Two University students have taken action against sex trafficking by creating a new student group designed to educate students about the world’s third-largest criminal activity.
The new student organization, HASTE: Humans Against Sex Trafficking Exploitation, is spreading the word about the issue with a discussion and free film showing at 7 p.m. today in 100 Willamette.
Inspired by Dr. Carol Silverman’s Women and Culture anthropology class, HASTE was started in fall 2004 after undergraduate students Lauren Visconte and Stephanie Jackson watched the film being shown tonight.
“Lilja 4-Ever” is a Swedish film based primarily on the life of a Russian girl trafficked into Sweden and sold as a sex slave. The group will host a discussion prior to
the showing.
“We think it’s so important that people see this film,” Visconte said. “It’s so powerful.”
Visconte, a double major in anthropology and psychology, is writing her honors thesis on sex trafficking in the United States and will present it at a sex trafficking and prostitution conference in Ohio in September.
“This is an issue that really hit me hard,” Visconte said. “The numbers are too staggering to ignore.”
According to the Polaris Project, a grassroots organization fighting human trafficking in the United States and Japan, human trafficking is the third-largest and fastest-growing criminal industry in the world today and coercively employs millions of women through physically and psychologically abusive methods.
Currently, 2 percent of Indonesia’s gross national product is generated from the national sex trade, which equates to approximately 650,000 women and children traded in the industry. In Thailand, 14 percent of the country’s GNP is generated by commercial sex acts.
The United Nations estimates that four million women and children are trafficked and sold into sex slavery each year; however, that number is probably too low because human trafficking is widespread and difficult to track, according to Polaris. A rough estimate by the U.S. Office of Justice Programs states that about 75,000 of those 4 million are trafficked in the United States.
Jackson, a junior double major in biology and anthropology, said the group hopes to build awareness about this underrepresented problem.
“This is why we started the organization,” Jackson said. “This stuff happens everywhere, not just overseas behind closed doors. Just a couple of days ago I met a woman at a health clinic whose sister was trafficked. This stuff is everywhere, and we need to recognize that if we ever hope for things to improve.”
Jackson said that economics also plays a role in the sex trade and contrasted it with drug trafficking.
“Virginity runs about $3,000,” Jackson said. “It’s much more profitable than the drug trade.”
HASTE is the 11th organization in the nation created to combat sex trafficking. The group obtained sponsorship from Amnesty International, and while the organization does not give HASTE money, Visconte said Amnesty International support has been instrumental in giving the group more authority and fuel for its cause.
The group is looking into grant money for next year, and Visconte said group members hope HASTE will continue long after the founders have left the University with the support from faculty, and graduate and undergraduate students.
“Currently, the line between prostitution and sex slavery is very thin,” Visconte said. “HASTE completely agrees that it is a woman’s choice to do whatever she wants with her body, but people need to know that sex trafficking is not a choice. This is modern-day slavery.”
For more information about HASTE or to join the group’s daily newsletter list, contact Visconte at [email protected].

[email protected]