens, New York, Sept. 18, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sex-workers-and-supporters-are-are-seen-during-a-news-photo/1273570855?adppopup=true">Joana Toro /VIEWpress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What can be done?</h2>
<p>Based on my research, reducing sex trafficking requires changes that might prevent it from occurring in the first place. That means rebuilding <a href="https://doi.org/10.5250/fronjwomestud.41.2.0057">a stronger, supportive U.S. social safety net</a> to buffer against poverty and housing insecurity. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>In the meantime, trafficking victims would benefit from efforts by frontline workers to combat the racism, sexism and transphobia that <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520281967/control-and-protect">stigmatizes and criminalizes</a> victims who don’t look as people expect – and are struggling to survive.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158852/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant 1624317. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.</span></em></p>Children are not routinely being snatched from pizza parlors and sold into sexual slavery. Sex trafficking more often looks like ‘vulnerable people struggling to survive’ through sex.Corinne Schwarz, Assistant Professor of Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies, Oklahoma State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1204332019-07-16T11:15:05Z2019-07-16T11:15:05ZWhy the Ntaganda judgment shows that the ICC has found its footing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284259/original/file-20190716-173334-14txm0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Congolese Bosco Ntaganda in the courtroom during the closing statements of his trial in The Hague.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Bas Czerwinski</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In early July the International Criminal Court (ICC) <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/drc/ntaganda">convicted</a> Congolese warlord Bosco Ntaganda of war crimes, torture, and sexual slavery. Nicknamed <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48907866">“Terminator”</a>, the 46-year-old is the first person to be convicted of sexual slavery by the ICC. He is only the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48907866">fourth person convicted</a> for international crimes by the ICC since its creation in 2002. </p>
<p>In what has become a predictable pattern, the Ntaganda judgment has been met by strong reactions. </p>
<p>On the one hand there is <a href="https://www.justiceinfo.net/en/tribunals/icc/41897-ntaganda-s-conviction-a-sweeping-win-for-the-icc-prosecutor.html">satisfaction</a> about the conviction, particularly as it represents <a href="https://ilg2.org/2019/07/08/gender-based-crimes-a-monumental-day-for-the-icc/">the first international conviction for the crime of sexual slavery.</a> </p>
<p>But there is also <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/08/warlord-bosco-ntaganda-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-congolese">frustration</a> that the judgment addresses only a small part of the horrors of violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The ICC’s internal management of the case and the judges has also been <a href="http://opiniojuris.org/2019/03/29/judge-ozaki-must-resign-or-be-removed/">criticised</a>. </p>
<p>What’s absent from the various reactions is that there’s no drama, no intake of collective breath as greeted the ICC’s acquittals of <a href="https://theconversation.com/bemba-acquittal-overturns-important-victory-for-sexual-violence-victims-99948">Jean-Pierre Bemba</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/gbagbos-acquittal-suggests-confusion-and-dysfunction-at-the-icc-110200">Laurent Gbagbo</a>, or its <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/63622/the-international-criminal-court-decision-on-afghanistan-time-to-start-a-new-conversation/">decision</a> not to proceed with investigations into atrocities in Afghanistan because facing off against a cantankerous US</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/afghanistan">would not serve the interests of justice</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The absence of bombshells reflects the plain vanilla successes of the Ntaganda decision. The case involved the ICC methodically, even dully, setting out the proof and rationale for its conviction in more than 500 pages. The judgment is evidence of the ICC acting as a court, and nothing more. </p>
<p>This quiet, plodding, judicial work is the correct way forward for the institution. It may also show the <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/otp/OTP-Strategic-Plan-2013.pdf">strategy outlined</a> by the ICC’s second (and current) prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, is bearing fruit.</p>
<h2>Mixed record in DRC</h2>
