Clients' strict liability towards victims of sex-trafficking

Legal Studies ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 438-463
Author(s):  
Tsachi Keren-Paz ◽  
Nomi Levenkron
Keyword(s):  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
Strict Liability ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Commercial Sex ◽  
Forced Prostitution ◽  
English Law ◽  
Sexual Services

In this paper, we argue that clients who purchase commercial sex from victims of forced prostitution should be strictly liable in torts towards the victims. Such an approach is both normatively defensible and doctrinally feasible. Fairness and equality demand that clients would compensate victims, even if one refuses to acknowledge that purchasing sex from a prostitute who might be a victim is a faulty behaviour. Clients profit from the activity of purchasing commercial sex, so fairness demands they will bear the costs they impose on victims who are unable to refuse the contact. Strict liability will bring about desirable distributive results along the lines of sex, class and race. Imposing strict liability will ensure consistency of the English law of trespass and it is supported by several instrumental considerations.Such strict liability could be grounded in battery, despite the appearance of apparent consent by the victim to sell sexual services to the client. This is so for two main reasons. First, the extreme coercion operated on the victim renders her consent void so that an innocent third party cannot rely on the appearance of consent. Secondly, the client should be considered as having constructive notice with respect to the trafficker's coercion. Our argument is supported by – but does not hinge upon accepting – the insight that the client's behaviour is ultimately faulty.

scholarly journals Police Implementation of the Partial Sex Purchase Ban in England and Wales

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Matolcsi
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
Strict Liability ◽  
Sexual Exploitation ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Front Line ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Police Statistics ◽  
The Law

AbstractA main point of contention in the policy areas of prostitution and sex trafficking is whether the purchase of sex should be criminalised, whether fully (in all circumstances) or partly (only under specific circumstances). Particularly, Europe has seen several countries either fully criminalise buying sex or insofar as the person in prostitution is subject to exploitation or coercion. An example of the latter, since 2010, it is an offence in England and Wales (UK) to buy sex with a person in prostitution who has been coerced or exploited by a third party. While the offence was heavily debated before it was adopted, there has been little empirical research on its implementation, particularly by police who are on the front line of implementation. While police statistics on the offence are of questionable reliability, indications are that there has been little application of the offence. This paper explores several potential reasons for this in the context of interviews with 10 police representatives in four areas of England. Factors such as police’s knowledge and awareness of the offence, difficulties with its application, and to what extent and in what way policing of prostitution and trafficking for sexual exploitation are taking place, may all be playing a role, but do not explain lack of use in all of the areas examined in this research. The notions that there are not enough victims for the law to be applied or that police may be resisting applying the offence because they find the strict liability element of the offence unfair were not supported by these interviews. This research is unique in finding that there may be an issue with police misunderstanding fundamental elements of the offence and what seems to be a lack of awareness of the offence. These findings have implications for the assessment of the enforceability of this and similar offences and policy discussions around such offences.

scholarly journals The Double-Edged Sword of Health and Safety: COVID-19 and the Policing and Exclusion of Migrant Asian Massage Workers in North America

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 157
Author(s):  
Elene Lam ◽  
Elena Shih ◽  
Katherine Chin ◽  
Kate Zen
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Interpersonal Violence ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
The State ◽  
Emergency Relief ◽  
Sexual Services

