Regina King and Sandra Oh, American Crime, Season 3
Tonight at 10pm on ABC, the anthology series, American Crime will begin its third season. This year will delve into both labor and sex trafficking and while in recent years shows like Law and Order: SVU and Criminal Minds have had story-lines on trafficking, American Crime will be the first series to ever devote a whole season to the issue. As the Founder and President of GEMS, Girls Educational and Mentoring Services, the largest service provider in the country for commercially sexually exploited and domestically trafficked girls and young women, and a survivor myself, I'm cautiously optimistic about the impact the show could have. I met with the writers and provided feedback based on my 20 years of working with trafficked girls and young women and it was clear that they were taking pains to be as accurate and representative as possible. Hence the optimism. 20 years ago the idea that there could be an in-depth and comprehensive television show, on network TV no less, about the realities of trafficking in the United States was unthinkable. It's taken an immense amount of advocacy work, training and public awareness efforts to even be at the place where in the last few years we've begun to recognize victims in this country, not just those brought into the country, as trafficked and exploited and not as willing participants in their own victimization, as 'child prostitutes' or 'teen hookers'. It's been 17 years since the Trafficking Victims Protection Act was passed, federal legislation that focused exclusively on international victims of labor and sex trafficking. While the bill brought growing public awareness and funding across the country for international victims, (and rightfully so), at the same time American girls as young as 11 were being prosecuted for an act of prostitution that they couldn't even legally consent to. Children bought and sold by adult men to adult men were seen as the criminals while their abusers and exploiters generally walked away scot-free. It's been 9 years since, through the courage and incredible advocacy efforts of youth survivors at GEMS, New York State became the first state to address this real American crime by passing the Safe Harbor for Exploited Youth Act and forever changing the perception of children in the commercial sex industry from criminals to victims. Over a dozen states have passed Safe Harbor laws in the last few years and there is finally a real recognition of a widespread, and constantly increasing, trade in US born or raised children and youth.
Unfortunately much of this narrative, and the anti-trafficking movement of which I am both part of and frequently critical of, has been sensationalized and completely divorced from the realities of the girls' (and even more so, the boys and trans youth) lives. Adult women in the commercial sex industry, some of whom are trafficked, the majority of whom are at the very least exploited due to poverty, addiction and lack of options are given even shorter shrift and become lost in the debates over sex work and choice. In a book I wrote in 2011,Girls Like Us, I began with the story of an 11 year old girl I worked with who had been under the vicious control of a pimp. I knew that 11 was a shocking age and that it would be hard for people to fathom a child that young being sold on the internet. In many ways that approach in raising public consciousness worked as did our film, Very Young Girls, that aired on Showtime in 2008 and that showed 13 and 14 year olds being treated as criminals for the trauma they had experienced. Unfortunately the movement has become stuck on the 12 and 13 year olds, with empathy for the victim decreasing with each chronological year and for many completely ending at 18. Our film, which was seen by over 4 million people and featured the girls and young women at GEMS, who are all low-income and overwhelmingly young people of color, made a huge impact in the national dialogue but the voices and faces of girls and women of color have been largely disappeared from anti-trafficking public awareness campaigns that, with rare exceptions, feature extremely young, white girls normally in handcuffs, chains or with duct-tape over their mouths. A teddy bear is often seen laying nearby. Middle class parents are warned 'this could be your child'. The truth is that yes, this can happen to anyone it is overwhelmingly more likely to happen to children and young adults who've grown up in poverty, whether in Appalachia or the South Bronx, who've been in the foster care system, who've been sexually abused, who've been kicked out of home for their sexuality or gender identity, who are homeless and runaway, and who will rarely if ever be in literal chains or duct tape, but will feel just as trapped by the sense of love and belonging, (finally), the lack of options if they were to leave and the very real violence they face from both pimps and buyers.
Issues like foster care reform, the lack of beds for homeless youth, childhood abuse and neglect, the epidemic of gender-based violence, poverty, juvenile justice reform, lack of viable employment opportunities for young adults, a living wage, lack of affordable housing, affordable childcare, cuts to benefits, underresourced mental health services, violence towards trans youth and addressing the racism inherent in attitudes and policies towards youth of color are far less sexy or exciting than the idea of rescuing a girl from chains. But now more than ever, we need to be addressing the systemic issues that make children and youth, and women in poverty, so incredibly vulnerable to trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation in the first place. Now more than ever we need to move away from hyperbolic and untrue statistics about trafficking, (hello Super Bowl), recognizing that the truth is bad enough. Now more than ever we need to be moving away from the simplistic 'rescue little girls/arrest bad men' paradigm to addressing the complex issues that lead individuals into the commercial sex industry, keep them stuck there and make life after 'the life' so incredibly difficult. I haven't seen this season of American Crime yet there's no reason to think that it will paint a sensationalized picture of the issue or offer simple solutions to a complex problem. American Crime in its first two seasons has worked hard to avoid stereotypes and with a stellar cast has presented the layers of complexity around each of its core issues. If anything, its very earnest and unflinchingly serious approach have been perhaps a barrier for some viewers who like their television less didactic. At this moment in time though, a show that clearly says trafficking in human beings whether for labor or sex is wrong is more than welcome. A show that says you don't have the right to own or control, (or grab), someone else's body for your own profit or pleasure actually couldn’t come at a better time
I know that no one television show can, nor should it be, expected to, capture every unique story or everything about issue that is as complex as trafficking especially a show covering both labor and sex trafficking, which have different sources of demand and require markedly different solutions,. Apparently this season will also depict addiction, immigration and rural poverty - no one ever said John Ridley wasn’t ambitious. Art and narrative are important tools to engage audiences but real change demands an active not passive audience. Awareness for the sake of awareness isn't a particularly revolutionary goal. Awareness that leads to changes in attitudes and behavior is. For the first time ever, fictional trafficking victims and survivors will be coming into people's homes on a weekly basis giving viewers an opportunity to move beyond any preconceived ideas and see these individuals as fully rounded, fully human and fully deserving of empathy and understanding. Good art has the capacity to move us beyond the fictional world, to humanize people that we wouldn't necessarily otherwise know, to provoke dialogue and hopefully action. I'm incredibly gratified that these stories, our stories, are finally coming to the screen and being brought to life by such a talented cast and crew. But the real gratification will come when we can point to the show's real world impact and see the ripple effect of change happening in our culture, in our policies, in the lives of vulnerable children and youth. Now more than ever we need art that challenges us and inspires us to do something. I'm sure this season will be good - likely great -television, but if that's all it is in the end? Now that would be a crime.