<p>Crimes committed in Ituri, the mineral rich region of the DRC that borders Rwanda and Uganda, were the subject of the <a href="https://www.legal-tools.org/doc/7ed751/pdf/">first situation investigated by the ICC prosecutor</a> when the court opened. The violence in the DRC, <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/03/1033842">which continues even today</a>, belies comprehension. It’s been called “the rape capital of the world” and</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/congo-the-most-dangerous-place-on-earth-for-women-1.1031760">the worst place on earth to be a woman</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Bosco Ntaganda <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/drc">is the fifth defendant</a> charged with crimes in Ituri, and its third conviction. Prior to Ntaganda, defendants <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/drc/lubanga">Thomas Lubanga</a> (2012) and <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/drc/katanga">Germain Katanga</a> (2014) were convicted by the ICC. Both, however, received relatively light sentences for limited crimes. </p>
<p>Given the brutal, extensive violence committed by paramilitary groups in Ituri, the convictions against Lubanga and Katanga also arguably <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2006/07/31/dr-congo-icc-charges-raise-concern">misrepresented, possibly even ignored</a>, the most serious crimes committed in Ituri. Both defendants were additionally qualified by <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/openglobalrights-openpage/justice-denied-iccs-record-in-drc/">some observers</a> as “small fish” and not the important government leaders that the ICC should be prosecuting.</p>
<p>Two other prosecutions for crimes committed in Congo failed altogether. In 2011, the pre-trial chamber declined to affirm charges against <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/drc/mbarushimana">Callixte Mbarushimana</a>, and in 2012, <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/drc/ngudjolo">Mathieu Ngudjolo Chu</a> was acquitted.</p>
<p>Ntaganda’s case was originally attached to Lubanga’s, and severed only because Ntaganda spent seven years at large. An arrest warrant was issued against him in 2006. It was only in 2013, after a shake-up in his <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2013/08/201382411593336904.html">M23 rebel group</a> ousted him from power, that he then turned himself in at the US embassy in Kigali.</p>
<p>Ntaganda was charged with 18 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for atrocities committed in the DRC from 2002 to 2003, and found guilty on all 18 counts. </p>
<p>In finding Ntaganda guilty of sexual slavery, the trial chamber <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/CourtRecords/CR2017_03920.PDF">set new precedent</a>, by determining that sexual violence directed at one’s own army is also a crime recognised under international criminal law.</p>
<h2>What comes next?</h2>
<p>The trial chamber still has not issued Ntaganda’s sentence. The prosecution, defence and victims representatives <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/CourtRecords/CR2019_03592.PDF">will have the next few weeks</a> to file their sentencing requests. The defence has 30 days to file an appeal, and has already announced that it intends to do so.</p>
<p>It is expected that the defence will continue to object to the presence of Judge Ozaki. In February 2019, Ozaki became a “part time” judge as well as the Japanese ambassador to Estonia, which post she held <a href="https://www.ijmonitor.org/2019/05/judge-ozaki-resigns-ambassadorial-post-to-stay-on-ntaganda-trial/">until April</a>. Ntaganda’s lawyers argued that serving in a government capacity while simultaneously sitting as a judge constitutes a conflict of interest, and filed a request to disqualify Ozaki. In June, a majority of all ICC judges, sitting in plenary, <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/Pages/record.aspx?docNo=ICC-01/04-02/06-2355">dismissed the request</a>, leaving Ozaki to continue to serve as a part of the three judge panel that convicted Ntaganda.</p>
<p>The Ntaganda judgment is long and assessments of its import in specialised international law blogs have only begun to emerge. </p>
<p>What’s clear is that the criticisms directed at the ICC about the judgment have little to do with the judgment itself. In its steady consideration of witness testimony and reasoned application of international criminal law to established as well as new terrain, Ntaganda is a return to the basics of jurisprudence. </p>
<p>It might not get all the headlines or suck all the air out of the room, as methodical, careful, reasoned court decisions rarely do. But this in itself represents real progress, and an actual significant victory, for the court.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120433/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kerstin Carlson receives funding from The Dreyers Fund for law-related research in Africa. </span></em></p>Ntaganda’s conviction represents real progress, and an actual significant victory, for the ICC.Kerstin Bree Carlson, Associate Professor International Law, University of Southern DenmarkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1051982018-10-17T22:55:56Z2018-10-17T22:55:56ZWhy Canada must prosecute returning ISIS fighters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241118/original/file-20181017-41122-br0nrc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nadia Murad, co-recipient of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, listens to a question at a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 8, 2018.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/06/nadia-murad-isis-sex-slave-nobel-peace-prize">Human rights champion Nadia Murad</a> was recently co-awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In August 2014, Murad’s village in northern Iraq was attacked by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and she was sold into sexual slavery.</p>
