My thinking

This is the statement I read out at the YPHR debate on Human trafficking and the 2012 Olympics on 15/02/2011

Human Trafficking and the 2012 Olympics
Critical Perspective: ‘Campaigners do damage themselves.’

The subject of human trafficking is noisy with opinion. I have used my work to explore the voices that clamour to assert themselves. Some of these voices speak from the past into the present. Today’s newspaper headlines of ‘The White Slave Trade,’ come from the mouths of the Victorians and Edwardians. In Britain, this took the form of the ‘Social Purity Movement’ and, across the Atlantic, a storm of sensationalism greeted the release of White Slave Films, such as ‘A Traffic In Souls,’ (1913), lingering on historical rumours of women forcibly taken across state boundaries for ‘immoral purposes.‘ The debate has also been subsumed into discourses on Black Slavery, with some critics arguing that it is demeaning to attach today’s victims to those of the Atlantic Trade. In current society, human trafficking cannot be considered in isolation from the subject of immigration, (although many will attempt to ignore this conjunction.)

I have used found images from the historical archives and today’s press to demonstrate the cacophony of voices that seek to attach themselves to the human trafficking debate, be it the National Front, the English Collective of Prostitutes, NGOs, MPS, or those looking for equivalents in our past. In the construction of my work I hope to show the weight of the burden that has come to rest on the term ‘human trafficking,’ and to raise the question as to the efficacy of this situation. The soft, hand-drawn figure of the girl, curled over in despair in the foreground, represents the effect of this burden. She is assaulted by images and words from the past and present. These may be words of help, recognition, and sympathy but, in effect, they are not improving her situation. Are they any less harmful than the confrontational association between human trafficking and immigration? The campaign to stop trafficking has, in essence, become immobile due to the burden of words, histories and politics that have no relevance to the girl.

The image I have included of Martin Luther King is significant as it relates to a speech he made to the press in 1968, shortly before his death. He directly refers to the way in which sensationalism was being used to shape the Civil Rights Movement, not by those within it, but from outside forces.

‘I don’t know if you realise it, but you are driving a non-violent people like me into saying more and more militant things. If we don’t say what you want, we don’t get in the news. Who does? The militants. By doing this you are, first, presenting militant black leaders as civil rights leaders. And secondly, you’re making violence the way to publicise our cause.’
Martin Luther King, speech to the press, 1968.

I felt that his words were pertinent as they question the way in which we shape our stories, our own desire for scandal, sensation and salaciousness. When the viewer looks at my work, what do they see first? The neon sign for ‘live nudes’? The National Front? The nude photograph? It is only afterwards, as you look closer, that you will notice the despairing girl in the foreground, or perhaps the faint imprint of the child washing pots. Is sensationalism helping them change their situation? It is making us debate, but our debate is on whether stories of human trafficking are being ‘sexed up.’ This means we are not talking about the child worker trafficked from her family, or the women used as domestic slaves. The polarities of the immigration debate, as exercised by the BNP and National Front, may make good copy, but they have also made politicians fearful of making the obvious correlation between trafficking and immigration and allowing a sensible debate as how to stop trafficking when people who exist in life inhibiting situations can only improve their prospects through the trafficking of others, their families or themselves. Do we want to furnish the impression, (given by the press), that there is an insatiable desire in the West for bought sex, because these are the stories that sell papers, or do we want to have a meaningful discussion on the entire question of trafficking?

My piece is entitled ‘Sex Sells. Sells Sex.’ Current debate on human trafficking is using sex as a commodity just as much as the sex worker and her customer.
Helen Broadbridge. Illustrator.                    February 201.  ogopogo@hotmail.co.uk
http://www.aucbillustration2010.co.uk/helen-broadbridge/

final artwork

The final artwork (click on image to enlarge)

Sex Sells. Sells Sex.  by helen broadbridge ogopogo@hotmail.co.uk
To view more of my work please go to http://www.aucbillustration2010.co.uk/helen-broadbridge/

I wanted to further explore the idea that human trafficking was having to carry the burden of so many expectaions and organisations -both good and bad. As part of this it became evident that it was the idea of sexual trafficking that had become the most prominent strand of trafficking. It felt like sex was for sale on many fronts. It wasn't just about the physicality of selling sex for money but also that the modern world's desire for salaciousness and sensation means it is stories of sex trafficking that sells newspapers and also capture the attention of the public, in terms of supporting a cause to 'right' the 'perceived' wrongs.

burdened

skyline London

It was important to locate my work in London today -so

some contemporary iconography was useful!

Here is some idea of how I create my artwork.
Political art doesn't have to be single issue statements. I think it can be used to express the nuances of a debate and provide a new means of discussing them.

From the archives -Victorians and the Social Purity Movement = anti-prostitution.

The English Collective of Prostitutes today have shown how anti-trafficking laws can cause them a lot of damage

 The burden of history resting on the term 'human trafficking'

  

 How can we talk about trafficking without talking about migration?

How can we talk about trafficking without talking about migration?

Creating the artwork

For me it was important to really understand all the issues involved so that I can create artwork that truly reflects the debate. 

This means reading heaps of articles, press releases etc. 

During this process I start to form some visuals in my mind as to how I might represent the arguments.

To me, it seemed that the term 'human trafficking' has become really weighed down by definitions and counter-definitions. There are so many different opinions, which have also become caught up in historical precidents -The Atlantic Slave Trade, the Victorian Social Purity/anti-vice movements and White Slavery fears.
I became interested in showing how the burden of argument and history has led to the actual subject of human trafficking, the people involved, being marginalised. Everyone, often with the best of intentions wants to adopt the 'trafficked' to their cause but the tension this has created makes remedies impossible.

I build my artwork by collecing found images and ephemera from the past and in the media today. I wanted to use the historical and the contemporary to demonstrate the burdens placed on the term 'human trafficking.'

YPHR Commission

A different way of looking at the issue of Human Trafficking.

Young People for Human Rights commissioned three artists and gave each a different perspective of the debate surrounding Human Trafficking in relation to the 2012 Olympics and asked them to produce a piece of artwork to reflect it.
I was given the 'Critical Perspective: Campaigners Do Damage Themselves.'
This was a real challenge to convey visually as it is very contentious and has many strands to the argument.

Initially, I found this area of the debate on human trafficking profoundly uncomfortable to deal with. On the one hand there appears to be a the viewpoint that the incidence of human trafficking (especially in relation to large sporting events), is extremely slight and exists mainly as a figment of imagination in the minds of purported ‘rescuers.’ The language associated with articles taking this standpoint is often misogynist in tone, (and thus equally as melodramatic as those ‘scaremongers’ it seeks to silence.)

The second strand of thinking comes from writers such Laura Agustin or those who either work in or alongside the sex industry. They feel that the focus on human trafficking by government agencies is being perverted into a campaign against prostitution, demonizing sex workers and leading to raids, arrests and deportations that cause more suffering. I found these opinions difficult to contend with as how can you deny the existence of trafficking when confronted by the stories of those who have been its victims, surely we don’t need their to be 40,000 people trafficked before anything is done? However, the discussion by those involved in the sex industry is clear and informed as to the harm some anti-trafficking campaigns and the conflation of trafficking with prostitution can cause.