Human Trafficking Officially a Mainstream Issue

Human trafficking has been officially declared a mainstream issue. By me. Just now on this blog. What gives me the right to move this cause from the "niche" box where it has sat so comfortably for over a decade to the "mainstream" box where the big causes like global warming and world peace dwell? Because human trafficking is officially everywhere in the mainstream media. Yep. Everywhere.

The media life of human trafficking was nascent for much of the 1990s. Sure, there was a news article here or there about some poor Ukrainian girl who was brought to America to work as a waitress and then forced into prostitution, but these were presented as isolated and unique cases. Then sometime around the change of millennium, the issue began to pick up traction. Newspapers reported stories on not just isolated cases of trafficking, but individual stories that are part of a global phenomenon of exploitation. Patterns were recognized and connections were made between cases of people trafficked into commercial sex and other industries, like agriculture and factory work. Between 2000 and 2004, a great deal of attention was paid to modern-day slavery as something that happens in the developing wold, from the brothels of Thailand to the brick fields of India to the cocoa plantations of Cote d'Ivoire.

Sometime in the middle of the decade, Americans (and American media outlets) began to look internally for human trafficking. And they found it.

At first it was a women's issue, and Lifetime and other women's interest media created specials and documentaries. When I first moved to DC in 2005, most of the people I met who had heard of human trafficking had been exposed to it via the Lifetime miniseries. But since 2005, media coverage of human trafficking has grown exponentially. And it hasn't just increased in quantity -- the quality, depth, and understanding of the issue is growing. And because of that, every media outlet wants to have their say on human trafficking as the issue d'jour.

I was amazed a few years ago to find an article in Glamour on trafficking. And I was floored a few weeks ago to learn that E! Online (Keeping Up with the Kardashians being among their more cerebral programming) was airing a special on teen sex trafficking in the U.S. This week, CSI is doing a three part crossover series which focuses on one case of human trafficking. But the final blow to human trafficking's status as a niche issue was when I discovered its presence on one of my favorite shows ... Reno 911. Yes, the brave men and women of the Reno Sheriff's Department were engaged in an undercover sting investigation of what they thought was the forced sale of a young Asian girl into marriage. Of course, Junior accidentally marries her and hilarity ensues, but the issue was presented with surprising accuracy for a mostly improvised sitcom.

This increase in media coverage is a double-edged sword. On one hand, more coverage can lead to more awareness. But it can also lead to more stereotypes and misconceptions. Then again, the presence of human trafficking in mainstream media can also help support more independent media on the issue. Like blogs. And that, I fully support.

Photo credit: Ballistik Coffee Boy