<p>She managed to escape, sought asylum in Germany in 2015 and has fought for the rights of the Yazidi minority ever since. Upon becoming a Nobel laureate, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nobel-prize-peace-murad-statement/yazidi-activist-nadia-murad-on-receiving-the-nobel-peace-prize-idUSKCN1MF1XE">she said:</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We must work together with determination — so that genocidal campaigns will not only fail, but lead to accountability for the perpetrators. Survivors deserve justice. And a safe and secure pathway home.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Accountability has become a key issue. While the United States-led international coalition has dislodged ISIS from the cities it had occupied and controlled, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/17/world/middleeast/isis-syria-raqqa.html">namely Mosul and Raqqa</a>, the group is weakened but not dead. </p>
<h2>ISIS remains a force in the Middle East</h2>
<p>Both the U.S. Department of Defense and the United Nations estimate that approximately <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20180823-counting-islamic-state-members-impossible-task">30,000 ISIS fighters</a> remain in those countries.</p>
<p>At the same time, a significant number of foreign fighters from places like Canada, the U.K. and Australia have fled Iraq and Syria. Numerous countries are struggling to find <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/13/world/australia/citizenship-isis-khaled-sharrouf.html">policy solutions</a> on how to manage the return of their nationals who had joined the group. </p>
<p>The Canadian government has stated publicly that it favours taking a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/hamilton-trudeau-town-hall-1.4481025">comprehensive approach</a> of reintegrating returnees back into society. Very few foreign fighters who have returned to Canada have been prosecuted.</p>
<p>Things are about to become much more complicated for officials in Ottawa. Stewart Bell of <em>Global News</em>, reporting recently from Northern Syria, <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4526514/canadian-isis-caught-in-turkey/">interviewed</a> Canadian ISIS member Muhammad Ali who is being held by Kurdish forces in a makeshift prison.</p>
<p>Ali admits to having joined ISIS and acting as a sniper, and playing soccer with severed heads. He also has a digital record of using social media to incite others to commit violent attacks against civilians and recruiting others to join the group.</p>
<p>Another suspected ISIS member, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/06/suspected-british-isis-fighter-could-face-repatriation-to-canada">Jack Letts</a>, a dual Canadian-British national, is also locked up in northern Syria. The same Kurdish forces are adamant that the government of Canada repatriate all Canadian citizens they captured on the battlefield.</p>
<h2>Soft on terror or Islamophobic</h2>
<p>The issue of how to manage the return of foreign fighters has resulted in highly political debates in Ottawa, demonstrating strong <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/plan-to-deal-with-returning-isis-fighters-sparks-fiery-exchange-between-scheer-pm-1.3698183">partisan differences</a> on policy choices and strategies to keep Canadians safe. </p>
<p>The Liberal government has been accused of being soft on terrorism and national security, while the Conservative opposition has been charged with “fear mongering” and “Islamophobia” for wanting a tougher approach, namely prosecuting returnees.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241122/original/file-20181017-41140-4wn6sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241122/original/file-20181017-41140-4wn6sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241122/original/file-20181017-41140-4wn6sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241122/original/file-20181017-41140-4wn6sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241122/original/file-20181017-41140-4wn6sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241122/original/file-20181017-41140-4wn6sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241122/original/file-20181017-41140-4wn6sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A member of the Asaish Kurdish security force shows a reporter the inside of an ISIS fighters house in February 2017 in Bashiqa, Iraq. The town in the Mosul district was liberated in November 2016 after being under ISIS control for two years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the most important point is that Canada has both a moral and legal duty to seek justice and uphold the most basic human rights of vulnerable populations. </p>
<p>ISIS and other jihadi groups have engaged in systematic mass atrocities against minorities in Iraq and Syria, including Christians and Shiites. ISIS has demonstrated a particular disdain for the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/CoISyria/A_HRC_32_CRP.2_en.pdf">Yazidi minority in Iraq</a>. The Canadian government <a href="http://natoassociation.ca/canadian-government-acknowledges-isis-genocide-against-the-yazidis-now-what/">recognized the group’s crimes against the Yazidis</a> as genocide. </p>
