REASON: Airport Human-Trafficking Posters Are Overstating the Risks to Young People
If you’ve recently been to a U.S. airport, you might have seen posters depicting an attractive, unsmiling young person. These posters are accompanied by sensationalist, hyperbolic claims that young people are at risk of predation from human traffickers. They include a contact number to report suspected trafficking.
The posters are part of the Department of Homeland Security’s Blue Campaign, “a national public awareness campaign designed to educate the public, law enforcement, and other industry partners to recognize the indicators of human trafficking, and how to appropriately respond to possible cases.”
I noticed one of these posters at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Austin, Texas. I saw it again at Raleigh-Durham. (Note: Though the young man looks an awful lot like my editor, Robby Soave, he swears he is not moonlighting as a sex-trafficking victim impersonator.)
Still, the real question is: By urging travelers to be on high alert for sex-trafficking, are these ads serving any legitimate purpose?
“That guy isn’t being trafficked by anyone,” says Emily Horowitz, a sociologist and author of From Rage to Reason: Why We Need Sex Crime Laws Based on Facts, Not Fear, when I show her the poster.
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The purpose is simple: Create an unfounded fear out of whole cloth using misinformation and manipulation about nuance in issues the common rabble don’t fully understand. Then collect funding to “fight” it. The advertising expense is just a legitimizing propaganda tool. Why would someone from a legitimate sounding organization print something that’s untrue? It’s classic fear mongering tactics from the 1930’s.
As shown in the Sound Of Freedom movie.
Sound Of Freedom relies way too much on the myth of sex crimes stranger danger that there are people waiting in vans trying to steal kids.
Sound of Freedom has become mired in controversy over criticisms that it features misleading depictions of child exploitation and plays into right-wing conspiracy theories associated with the MAGA and QAnon movements.
Sound of Freedom itself has also been criticized by anti-trafficking experts for providing a false perception of child trafficking and promoting rescue tactics that may actually put real victims in danger.
Joseph
Once We get the New AirFORCE ONE…Cha-Ching!
Joseph…I give to you a free seat with you and Mom Martha!
-let us know of your culinary preferences!
Serve bologna sandwich 🥪 and pruno