We will never be able to solve the problem of human trafficking until we ban indecent modeling, including the seemingly benign modeling of companies like Victoria’s Secret. Why? Because human traffickers are using modeling jobs as a way to press girls into sex servitude. How does this work? Aaron Tilbury, founder of The Jonah Project, explain this to me when we met last year ahead of my report for Salvo #50.
“Modeling jobs and porn are two mechanisms predators use to suck girls into trafficking,” Tilbury said. He continued:
“The girl may see an ad for a modeling agency. When she shows up, everything seems very professional. But soon she’s being asked to take off her clothes. As this continues, the men gain enormous leverage over the girl, both because her barriers are progressively lowered [and] because of the blackmail potential of the photographs. This doesn’t always look like a stranger in a white van with tinted windows, but most often it’s a gradual process of grooming.”
To be clear, this is likely not happening in commercial modeling agencies that pay taxes. Yet the sense of legitimacy enjoyed by companies like Victoria’s Secret give these fake modeling agencies the cover they need, as the latter pretend to be like the former.
In short, a culture that offers widespread acceptance of female exploitation via the “soft porn” of modeling, will never be able to achieve victory over the porn-trafficking axis.
Read more about this in my article “The Drug That Fuels Human Trafficking: How One City Is Challenging the Porn-Trafficking Axis” and “Human Trafficking in the Pacific Northwest.”