<p>As a state party to the <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/nr/rdonlyres/ea9aeff7-5752-4f84-be94-0a655eb30e16/0/rome_statute_english.pdf">Rome Statute</a> of the International Criminal Court, and a signatory of the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crimeofgenocide.aspx">Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide</a>, Canada has a responsibility to uphold these international legal conventions when formulating carefully crafted policy responses that deal with returning foreign fighters.</p>
<h2>Trials can serve as deterrents</h2>
<p>Canada has the option to prosecute its nationals in domestic courts using the <a href="http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-45.9/page-2.html#h-5">Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act</a>.</p>
<p>Open trials can serve as means by which to lay bare ISIS’s narrative and to help counter violent extremism and future atrocities. </p>
<p>They can also serve as a deterrent and warning to other Canadians who might try to join ISIS as it mutates and moves to other countries in the world like Libya, Afghanistan, Egypt, the Philippines, Pakistan or in Mali, where Canadian peacekeepers have just been deployed.</p>
<p>If Canada truly stands for multiculturalism, pluralism, the rule of law, global justice, human rights and the liberal international order, then we must be firm and take a principled stand to prosecute those have fought with ISIS. That includes our own citizens. No doubt Nadia Murad would agree.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105198/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kyle Matthews is affiliated with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute </span></em></p>If Canada truly stands for multiculturalism, pluralism, the rule of law, global justice, human rights and the liberal international order, we must prosecute our citizens who have fought with ISIS.Kyle Matthews, Executive Director, The Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, Concordia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1051532018-10-17T15:16:55Z2018-10-17T15:16:55ZSlavery was never abolished – it affects millions, and you may be funding it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241048/original/file-20181017-41144-11hcppa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3984%2C2174&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nail bars are havens for modern slavery.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When we think of slavery, many of us think of historical or so-called “traditional forms” of slavery – and of the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/032fe4a0-9a96-11e8-ab77-f854c65a4465">12m people</a> ripped from their West African homes and shipped across the Atlantic for a lifetime in the plantations of the Americas. </p>
<p>But slavery is <a href="https://theconversation.com/modern-slave-trade-how-to-count-a-hidden-population-of-46-million-60275">not just something that happened in the past</a> –- the modern day estimate for the number of men, women and children <a href="https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_574717/lang--en/index.htm">forced into labour worldwide exceeds 40m</a>. Today’s global slave trade is so lucrative that it nets traffickers more than <a href="https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_243201/lang--en/index.htm">US$150 billion</a> each year.</p>
<h2>Slavery affects children as well as adults</h2>
<p>Debt bondage often ensnares both children and adults. In Haiti, for example, many children are sent to work by their families as domestic servants under what’s known as the <a href="https://restavekfreedom.org/issue/">Restavek system</a> – the term comes from the French language <em>rester avec</em>, “to stay with”. These children, numbering as many as <a href="https://restavekfreedom.org/issue/">300,000</a>, are often denied an education, forced to work up to 14 hours a day and are sometimes victims of sexual abuse.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241042/original/file-20181017-41122-lujntx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241042/original/file-20181017-41122-lujntx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241042/original/file-20181017-41122-lujntx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241042/original/file-20181017-41122-lujntx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241042/original/file-20181017-41122-lujntx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241042/original/file-20181017-41122-lujntx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241042/original/file-20181017-41122-lujntx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Slavery is a daily reality for 10m children around the world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-trafficked-children-are-being-hidden-behind-a-focus-on-modern-slavery-87116">How trafficked children are being hidden behind a focus on modern slavery</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Slavery is not always race based</h2>
