Episode Details

Dr. Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak are joined by Bradley Myles to discuss the depth of decriminalization laws. Brad has served one of the country’s leading anti-trafficking organizations, Polaris, for 15 years and is currently a strategic consultant through his firm, Meora Global, which optimizes more coherent collective efforts against human trafficking. Together they discuss different actors in the sex trafficking ecosystem and how decriminalization laws and the equality model both impact those actors.

Key Points

• It’s too simplistic to think of decriminalization bills as only about the person selling sex, when in fact these bills impact multiple different actors in the sex trade and sex trafficking ecosystem.
• The full decriminalization model proposes decriminalizing everything in the sex trade including the pimps, brothel owners, sex buyers, and people directly selling sex.

• The equality model, also known as the Nordic model or partial decrim, decriminalizes the act of directly selling sex and offers support services for individuals who wish to leave the sex trade. However, it would still remain illegal for pimping, owning a brothel, or buying sex.

• There has been resounding support amongst the survivor community for the equality model. Especially considering that it would be more difficult to identify sex trafficking within a full decriminalization model, rather than in the paradigm we have in place now or the equality model paradigm.

Resources

• 197 – Legalization or Decriminalization: What Does it All Mean?

• The Equality Model

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Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is Episode 219, The Equality Model: A Paradigm Change to Reduce Sex Trafficking.

Production Credits [00:00:10] Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential.

Dave [00:00:31] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie [00:00:36] And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave [00:00:39] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Sandie, today someone who has made a big difference in ending human trafficking. I’m so glad to welcome a wonderful expert to the show today, Bradley Myles. Bradley is the former CEO of Polaris, serving one of the country’s leading anti-trafficking organizations for 15 years. He helped launch the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline at Polaris, a 24/7 live operation that identified and responded to more than 50,000 cases of human trafficking nationwide. And he’s formed partnerships with over 3,000 NGOs and law enforcement, and received more than 10,000 calls directly from survivors, and analyzed a typology of 25 major human trafficking markets in the US. Bradley Myles has served as an advisor, coach, and technical subject matter expert on human trafficking, gender-based violen