For my EL#1 project, I decided to do a blog about sex tourism and it's link with child sex trafficking. I did a blog because of it's ability to be mutated and added to, as well as being an open link that anyone can use as reference, as opposed to a flyer, or sign. I researched my topic in the context of American men traveling to south east Asian countries such as Thailand, Philippines and Cambodia to explicitly search out sexual engagements with local women. I wanted to connect this sector of the tourism industry to that of child sex trafficking to hopefully make the point clear that those individuals who decide to participate in this kind of behavior could in fact be having sexual engagements with a child as young as five years old. In order to publicize my blog, I decided to use what was closest to me and the people like me, so I advertised this website on Reddit.com- a website that I commonly use, that is filled with posts that any registered member can make, which can then be commented on, "up" or "down voted" and can also be used as a catalyst for useful information and input. I also put this blog onto my Facebook, and my fiancee did the same, and I emailed some of my contacts in hopes of feedback, whether good, bad or indifferent. Rather than getting feedback about the ACTUAL subject, people commented and actually argued (on Reddit) about my title, or the grammar used, or huge portions of the sex tourist industry that I intentionally left out (such as female sex tourism to predominately black countries like Kenya and Jamaica)... While this was interesting and the argument was pretty entertaining, I saw how difficult it can be to capture an audience and KEEP their attention without them resulting to critiques not useful to the actual project.
Here are (small) photos of my blog pages- note that each of the pages included my sources, whether it is visible on the photograph or not:
In the end, I learned a lot about a topic that I knew I was interested in and passionate about and hopefully this blog will continue to be a space for reference information, if nothing else- to the organizations from which I got my information, who have ways to take action against child sex trafficking and sex tourism alike.
You did a great job of overviewing the issue of sex tourism in Asia. There needs to be international prosecution for agencies that advertise sex tourism but the question is, who is going to enforce those laws and how?
ReplyDeleteThere are so many resources and nonprofits designed to bring awareness to human trafficking but so few people actually know about them. It's time that human trafficking had a real public forum within American culture.
Other great documentaries that bring awareness to human trafficking include: Redlight and Call & Response.
The state department puts out an annual report about human trafficking; the 2009 report is the first time that the US was listed within the three tier rating system. Of course the US is listed in tier 1 (complies fully with UN protocols on human exploitation) yet the US is a major destination country for trafficked persons and has a large amount of men who engage in sex tourism, like you mentioned above.
I think your EL project was really good Logan. It’s interesting that you talked about all of the critiques that your blog was getting. At least you know not only are people seeing your blog but they’re reading it. The Office of Sustainability here at Mason has a blog and while it has over 1,000 hits it hasn’t received any comments yet so I think even if your blog is receiving critiques at least you know that people are reading your blog.
ReplyDeleteWhy did you choose to focus solely on sex tourism in Asia? I would invite them to provide information for the blog on other countries they want to see. Sort of like a Wikipedia model where people can edit information that is inaccurate or add further information to make it collaborative and try to engage them in the issue beyond providing critiques.
In addition to a blog being a good space to provide information on an issue because it is easily adaptable it’s also less expensive than printing flyers and signs. I think that’s why we’re seeing more blogs and websites from organizations and groups as opposed to pamphlets or to complement using pamphlets. Great job though.