<p>Then, as now, race is not always the main reason for enslaving someone. In the past, those who were living in poverty, who did not have the protection of kinship networks, those displaced by famine, drought or war were often caught up in slavery.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-modern-slavery-look-like-61187">What does modern slavery look like?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In the UK, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/05/nail-bars-modern-slavery-discount-salons-booming-exploitation">nail salons</a>, <a href="https://www.expressandstar.com/news/2017/08/22/police-launch-major-raid-on-wolverhamptons-ming-moon-chinese-restaurant-in-modern-slavery-swoops/">restaurants</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-modern-slavery-look-like-61187">music festivals</a> and <a href="https://www.farminguk.com/News/Report-shines-light-on-modern-day-slavery-in-UK-agricultural-industry_49237.html">farms</a> have all be found to have people working in slavery. Victims of human trafficking come from <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39047787">all parts of the world</a> and all walks of life. There isn’t just one type of modern day slavery, it takes many forms.</p>
<h2>Your gadgets could be to blame</h2>
<p>The demand for certain types of goods has propelled slavery’s numbers. In the past, the desire for sugar drove the growth in slavery. Now, the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/26/opinion/freedom-project-verite-malaysia-supply-chains/index.html">global consumption of electronic goods</a> has exacerbated slavery in the Coltan mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Many slaves or trafficked victims are often exploited in mining for gold, coltan, molybdenum, niobium, tin – which can be used in <a href="http://blogs.worldwatch.org/slavery-cell-phone/">electronic goods sold around the world</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/where-we-work/africa/democratic-republic-congo">According to Save the Children</a>, 5,000 to 6,000 young children work in the Coltan mining industry, surrounded by armed guards to prevent their escape. Much of the profit from this trade goes to <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/02/11/africas-forever-wars/">fund ongoing militia warfare</a> in Central Africa.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241049/original/file-20181017-41140-10fe4j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241049/original/file-20181017-41140-10fe4j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241049/original/file-20181017-41140-10fe4j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241049/original/file-20181017-41140-10fe4j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241049/original/file-20181017-41140-10fe4j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241049/original/file-20181017-41140-10fe4j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241049/original/file-20181017-41140-10fe4j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Research has found children as young as seven mining cobalt used in smartphones.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Traditional slavery still exists</h2>
<p>Chattel slavery (where one person is the property of another) is illegal but still exists especially in the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mauritania-slavery/poverty-tradition-shackle-mauritanias-slaves-idUSL0187755020061201">West African country of Mauritania</a> – where abolitionists’ efforts to stamp out the practice have been in vain.</p>
<p>The organisation <a href="https://fightslaverynow.org/">Fight Slavery Now</a> says that today at least <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BajHzj0Di8AC&pg=PA258&lpg=PA258&dq=ruth+macklin+90,000+mauritanian+slaves+owned+by+others&source=bl&ots=HX2ZzfJA5O&sig=FCyP1oSuLOLpTKGhmNrC9ibWzN0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi_zMvhv43eAhUIJcAKHagLC2AQ6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=ruth%20macklin%2090%2C000%20mauritanian%20slaves%20owned%20by%20others&f=false">90,000 Mauritanians</a> are the property of others, while up to 600,000 men, women and children are in a bonded labour situation – up to 20% of the population.</p>
<h2>India has most number of slaves globally</h2>
<p>India has the <a href="https://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2016/06/02/india-has-the-most-people-living-in-modern-slavery/">highest number of slaves in the world</a>, with estimates ranging from 14m to 18m people. In India many people work as slave labour <a href="https://www.antislavery.org/report-slavery-india-brick-kilns/">in the brick kiln industry</a> – this includes women and children.</p>
<p>Now, as in the past, <a href="http://www.endslaverynow.org/learn/slavery-today/bonded-labor">not all slaves are forced into slavery</a>. Historically, some experienced such severe poverty that they had no choice but to sell themselves to be bound to another person. And similar cases still happen around the world today. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241047/original/file-20181017-41138-1v38oyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241047/original/file-20181017-41138-1v38oyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241047/original/file-20181017-41138-1v38oyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241047/original/file-20181017-41138-1v38oyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241047/original/file-20181017-41138-1v38oyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241047/original/file-20181017-41138-1v38oyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241047/original/file-20181017-41138-1v38oyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brick kiln workers in India are incredibly vulnerable to slavery.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>It involves global movement</h2>
