SEX TRAFFICKING AND PROSTITUTION: Choice or Coercion?

Many times, it is assumed that choice is, in and among itself, a single entity that burgeons from the dictum of free will.  It is the notion that regardless of outside influences, we as individuals are left with the freedom and responsibility of our choices, which means we either reap the rewards, or suffer the consequences.  There are choices that others make that seem highly rational, a kind of “no-brainer” decision such as wanting to choose a good school for their child to attend.  Regardless of the external factors, it is usually inherent that parents want good things for their children, especially future successes.  It is, on a biological or evolutionary level, a need to guarantee survival.  Yet, on the topic of survival, there are other people in other life circumstances who have to make far more difficult choices about their survival, and the survival of their children. 

            There are innumerable cases of people who are stalked, abducted, and forced into prostitution.  Choice does not exist in these situations.  There are others who seemingly enter it by their own will.  At first glance, all fingers point accountability to the chooser.  Since choice originates from the mind, a closer inspection should be conducted into what made the mind come to that kind of decision.  To put oneself in a situation where one is prostituted, exposed to brutal violence, to crime, to drugs, and to despiritualization goes against the inherent nature of most people; and it is most people who would scoff, or pronounce judgment, or cast blame upon a woman who came to that perplexing decision.  While it is probably more popular and comforting to judge a person’s character based on the choices they make in their life, I believe it is more reasonable and compassionate to look beyond the actual choice at the motive for that choice.  From what I have learned about prostitution, women choose  it is because they feel that they are out of options, have nowhere else to go, no way else to make money, they are drug addicts and are trying to fund their habits.  They have been sexually, emotionally, and physically abused as children, and/or they were raised in a home where family members were also prostitutes and so they do not know any other way to survive.  Again, the issue of survival comes up.  Most people are compelled to survive in their environments.  When a woman who supposedly chooses to participate in sex trafficking looks  her surroundings searching for cues, hints, tools, explanations or routes, and finds only pain and abuse, it becomes evident that our environment molds us before we can mold it. 

  It is also necessary to understand that while some victims are kidnapped and forced against their will into this crime, the word “choice” in this matter must not be held to the strictest and purest definition of the word.  We must not look at, or judge by the actual choice itself, but rather, must consider all of the emotional, social, economic, psychological, environmental, behavioral, and spiritual factors that influenced that choice.