Defining the “Good” Victim: T-Visas and Morality

By Allie Benz

In 2018, Anabelle Masalon—a citizen of the Philippines—was rescued by police from the Massachusetts home in which she worked as a caretaker. Masalon was not an employee, but a prisoner. She was locked inside the house whenever the owners left, forced to work 21-hour days with little to no compensation, and frequently received threats of violence. She describes the relief she experienced upon being freed from forced labor, stating “I feel now that I am safe.”.

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) was intended to prosecute human traffickers and protect victims like Masalon. The TVPA allowed the allocation of 5000 temporary residency visas to victims of human trafficking per year—colloquially known as T-visas. However, the narrative of the United States aiding victims of human trafficking becomes problematized as one looks deeper into the theological and moral underpinnings of the T-visa. In language heavily influenced by prostitution abolitionists and evangelical activists, to receive or retain a T-visa, one must both provide total cooperation to law enforcement and be of “good moral character”. However, these provisions can place undue strain on trafficked persons, and often do more harm than good. In this paper, I examine how the phantom of the “good victim” has made T-visas ineffective to the majority of trafficked persons.

White Slavery

Undeniably, the origins of human trafficking discourse are rooted in the myth of white slavery—or the belief that non-white men were abducting a white woman and selling them as prostitutes. This belief emerged out of the early 20th century in response to women’s growing autonomy and people’s increased immigration from the Global South to Europe and the US. At the end of the 19th century, prostitution abolitionists were attempting to criminalize sex work; the coalition of abolitionists was diverse in their beliefs, with mainstream feminist movements at the time asserting that all prostitutes were victims of society and ‘male lust,’ while religious groups decried sex workers as morally impure ‘fallen women.’ Moreover, racism and anti-Semitism were on the rise in response to increased immigration, and white women were more frequently engaging in romantic relationships with non-white men. Seizing upon public sentiments, abolitionist activists crafted a narrative in which prostitutes did not consent to their work, but were actually being sold into sex slavery by evil men from ‘the Orient.’ By taking a few real instances of human trafficking and portraying it as an epidemic in which society desperately needed to defend women’s moral purity, abolitionists pushed the US government and the governments of many European countries to sign laws that criminalized prostitution or prostitutes. Moreover, the white slavery movement also led to stricter immigration laws, the increased persecution of people of color, and increased popularization and platforming of eugenics

Actual instances of a white woman being sold into prostitution were few and far between. The majority of prostitution was consensual—though frequently a result of poverty and the inability of women to engage in less stigmatized work of the same pay. When discussing forced prostitution, victims of trafficking were, and often still are, marginalized women who could not immigrate to Europe and the US legally. However, white Americans never decried the plight of migrants and their labor exploitation, and white women’s supposed risk of enslavement remained the focus of anti-trafficking efforts for much of the 20th century.

Despite its falsehood, the myth of white slavery remains salient in modern society’s collective consciousness. Blockbuster Hollywood movies depict wealthy, white, young Americans being kidnapped and trafficked by brown men, only to be rescued by US government operatives. Across social media platforms, influencers warn that a flyer placed on your car can be a lure for violent pimps to catch you unawares and force you into prostitution. As such, it is unsurprising that a general audience may think that trafficking victims never wanted to leave home in the first place and that traffickers are bogeymen hiding in the shadows, ready to pounce at any minute.

Academics are rarely better in bringing nuance to the narrative. While the ethnicity of a victim of human trafficking has changed (now the “poster girls” are Eastern European or Southeast Asian), books on human trafficking still frequently portray beaten, scantily clad women staring listlessly from the front covers. “Sex slavery” or “modern-day slavery” are still used as terms for human trafficking, although the reality of trafficking is much more complex. Such simplistic portrayals of trafficking victims create a skewed view of victimhood and deservingness; kidnapped women and girls who only want to be returned home to their families are the “real” victims, while anyone else is seen as complicit in their trafficking, and thus undeserving of aid.

Evangelism and Prostitution

Additionally, religious discourses surrounding the immorality of sex workers and the tragedy of the fallen woman remain prevalent today. The theological underpinnings of anti-trafficking discourse often conflate trafficking with sex work; common trafficking messages are contingent upon a moral outrage surrounding the exploitation of women and girls for “pleasure or greed”—read, prostitution.  Evangelist activists portray prostitution as the ultimate sin, and thus those that are forced into prostitution are the pinnacle of victimhood.

It is worth noting that sex trafficking does not make up the majority of human trafficking. Rather, it captures the majority of public attention and is uniquely criminalized compared to other forms of labor trafficking. Because prostitution is illegalized and portrayed as a moral issue rather than a labor rights issue, the US government and broader society assume that a “real” victim would never willingly engage in sex work.

Such a narrative is a gross misunderstanding of the reality of trafficking. Sex work is a discrete, profitable, and low-skilled industry, which makes it enticing for migrants whose other job avenues are criminalized under a governmental system that does not recognize their rights to exist within its borders. Certainly, some people are tricked into sex work without their knowledge; however, the majority of sex-trafficked persons are aware that they're being trafficked into a country is contingent on their willingness to engage in prostitution. They do not reject sex work, but rather the exploitative labor conditions that come along with it.            