<p>Long distance movement is common in slavery of the past and the present. For West Africans in the pre-modern era, the journey across the Atlantic must have been unimaginable.</p>
<p>Today, labourers move around the world freely looking for work, but some end up caught in slavery-like situations. They are promised a good job with decent conditions and wages, but instead are trapped in a cycle of debt and despair, where they are bound to their employer with no chance of escape.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/qatar-has-every-reason-to-enforce-new-workers-charter-23263">Qatar has every reason to enforce new workers charter</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Many of the workers constructing the stadia for the Qatar World Cup in 2022 come from South Asia. <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2016/03/qatar-world-cup-of-shame/">Amnesty International says</a> these workers often have their meagre wages docked unjustly, their passports seized and are forced to work in life-threatening conditions.</p>
<h2>Slave soldiers fight in wars</h2>
<p>One similarity between historic and modern slavery is the use of enslaved labour, especially children, in armies.</p>
<p>In recent years, <a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-05-23/ugandas-abducted-kids-try-get-their-lives-back-normal">at least 30,000 children</a> have been abducted and forced to labour in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/child-victim-or-brutal-warlord-icc-weighs-the-fate-of-dominic-ongwen-70087">Lord’s Resistance Army</a> led by Joseph Kony, in Northern Uganda.</p>
<p>Over four centuries ago, Christian children were valued as soldiers in the army of the Ottoman Empire. The children were taken from their homes, forced to convert to Islam and <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/modern-europe/turkish-and-ottoman-history/janissaries">put to work</a> in the military. </p>
<h2>Slavery was never abolished</h2>
<p>Today, an active abolition movement still exists. It applies lessons from the earlier abolition movement that ended the transatlantic slave trade – which recognised the importance of victim stories as a powerful tool to raise awareness.</p>
<p>Just as Africans such as <a href="http://abolition.e2bn.org/people_25.html">Olaudah Equiano</a> became part of the abolition movement in 18th-century London when they talked about their lives as slaves, so today, the benefit of encouraging survivors to share their <a href="https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/british-slave-narratives">stories is recognised</a>.</p>
<p>In the 1790s, to persuade the British government to end slavery in the British Empire, female abolitionists organised <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/abolition_tools_gallery_07.shtml">boycotts of sugar</a> that had been produced using slave labour and instead bought “fair trade” produce. Similarly, today, manufacturers and growers recognise that guaranteeing a product as fair trade – and free from slavery – will help their goods sell. </p>
<p>Slavery still exists in many forms today, and the impacts it has on millions of people are no less devastating than they were in the past. Yet ordinary people can use their power as consumers to combat modern slavery, simply by paying attention to what they buy, and raising awareness among their friends, family and colleagues.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105153/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Armstrong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Slavery still exists and it happens in plain sight.Catherine Armstrong, Lecturer in American History, Loughborough UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/772902017-06-02T02:54:50Z2017-06-02T02:54:50ZShould we put juveniles away for life? Meet Cyntoia Brown, the teen who sparked a debate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170425/original/file-20170522-7361-10nbuia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cyntoia after guilty verdict</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Birman Productions</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Inside the Juvenile Justice Center in Nashville, Tennessee is a steel door fitted with a high-security system. Push a button and the door unlocks, revealing another steel door with a slot for IDs. When that door buzzes, I walk through with video gear. I’m searched, as is the gear. An hour later, I hear the sound of shackles from down the hall, and a 16-year-old girl in an orange jumpsuit appears.</p>
<p>That meeting 14 years ago began an odyssey that eventually found me on the periphery of a political battle in Tennessee, one of the nation’s most conservative states. Bipartisan leaders there are struggling to change some of Tennessee’s heavy-handed juvenile sentencing laws that require juveniles convicted of first-degree murder to serve a minimum of 51 years.</p>
<h2>Laws under fire</h2>
<p>Juvenile sentencing laws in America have been under fire for many years. When compared to other industrialized countries around the world, America has the largest number of <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017/country-chapters/united-states">incarcerated youth</a>. Moreover, sentencing criteria for juveniles tried in the adult system are different from <a href="https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/184748.pdf">state to state</a>.</p>
