One thing Dr. Gail Dines has always known about herself is that she is a feminist — she says she was born one. For over 20 years, she has been researching and writing about the negative effects the pornography industry has on popular culture and how it leads to the hypersexualization of women.
Dines is an internationally acclaimed speaker and author who is Professor Emerita of Sociology and Women’s Studies at Wheelock College in Boston. In her speech, given at the Burton Barr Library in downtown Phoenix on Tuesday, Dines talked about how young men view unrealistic and violent images of sex at a young age. She said these experiences cause men to have impractical expectations of women when it comes to sex.
“The pornography industry is careless about kids,” Dines said. “We have to develop programs, education, awareness and regulation.”
Dines also believes pornography contributes to the prevalence of other sex crimes, like human trafficking. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act, established in 2000, defines human trafficking as “the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act.”
January is national human trafficking prevention month.
Arizona has taken preventative measures against human trafficking in the past. In December 2015, Governor Doug Ducey renewed the Human Trafficking Council by signing Executive Order 2015-12. The Council develops plans to help victims, keeps the governor up to date on data regarding human trafficking in Arizona, and helps law enforcement, state agencies and communities transfer information.
“We want to be preventative, instead of trying to fix or react after the fact,” Mesha Davis, CEO of the Arizona Foundation for Women, said. Known for hosting events geared toward the safety, health and economic empowerment of women, the group hosted Dines’ speech in downtown Phoenix.
The Arizona Human Trafficking Council provides training and resources for those interested in taking a stand against human trafficking. The Council wants to increase public awareness of the issue of human trafficking, victims services, and prevention. This is done through training, data analysis and collaborations within the community.
According to Arizona’s human trafficking website, over 31,000 professionals and community members statewide have been provided with prevention training and awareness presentations.
In these training sessions, attendees learn about what human trafficking is, which demographics are most likely to be trafficked, potential risks and protective factors, the implications human trafficking has on victims and society and local resources that help combat human trafficking at a community level.
Kathryn Russell, a member of Dines audience on Tuesday, said Dines’ speech reminded her of “the prevalence of porn in the world.” Russell has been in the anti-human trafficking industry for two years. “And what scared me the most is that [porn] is so easy to get to.”
The National Human Trafficking Hotline is 1-800-373-7888.
For questions, contact the reporter at mawill57@asu.edu.