Migrant Asian massage workers in North America first experienced the impacts of COVID-19 in the final weeks of January 2020, when business dropped drastically due to widespread xenophobic fears that the virus was concentrated in Chinese diasporic communities. The sustained economic devastation, which began at least 8 weeks prior to the first social distancing and shelter in place orders issued in the U.S. and Canada, has been further complicated by a history of aggressive policing of migrant massage workers in the wake of the war against human trafficking. Migrant Asian massage businesses are increasingly policed as locales of potential illicit sex work and human trafficking, as police and anti-trafficking initiatives target migrant Asian massage workers despite the fact that most do not provide sexual services. The scapegoating of migrant Asian massage workers and criminalization of sex work have led to devastating systemic and interpersonal violence, including numerous deportations, arrests, and deaths, most notably the recent murder of eight people at three Atlanta-based spas. The policing of sex workers has historically been mobilized along fears of sexually transmitted disease and infection, and more recently, within the past two decades, around a moral panic against sex trafficking. New racial anxieties around the coronavirus as an Asian disease have been mobilized by the state to further cement the justification of policing Asian migrant workers along the axes of health, migration, and sexual labor. These justifications also solidify discriminatory social welfare regimes that exclude Asian migrant massage workers from accessing services on the basis of the informality and illegality of their work mixed with their precarious citizenship status. This paper draws from ethnographic participant observation and survey data collected by two sex worker organizations that work primarily with massage workers in Toronto and New York City to examine the double-edged sword of policing during the pandemic in the name of anti-trafficking coupled with exclusionary policies regarding emergency relief and social welfare, and its effects on migrant Asian massage workers in North America. Although not all migrant Asian massage workers, including those surveyed in this paper, provide sexual services, they are conflated, targeted, and treated as such by the state and therefore face similar barriers of criminalization, discrimination, and exclusion. This paper recognizes that most migrant Asian massage workers do not identify as sex workers and does not intend to label them as such or reproduce the scapegoating rhetoric used by law enforcement. Rather, it seeks to analyze how exclusionary attitudes and policies towards sex workers are transferred onto migrant Asian massage workers as well whether or not they provide sexual services.

Uncovering Indicators of Commercial Sexual Exploitation

2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (23-24) ◽  
pp. 5607-5623 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dawn Bounds ◽  
Kathleen R. Delaney ◽  
Wrenetha Julion ◽  
Susan Breitenstein
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
Sexual Exploitation ◽  
Commercial Sexual Exploitation ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Commercial Sex ◽  
Internet Site ◽  
Online Comments ◽  
Potential Activity

It is estimated that annually 100,000 to 300,000 youth are at risk for sex trafficking; a commercial sex act induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or any such act where the person induced to perform such an act is younger than 18 years of age. Increasingly, such transactions are occurring online via Internet-based sites that serve the commercial sex industry. Commercial sex transactions involving trafficking are illegal; thus, Internet discussions between those involved must be veiled. Even so, transactions around sex trafficking do occur. Within these transactions are innuendos that provide one avenue for detecting potential activity. The purpose of this study is to identify linguistic indicators of potential commercial sexual exploitation within the online comments of men posted on an Internet site. Six hundred sixty-six posts from five Midwest cities and 363 unique members were analyzed via content analysis. Three main indicators were found: the presence of youth or desire for youthfulness, presence of pimps, and awareness of vulnerability. These findings begin a much-needed dialogue on uncovering online risks of commercial sexual exploitation and support the need for further research on Internet indicators of sex trafficking.

scholarly journals Over My Dead Body! Media Constructions of Forced Prostitution in the People's Republic of China

2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine Jeffreys
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Rural Women ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Dead Body ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Official Policy ◽  
Media Constructions ◽  
Forced Prostitution ◽  
Sexual Services

This paper examines some of the tensions surrounding the PRC’s official policy of banning prostitution by focusing on two highly publicized cases of deceptive recruiting for sexual services—the ‘Tang Shengli Incident’ and the ‘Liu Yanhua Incident’. Both cases involve young rural women who had migrated from their native homes to other more economically developed parts of China to look for work. Both were forced to sell sex and both resisted. However, whereas Tang Shengli jumped from a building rather than be forced into prostitution, Liu Yanhua escaped from conditions akin to sexual servitude by stabbing her ‘employer’. An examination of these cases highlights some of the problems associated with efforts by the Chinese women’s media to promote and protect women’s rights in a country marked by rapid, yet unequal, economic growth and an expanding, albeit banned, sex industry.

