Trump Doesn’t Care About Trafficking Victims, He Cares About Power: On the Recent Removal of Funding for Trafficking Survivors

Just last week, while we weren’t looking, Trump removed Office of Victims of Crime (OVC) funding for legal representation to human trafficking survivors. As reported by The Guardian, according to a 2016 survey by the National Survivor Network, 91% of trafficking survivors are arrested with 40% being arrested nine times or more

Many states have safe harbor legislation that allows trafficking survivors to pursue expungement of the criminal record they accrued while being trafficked. What this means is not only are sex trafficking survivors going to be faced with criminal charges they don’t have help with, but now survivors are unable to rectify these criminal charges should they escape their trafficking situation and want to rebuild their lives, get regular jobs, buy a house, etc.

Back in April, Trump passed the House and Senate bills of FOSTA/SESTA, which essentially hold third parties accountable for any content on their website which may “facilitate” human trafficking. A broad definition, indeed. Yet us trafficking survivors were fed all kinds of bullshit about how this is for the benefit of survivors, this is to protect survivors, this is to help survivors sue places like Backpage for “facilitating” our exploitation. Yeah, but now Trump wants us survivors to do that without a lawyer? How can trafficking survivors rebuild their lives without this funding?

What this proves is the incredible hypocrisy of the current administration. As trafficking survivors, we are used to paternalism. We are used to the government acting like the overly authoritarian, abusive parent that it is. When I saw FOSTA/SESTA pass, I called bullshit. Let’s call these laws what they are: government backed gender based violence. While cis male victims exist, of course, sexual domination by the government is often aimed at controlling populations with less social power, such as femmes, gay and Queer men and non-binary folks, Trans folks and people of color. Basically anyone who isn’t a cishet white man.

This administration doesn’t give a shit about survivors. And they don’t give a shit about marginalized people. They care, maybe at most, about the ILLUSION that they care, but mostly the common thread between these totally contradictory laws is the control over marginalized peoples sexuality that the government needs to continue to exert. Willy Nilly, no less. And however and whenever they want to.

As long as the motivation for all of these trafficking bills is to maintain the power of old, wealthy cishet white men, survivors will only continue to lose.