I and others have often written about the origin of “sex trafficking” mythology in evangelical Christian theology, and many of the largest “anti-trafficking” NGOs have strong ties to anti-abortion and anti-gay groups. Shared Hope International is one of those organizations, and its founder Linda Smith has been involved in anti-sex causes for three decades. Since they are based in Washington state I asked Portland, Oregon-based activist Carol Fenton to give us a short introduction to Smith and Shared Hope…
Linda Smith boldly proclaims that the same beliefs that guide her anti-abortion and anti-gay politics are the same values that pilot her domestic minor sex trafficking efforts. “I started as a pro-life activist,” she says; “The children I serve today are children of God, labeled, stripped of justice, denied life in many cases…[I use] many of the same arguments that I used fighting for the unborn for many years.” Smith gained notoriety for her staunchly conservative views from the very beginning of her political career in Washington State in 1983, and she landed in the House of Representatives with support from the Christian Coalition and “Linda’s Army”, a grassroots write-in campaign. While in office, she worked to advance a fundamentalist agenda, formed relationships with Christian conservatives, and networked with a growing Evangelical base to promote her ideology. After two terms in Congress, Smith started Shared Hope International, which she considers her ministry. Smith revealed, “My titles and political connections have opened doors for me around the world that wouldn’t have opened otherwise.” In 2001, Smith kicked off the War Against Trafficking Alliance in conjunction with The Salvation Army, the International Justice Mission, and the Protection Project (founded by Laura Lederer, a Bush administration advisor and anti-pornography activist). Along with Smith, the alliance worked to brand and sell anti-prostitution and anti-trafficking training as a human rights cause.
As the trafficking crusade continued to gain traction, funding began to pour into known “rescue” organizations including WATA, for which Smith obtained $1.8 million dollars for a global anti-trafficking conference in February of 2003. During the first four years of the Bush administration, $300 million was awarded to anti-trafficking work, including Shared Hope International. With grants from the U.S. State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Smith and SHI first released the DEMAND report in 2007, followed in 2009 by the National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking: America’s Prostituted Children, and in 2011 by the annual state report cards. With DOJ funding, Smith and her team have gone undercover to obtain and create their own brand of “research” on the commercial sex industry. The result is SHI’s Protected Innocence Challenge, a joint analysis done by SHI and the American Center for Law and Justice (founded by evangelical minister Pat Robertson). In 2011, Smith promoted SHI’s state report cards and legislative framework to attendees at the Values Voters Summit in a breakout session entitled “Saving America’s Children From Pimps And Perverts: The Protected Innocence Initiative”. The following year, while addressing a small crowd during one of the 2012 Value Voters breakout sessions, Smith said that efforts to stop the sale and trade of minors in the sex industry should be an extension of the “pro-life” cause. “Believers and conservatives should put this issue [domestic minor sex trafficking] in its proper position,” and not treat it as tangential.
But Shared Hope International’s authority and influence extends far beyond Smith’s base. In 2009, with DOJ funding, SHI developed and released Intervene training for “identifying and responding to America’s prostituted children”. The curriculum is marketed as a tool that builds awareness in social agency workers and those who are in contact with children and youth who may be at risk. Whenever this training takes place, local reporters refer to anti-trafficking panelists as “experts”, say that training will create a bridge between social services and law enforcement, and claim that people can learn how to identify human trafficking and strengthen their state laws.
To gain continued political support for this issue, an integral part of each report is sensationalistic storytelling and stereotyping. In Oregon, Shared Hope International advocates use fear-based stories and anecdotal evidence to implement new legislation that is focused solely on domestic minor girls. Joel Shapiro, a lobbyist with SHI, says “going after pimps and johns” is more difficult because the illicit business has gone from the streets to online. Yet, U.S. Attorney Amanda Marshall views the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) as a high priority, the Sexual Assault Resource Team has five full-time staff members that respond exclusively to CSEC cases, and the Multnomah County DA formed a Human Trafficking Team and is using additional funds to pay for another CSEC prosecutor; with this team in place Oregon is already 5th in the nation for CSEC prosecutions. None of this is based in anything resembling sound research and data, a fact which the abolitionists themselves admit in statements buried deep with the hysteria:
“There is little systematic and reliable data on the scale of the phenomenon.”
The U.S. State Department Office of Accountability found gaps in data, numerical discrepancies, methodological weaknesses, and no coordinated strategy or way to gauge results, yet funding and resources keep being thrown at these false claims. It’s past time for officials who are truly concerned about exploitation to distance themselves from agenda-driven ideologues like Smith and start addressing the push factors, listening to key populations, and focusing on evidence-based harm reduction and anti-criminalization efforts which create healthy and safe communities for everyone.
Well, neither Linda Smith nor any “Christian” church is responsible for the Swedish model.
The “takeaways” that concern me most in this article is the fact that she’s getting federal funding. She should not be – nor should Planned Parenthood or NPR – but when you give federal funding to groups with a liberal agenda you open the door to giving it to the conservative ones also. AND – rightly you SHOULD give it to them if you’re going to give it to anyone with a political agenda.
End federal funding – for all of them.
She has a right to run for office – and to spew whatever vomit comes from her cake hole. It’s up to us to turn her off and vote her down.