However, current religious and abolitionist opinion is unwilling to recognize that sex work can be voluntary. Instead, prostitution is seen as always coerced and exploitative, regardless of circumstance. Thus, someone who wants to stay in sex work necessarily becomes morally bereft, and is part of the problem rather than an “actual victim.” Blame and shame become an oft-used tactic to discourage deported trafficked persons from attempting to migrate again, as NGOs and police forces see a lack of contrition for prostitution as evidence that victims are deluded, irresponsible, or otherwise incapable of taking care of themselves without oversight.

Bush and the TVPA

The dominant narrative of a trafficking victim remains a young woman who was forced into prostitution against her will. Those that were labor trafficked are deprioritized, men are ignored, and anyone who continues to engage in “immoral activities” forfeits all claims of victimhood and consequently deservingness of aid. Such outdated, incorrect, and frankly offensive views of trafficked persons are enshrined into US legislation with the TVPA.

The TVPA—designed to combat trafficking, prosecute traffickers, and provide protections to trafficked persons—was heavily influenced by abolitionists, and conflates sex trafficking with prostitution, which is especially noticeable in that 2003, 2005, and 2008 reauthorizations take a hardline stance against government action or funding that may increase prostitution. While the TVPA had actually been signed into law by Clinton, this occurred during the last few months of his term, meaning that Bush largely shaped the implementation and interpretation of the TVPA. Given Bush’s large evangelical voting base, it is then understandable that the TVPA took on such a moral bent.

T-visas were then built into the TVPA’s religious moral framework. The T-visa, as alluded to previously, is a four-year non-immigrant status visa given to victims of severe forms of trafficking in persons. However, to receive and retain a T-visa, one must willingly comply with “any reasonable request for assistance in the… investigation or prosecution of acts of trafficking,” and be of “good moral character”–an extension of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Thus, an inaccurate and highly moralized understanding of human trafficking can greatly affect the utility of T-visas.

Problematizing T-visas

When examining the reality of human trafficking, it is vital to note that many trafficked persons do not identify as victims, nor do they necessarily fit the societal understanding of victimhood. Indeed, trafficking is often voluntary, to some degree. Frequently, political persecution, violence, economic hardship, and natural disasters can incentivize many vulnerable persons to migrate. However, recent increases in militarized border control and the passage of anti-immigrant legislation have made safe and legal migration significantly more difficult, particularly for those from non-white countries. Thus, left with few options, migrant hopefuls who cannot afford to wait years for their visa applications to be processed often seek smugglers or traffickers who are willing to ferry them across borders illegally, and frequently incur high debts. Said traffickers will often offer to secure migrants employment as a means of paying off their debts; however, unbeknownst to migrants, this employment is typically low-paying, degrading, and/or dangerous. Additionally, the interest rates traffickers charge on debt can be so high that trafficked persons are stuck working for them in perpetuity. Through this framework, trafficking is not an immigration, but a labor issue; migrants are not forced across borders but coerced or exploited surrounding their pay and working conditions for jobs secured by traffickers.

However, as their lived experiences are such a far cry from the exaggerated stories of ‘sex slaves’ that the TVPA was first modeled to address, many trafficked persons are not treated as victims.  Because the TVPA only grants T-visas to victims of severe forms of trafficking or extreme hardship, and because the standard of ‘severe’ is set so unreasonably high, it is no wonder that anti-trafficking discourse fails to incorporate them into its framework.

Even for those trafficked persons that do qualify for the T-visa, it is often unreasonable to ask them to comply with law enforcement in identifying traffickers. First, traffickers are likely to be other immigrants that are a part of the trafficked person’s community. As the line between profit-motivated exploiter and altruistic ferryman becomes blurred, trafficked persons may not want to bring the carceral system down upon their traffickers. Rather than a binary system of victims and villains, human trafficking is more often a form of illicit chain migration, whereupon maintaining silence and working within an admittedly exploitative system can still more reliably bring family and community members into the United States than legal paths to immigration.

Even when traffickers are clearly violent and uncaring, as with Masalon’s case, there can still be strong incentives not to cooperate with law enforcement. Traffickers are often part of larger networks that have strong presences in both sending and receiving communities. As border laws have become harsher and the borders themselves more militarized, it is frequently violent criminal organizations that are most willing to take on the risks of border crossing. Understandably, then, many victims are reticent to identify members of organized crime, especially if they have family or friends in their home communities. Even if the police can provide the victim protection from reprisal, they are unlikely to be able to provide the same protections to families in a different country.

Thus, T-visas frequently fail to protect and assist victims of trafficking. In recognizing these problems, there are nonetheless multiple ways to improve the T-visa, including: lowering the bar for what “severe” trafficking means to better reflect the lived reality of trafficked persons; removing the requirement for victims to comply with law enforcement in identifying traffickers; improving referrals and follow-throughs to other agencies that can help a trafficked person with their T-visa process, ensuring that victims do not have to navigate a complex and foreign system on their own; and taking steps toward decriminalizing prostitution, such that trafficked persons are not further punished under a moral framework.

Masalon was a success story, a model of all the good that the T-visa can do. However, that same level of resources and hope should be afforded to all trafficked persons, not just a select few. If the US government truly finds human trafficking as reprehensible as it claims, it will take the necessary steps to make the T-visa a worthwhile and beneficial provision.