The Trump administration has aggressively rolled back efforts across the federal government to combat human trafficking, a Guardian investigation has found.

The sweeping retreat threatens to negate decades of progress in the drive to prevent sexual slavery, forced labor and child sexual exploitation, according to legal experts, former government officials and anti-trafficking advocates. They say the administration’s moves are impeding efforts to prosecute perpetrators and protect survivors in the United States and around the world.

“It’s been a widespread and multi-pronged attack on survivors that leaves all of us less safe and leaves survivors with few options,” said Jean Bruggeman, executive director of Freedom Network USA, a national coalition of service providers, researchers and trafficking survivors.

  • fluxion@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Literally fucking campaigned on this shit. I’m so fucking disgusted people keep voting for a guy that just keeps pissing in their faces

  • Wytch@lemmy.zip
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    1 month ago

    This is a long read, but worthwhile. The details are compelling. The administration has, unsurprisingly, tried to reframe the trafficking problem as one of immigration. This has allowed them to cut funding and staff, redirect resources, and ignore effective projects so they can bolster their deportation efforts. All of this is massively harmful to real victims and real solutions to human trafficking.

    This is the definition of “when all you have is a hammer, every problem becomes a nail.”

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 month ago

      This is the definition of “when all you have is a hammer, every problem becomes a nail.”

      No, this implies that there is a desire to fix anything in the first place

    • Makeitstop@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      This is the definition of “when all you have is a hammer, every problem becomes a nail.”

      This is actually the opposite. The only problem they give a shit about is nails, so they are breaking all their other tools by bashing them into the wall.

      • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        It’s the mythos of “white slavery.”

        They want to protect children against swarthy foreigners, ala Taken. A white teenage girl married off to a white adult man is fine.

    • minnow@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Turns out they were just fascists who will say whatever they think will gain them the most power in any particular situation, and they never actually cared about anything but that power.

      Now that going after pedophiles doesn’t get them power, they don’t care. But don’t worry, they’ll revive that rhetoric when they decide it’s time to go after “groomers” (ie LGBTQ people)

  • MagicShel@lemmy.zip
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    1 month ago

    “No one has ever been as hard as I am when it comes to exploitation, particularly, they say, the sexual exploitation of children. No one has ever been as hard. So we wiped it out. It’s gone and it won’t be … there has never been anyone more dedicated to sexual exploitation is what they say.”

    • pivot_root@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Remove half of the context and it finally becomes accurate:

      No one has ever been as hard as I am when it comes to exploitation, particularly, they say, the sexual exploitation of children. No one has ever been as hard.

      • MagicShel@lemmy.zip
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        1 month ago

        You don’t really have to remove any context except understanding how stupid Trump is. If you just read that without knowing Trump it would be a confession

        I originally explained it was gone so he was going to pull funding because it wasn’t needed but the bit got too long so I snipped all that. It’s painful to think in his voice for too long.

  • Optional@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Even for a veteran trump-watcher sometimes we forget there’s no bottom. It only ever gets worse.

    Still - I thought I couldn’t respect the Qanut/MAGA/“What-about-the-children” people any less. And here we are.

  • betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Don’t want it to distract from more important things like identifying people who make fascists sad online or fabricating a case against an innocent Italian plumber.