Lies, lies, and more lies. Newspaper Article/ keeping you posted

nd, from the outset, that word was a problem. On a strict definition, eventually expressed in international law by the 2000 Palermo protocol, sex trafficking involves the use of force, fraud or coercion to transport an unwilling victim into sexual exploitation. This image of sex slavery soon provoked real public anxiety.
But a much looser definition, subsequently adopted by the UK's 2003 Sexual Offences Act, uses the word to describe the movement of all sex workers, including willing professionals who are simply travelling in search of a better income. This wider meaning has injected public debate with confusion and disproportionate anxiety.
The end result of a massive law enforcement investigation that including every single law enforcement agency in the entire country, special agencies and the government is that not one single person who ever forced anyone into the sex trade was found. Not one.
Despite politicians and media claiming thousands of people are brought into the country each and every year to be forced into a prostitution (a claim echoed in the US, in Canada and in pretty much every Western nation), there’s actually little evidence it happens at all and it’s likely real numbers are extremely smaller than those tossed around in the media.
The so called information comes from misquoted, misunderstood or completely fabricated sources. It’s sensationalism and piss poor journalism at its best.
As it happens, UK law enforcement originally claimed it had achieved a massive success in its bid to end human trafficking by making over 500 arrests. Once the Guardian got a hold of the official documentation, that number changed. Over 100 were clerical errors.
They never really happened. That brought the number down to just over 400. About half of those arrested were women, few implicated in any kind of trafficking.
53 had been released even before the program was called a success, 106 with no charges filed and 47 for minor offences. 73 were charged for immigration breaches, and 76 got hit with drug charges.
In the end, 96 people were arrested for trafficking, 67 were charged and 47 never made it to court. In fact, only 22 were prosecuted, including two women rescued as victims.
15 men and women were ultimately convicted, according to the program’s definition of trafficking, which includes transporting a sex worker who is willingly going along with you. 10 of the people convicted fell under this definition, and had forced no one into the sex trade.
That leaves five people, two of whom were in prison months before the crackdown even began. The other three were convicted at the end of an investigation started in 2006, a year before the program began.
So in the end, no one was found to have been a human trafficker as the result of a massive, cross country sting operation that investigated over 800 brothels and other establishments, raiding sex workers and those who work with them.
Five people, over the span of a few years, were charged with real, legitimate trafficking. Is it a problem? Of course, in much the way supervillains are a problem. It’s real, but it’s not nearly as bad as the movies make it seem sometimes.