<p>In 2015, a group of influential people, including a juvenile judge, attorneys, bipartisan legislators, lobbyists and activist organizations, got behind <a href="https://legiscan.com/TN/text/SB2090/id/1302503">a bill</a> to change an aspect of Tennessee’s juvenile sentencing laws. The original bill called for a juvenile serving a life sentence to be considered for parole after serving 15 years. That bill was debated in the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee, but after its passage appeared unlikely, its House sponsor, Rep. Jeremy Faison, withdrew it for further study. A modified version of the bill was also pulled from the agenda in 2017. Meanwhile, other bills addressing sentencing requirements and juvenile rights during interrogation are also under discussed. </p>
<p>A documentary that my colleagues and I produced, <a href="http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/me-facing-life/">“Me Facing Life: Cyntoia’s Story</a>,” has been part of this conversation about changing Tennessee’s juvenile sentencing laws. The film came about after I met a juvenile forensic psychiatrist in Nashville in 2003. That meeting led to my developing access to the city for a possible documentary. </p>
<p>When I met 16-year-old Cyntoia Brown in 2004, just days after she was arrested for murder, her case seemed cut and dried. She was a young runaway caught up in a bad situation after a middle-aged man picked her up for sex. She got scared and killed him. To law enforcement, the courts and the jury, there was no question about her guilt and her subsequent fate. For me, there had to be more to the story. My camera began rolling during our first meeting.</p>
<h2>A legacy of abuse</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170428/original/file-20170522-7327-1zx9zw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170428/original/file-20170522-7327-1zx9zw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170428/original/file-20170522-7327-1zx9zw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170428/original/file-20170522-7327-1zx9zw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170428/original/file-20170522-7327-1zx9zw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170428/original/file-20170522-7327-1zx9zw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170428/original/file-20170522-7327-1zx9zw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170428/original/file-20170522-7327-1zx9zw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cyntoia Brown at a 2014 transfer hearing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Birman Productions</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The next six years were intense. I did extensive interviews with Brown during the years prior to and just after her criminal trial, and several interviews with her adoptive and biological families. I observed forensic psychiatric and psychological evaluations and had access to all of her court proceedings. </p>
<p>We learned that Brown’s mother was unmarried. Her grandmother was a single parent. That didn’t seem so unusual, but over time, a more disturbing narrative emerged – most of the women in Brown’s maternal family were survivors of abuse.</p>
<p>It started with Joan, Brown’s maternal grandmother. She confided, on camera, that she had been the victim of a violent rape. The rape resulted in the birth of her daughter, Georgina. Georgina became an unsupervised teenager who lived a reckless life with drugs, alcohol and prostitution, and became pregnant with Cyntoia at the age of 16.</p>
<p>We discussed Cyntoia Brown’s story with many professionals, on and off camera, and discovered that the life she led, where she was repeatedly forced into sexual acts, was a form of slavery, or sex trafficking. </p>
<p>After she ran away, Cyntoia Brown would meet people who would take her in. The last person, nicknamed Kutthroat, subjected her to multiple sexual acts with his friends. He then threatened her and said she had better get some money, which was how she met the man she murdered. We also discovered that Brown was a victim of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, a condition that occurs when a mother drinks during pregnancy. <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/fasd/facts.html">Typical symptoms</a> include difficulty with attention, and poor reasoning and judgment skills. </p>
<p>Cyntoia Brown was ultimately tried as an adult and sentenced to life in prison. She’s not eligible for parole until the age of 67, a sentence mandated by current Tennessee law.</p>
<h2>‘Transient rashness’</h2>
<p>Juveniles in Tennessee who are convicted of first-degree murder must serve a minimum of <a href="http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/tncode/">51 years before they can even be considered for parole.</a> First-degree murder includes those committed with “premeditation and deliberation,” which Tennessee law says can be formed in as few as one or two minutes. </p>
<p>First-degree murder also includes felony murder, which is a killing that occurs during the course of a felony such as a robbery, whether or not there was any intent to kill. A person can be convicted of felony murder regardless of their role in the crime. </p>
