White slavery

White slavery is a term that was used to refer to sexual slavery. It was first used in 19th century Britain to refer to prostitution of children.

Forced prostitution

The Eliza Armstrong case

The term gained particular prominence in England during the trial and imprisonment of William Stead (editor of the "Pall Mall Gazette") for kidnapping, after he published an article reporting that he had been able to purchase the thirteen-year-old daughter of a chimney-sweep for 5 pounds in order to bring attention to the problem. The publicity generated by the case led Parliament to pass the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act that raised the age of consent from thirteen to sixteen in that year.

United States reaction

By the beginning of the 20th century, the term also came to mean the abduction of white girls into forced prostitution, and after about 1905 it was used for this definition almost exclusively. "White slavery" was the focus of a major moral panic in the United States at the end of the Progressive Era. Sexual slavery did and still does occur; "white slavery" is usually used to refer to this moral panic, where there was a perception that this form of abuse was a danger to every young woman.

In the United States, Chinese immigrants were particularly marked as white slavers though it was actually restricted to the criminal section of the Chinese community (similar to the way in which organized crime from Sicily operated out of that community in the US). As an example of this in American culture, the musical comedy "Thoroughly Modern Millie" features a Chinese-run prostitution ring, which is specifically referred to by the term "white slavery". The gangster movie "Prime Cut" has mid-West white slaves sold like cattle.

In Christian Europe, on the other hand, the predominant image linked the term to Arab white slave traders and Ottoman harems. The theme of a European woman kidnapped to be sold into a Muslim harem also reappears frequently in contemporary American erotic literature.

The United States White-Slave Traffic Act of 1910 prohibited so-called white slavery. It also banned the interstate transport of females for immoral purposes. Its primary stated intent was to address prostitution and immorality. The act is better known as the Mann Act, after James Robert Mann, an American lawmaker.

That all concerns about trafficking in human beings were not unfounded is shown by the fact that it still occurs (as of 2008). A U.S. State Department Trafficking in Persons Report from June 2003 stated "As unimaginable as it seems, slavery and bondage still persist in the early 21st century. Millions of people around the world still suffer in silence in slave-like situations of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation from which they cannot free themselves. Trafficking in persons is one of the greatest human rights challenges of our time." [" [http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2003/21262.htm Introduction] ." "Trafficking in Persons Report". "U.S. State Department".]

References

* Marvin Lowenthal, The Jews of Germany: A Story of Sixteen Centuries p. 1–18

Books worth Reading

White Gold by Giles Milton ISBN-13: 978-0312425296] Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500-1800 by Robert C. Davis ISBN-13: 978-1403945518] White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain's White Slaves in America by Don Jordan ISBN-13: 978-0814742969]

External links

* [http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jstead.htm White Slave Trade]
* [http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a990115.html The Straight Dope: Was there really such a thing as "white slavery"?]