18. Privity and third parties

Contract Law ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
TT Arvind
Keyword(s):  
Third Parties ◽  
Third Party ◽  
English Law ◽  
Privity Of Contract ◽  
Strict Rule

This chapter examines how English law, through a doctrine known as privity of contract, deals with the problem posed by contracts whose performance involves third parties. According to the doctrine of privity, a contract ordinarily only affects persons who are party to it. Third parties are neither bound by the contract nor entitled to claim rights under the contract. However, the courts and Parliament developed a number of exceptions to the strict rule of privity, each of which gives third parties a right to sue under the contract in a certain type of situation. For example, the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 gives third party beneficiaries a right to enforce contract terms. This chapter first considers the problem of third party rights in contracting before discussing the effects of privity and the provisions of the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 in more detail.

4. Negligence and strict liability

2021 ◽  
pp. 126-150
Author(s):  
Michael J. Allen ◽  
Ian Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Criminal Liability ◽  
Strict Liability ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Mens Rea ◽  
The Law ◽  
Sexual Services

Course-focused and contextual, Criminal Law provides a succinct overview of the key areas on the law curriculum balanced with thought-provoking contextual discussion. This chapter discusses the meaning of negligence, arguments for and against negligence as a basis for criminal liability, the meaning of strict liability, the origins of and justifications for strict liability, the presumption of mens rea in offences of strict liability, defences to strict liability, and strict liability and the European Convention on Human Rights. The feaeture ‘The law in context’ examines critically the use of strict liability as the basis for liability in the offence of paying for the sexual services of a person who has been subject to exploitation.

1. Introduction to Property and Land

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Martin George ◽  
Antonia Layard
Keyword(s):  
Property Rights ◽  
Residential Area ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Real Property ◽  
Personal Property ◽  
The Third ◽  
English Law ◽  
The Third Party ◽  
The Right ◽  
Ownership Rights

Land is an important commodity in society that it is both permanent and indestructible, two features which distinguish it from other forms of property. More than one person can have a relationship with the land and share the right to possess it. The right to possess a land is known as ownership right, but it is also common for people to have enforceable rights in other people’s land. This is the third party right, an example of which is where the owner of a house in a residential area agrees with neighbours that the house will only be used as a residence. This chapter discusses land and property rights, ownership rights, third party rights, and conveyancing. It also examines the distinction in English law between real property and personal property, the meaning of land, items attached to the land, fixtures and fittings, and incorporeal hereditaments.

Youth Involved in Prostitution (YIP)

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer McMahon-Howard
Keyword(s):  
Social Service ◽  
Juvenile Delinquents ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
Commercial Sex ◽  
Social Service Agencies ◽  
Trafficking Victim ◽  
Service Agencies

Since the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (TVPA) legally defined anyone under the age of 18 who is induced to engage in a commercial sex act as a sex trafficking victim, there has been a shift in the conceptualization of youth involved in prostitution (YIP). While YIP were historically viewed and treated as juvenile delinquents, this shift has called for the processing and treatment of YIP as victims in need of services. Despite these changes, the results of the present study suggest that there have been little changes in the interactions that YIP have with police and social service agencies. Also, similar to the participants who were involved in prostitution as minors before the adoption of the TVPA, those who were involved in prostitution as minors after the TVPA strongly reject the victim label.

scholarly journals Child Labor Trafficking in the United States: A Hidden Crime

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Kaufka Walts
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Child Labor ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
The United States ◽  
Research And Practice ◽  
Labor Trafficking ◽  
Domestic Servants ◽  
International Laws ◽  
Trafficking Victims ◽  
Sexual Services

Emerging research brings more attention to labor trafficking in the United States. However, very few efforts have been made to better understand or respond to labor trafficking of minors. Cases of children forced to work as domestic servants, in factories, restaurants, peddling candy or other goods, or on farms may not automatically elicit suspicion from an outside observer as compared to a child providing sexual services for money. In contrast to sex trafficking, labor trafficking is often tied to formal economies and industries, which often makes it more difficult to distinguish from "legitimate" work, including among adolescents. This article seeks to provide examples of documented cases of child labor trafficking in the United States, and to provide an overview of systemic gaps in law, policy, data collection, research, and practice. These areas are currently overwhelmingly focused on sex trafficking, which undermines the policy intentions of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (2000), the seminal statute criminalizing sex and labor trafficking in the United States, its subsequent reauthorizations, and international laws and protocols addressing human trafficking.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document