<p>It’s not difficult to see why there is a strong incentive to put a person convicted of murder behind bars for life. Such sentences eliminate the possibility that an offender could murder again.</p>
<p>But <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797615627625">new scientific discoveries</a> and <a href="http://www.lawneuro.org/adol_dev_brief.pdf">several landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions</a> that took place while we were working on our documentary raised important questions. <a href="http://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/juvenile-life-without-parole/">Since 2005</a>, the Supreme Court has recognized that children’s brains are not fully developed, which can impair their judgment and make them vulnerable to high-risk situations. In the 2005 case <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-633.ZO.html">Roper v. Simmons</a>, the court found that juveniles cannot be sentenced to death. Five years later, in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-7412.ZS.html">Graham v. Florida</a>, the court banned the use of life without parole for juveniles not convicted of homicide. In <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6291421178853922648&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr">Miller v. Alabama (2012)</a>, the high court declared mandatory life sentences without parole for juveniles unconstitutional. Writing for the majority in that case, Justice Elena Kagan described adolescence as marked by “transient rashness, proclivity for risk, and inability to assess consequences.”</p>
<p>And yet, Tennessee courts have not yet held that their laws violate Miller. Tennessee Code doesn’t require juveniles convicted of first-degree murder to serve life – but only to serve a 60-year sentence. The courts have the option to sentence convicted youth to a life sentence with a 15 percent reduction or <a href="http://www.ncrp.info/StateFactSheets.aspx?state=TN">parole eligibility after 51 years</a>.</p>
<p>Many advocates in Tennessee have taken the position that a 51-year sentence is functionally the same as life without parole because <a href="http://fairsentencingofyouth.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Michigan-Life-Expectancy-Data-Youth-Serving-Life.pdf">the average life expectancy of a young person entering prison</a> is roughly 50 years.</p>
<h2>After the filming stopped</h2>
<p>I finally turned my camera off in 2011. The documentary was initially broadcast on PBS–Independent Lens, and was later distributed worldwide. It was also featured in community cinemas and adapted and incorporated into various educational curricula around the country. As a result, Cyntoia’s story became a part of the expanding conversation about juvenile sentencing laws and how kids are handled in the criminal justice system.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/search/posts/?q=me%20facing%20life%3A%20cyntoia's%20story">A Facebook page</a> we created for the film has attracted more than 8,000 followers. Most express frustration about our sentencing laws, but a few state clearly that Brown got what she deserved.</p>
<p>“We fail to acknowledge the contributions we make in the lives of people like Cyntoia,” one visitor wrote. “Don’t mistake my argument, she does need to be held accountable, but the sentence rendered in no way benefits society. … Wake up people! They are kids…”</p>
<p>An extreme opposite view was also expressed:</p>
<p>“When is this world gonna wake up!! She just killed a man for no reason!! She deserves the death penalty there is no question about it.”</p>
<p>For her part, Cyntoia Brown has accepted responsibility for the life she took and knows she cannot undo this harm. She has also taken advantage of every opportunity within the prison system to turn her life around. This includes gaining an education through a local university.</p>
<p>In my opinion, Cyntoia Brown is not the same girl who was arrested in 2004. </p>
<p>We learned that some children – not all – do change. But even though there are systems in place to effectively rehabilitate a juvenile in the prison system, there is no hope under current Tennessee law unless this changes. </p>
<p>In terms of the legal challenge, we continue to follow and document the Tennessee lawmakers’ progress. Whatever Tennessee decides, whether to enact new legislation or maintain their current laws, will be a profound decision. Lawmakers from other states, wrestling with similar problems, will watch, as will activists on either side of the issue. </p>
<p>The last time I saw Cyntoia Brown was in 2015 when she and six other inmates were part of a Lipscomb University ceremony receiving their associate’s degrees. As of 2017, she is a semester away from completing her B.A. degree.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77290/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dan Birman is the founder and president of Daniel H. Birman Productions, Inc., a film company that produced Me Facing Life: Cyntoia's Story and the subsequent digital series, Sentencing Children.</span></em></p>Cyntoia Brown was just 16 years old when she shot and killed a man in 2004. Under Tennessee law, she won’t be eligible for parole until she is 67 years old. Is such a harsh sentence constitutional?Dan Birman, Professor of Professional Practice, USC Annenberg School for Communication and JournalismLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.