I think a lot of people will read this article and conclude that the Christians are driving the train on trafficking. We know for a fact that is not the case. The trafficking scare is an unholy alliance of Christian churches as well as atheist and non-sectarian groups.
But as a “microcosm” of the trafficking fraud – this a great article.
Gee, an international Crusade based on faulty or massaged data, gaining millions in government funds with hysteria, hype, and propaganda. Sounds familiar….
*cough* (Global Warming) *cough*
The Government should not have the resources OR the authority to create this much trouble, dammit. Cut the Feds back to their Constitutionally mandated functions and a lot of the Odds and Sods currently sucking on Columbia’s massive mammaries will fade into the woodwork.
And in other pipe-dreams…..
Precisely – and because government is involved in so many things … tracking so many targets – it can’t responsibly manage the things all of us EXPECT for even a small government to do.
Case in point – I work for the government and on a recent overseas trip – I had to procure transportation for myself between one arctic “village” and another. The cost of the transportation – $500 for a fully refundable ticket and $100 for a non-refundable ticket. The US government requires me to ALWAYS buy the fully refundable (more expensive) ticket. I was working with a scientist from another (Scandinavian) country and he says to me … “Krulac, I always tell my people to buy the $100 non-refundable ticket because they can CANCEL UP TO THREE TIMES and I’m still paying less than the fully refundable one.” I was embarrassed to be an American – with a stupid-assed government when he told me that.
That’s a small thing – but multiply that stupidity by the number of stars in the sky and you will see why the hell we are in so much trouble.
And now they want to run health care.
In an alternate universe – this would be a joke – here? It’s business as usual.
Why does Edith Bunker look so angry?
This is the official response from Shared Hope International.
While this article provides a semi-accurate, yet selective, historical overview of Linda Smith’s political career and Shared Hope’s projects; 4 out of 5 named funding sources are incorrect. This article credits the U.S. government for three projects that were not funded by the government but by private donors. Facts are below.
1. With grants from the U.S. State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Smith and SHI first released the DEMAND report in 2007, followed in 2009 by the National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking: America’s Prostituted Children, and in 2011 by the annual state report cards.
a. This is inaccurate. The DEMAND report was conducted under a grant from the U.S. State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. The National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking: America’s Prostituted Youth, was conducted under a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice. The annual state report cards (Protected Innocence Challenge) were not government funded.
2. With DOJ funding, Smith and her team have gone undercover to obtain and create their own brand of “research” on the commercial sex industry. The result is SHI’s Protected Innocence Challenge, a joint analysis done by SHI and the American Center for Law and Justice (founded by evangelical minister Pat Robertson).
a. This is inaccurate. The DOJ did not fund the Protected Innocence Challenge state report cards. The Protected Innocence Challenge is also not “undercover research”. It is a 41-component legal analysis of state laws. The methodology is available on the Shared Hope website and state laws are public information. There is nothing “undercover” about this research. Additionally, Shared Hope worked with the American Center for Law and Justice on the 2011 report cards but have not worked with them on the Protected Innocence Challenge state legal analysis since the 2011 report.
3. In 2009, with DOJ funding, SHI developed and released Intervene training for “identifying and responding to America’s prostituted children”.
a. This is inaccurate. Intervene was released in 2010 and was funded by private donors, not the Department of Justice.
I probably could have listed the funding more clearly.
The DEMAND report on the SHI website specifically states: The explosive DEMAND. report and video documentary uses undercover investigation…
This is directly from acknowledgements section of Protected Innocence Report: The original legal analysis of the 50 states and the District of Columbia that laid the foundation for the Protected Innocence Legislative
Framework application and resulting Protected Innocence Challenge Report Cards was accomplished through a partnership between Shared
Hope International and the American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ).
July 2009 Intervene training was provided in Miami http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/8429910896.html
Carol – that is correct. The DEMAND report was undercover investigation. But your article claims that the Protected Innocence Challenge is undercover investigation, which it is not. You are confusing the research. “With DOJ funding, Smith and her team have gone undercover to obtain and create their own brand of “research” on the commercial sex industry. The result is SHI’s Protected Innocence Challenge,”
This is also correct. But it is important to note that we credit ACLJ with assisting with the original analysis that laid the foundation. ACLJ has not been involved in this legal analysis since the first year it was published in 2011.
If Amanda Marshall would like to know the best estimate of the number of trafficked individuals, of all ages, for all purposes–sexual and non-sexual–was between 14,000 and 18,000 in 2008, according to socialworkers.org (http://www.socialworkers.org/diversity/affirmative_action/humanTraffic1206.PDF). Approximately 10% are being used sexually according to best estimates.
If she wants more information, she can go to my article “Making Sex a Crime,” (http://www.opednews.com/articles/Making-Sex-a-Crime-by-Richard-Girard-120324-103.html), or to Norma Jean Almodovar’s website (whose url I don’t have handy, please put it in for me, Maggie) and get exhaustive statistics.
The information is out there, and the unbiased info doesn’t comport with that harridan Linda Smith’s delusions at all.
Dear freegirard, I think this is the website you’re talking about (Norma Almodovar’s): http://www.policeprostitutionandpolitics.com/
Precisely! Thank you. I am afraid my copy of the address disappeared a while back. Thank you Laura.
You’re welcome. It’s always great to GET a thank you for giving links, etc. Your manners are consistent and that standard is very needed and refreshing.