Kit10Phish Explains It All: Dark Yachting & Human Trafficking

The problem with human trafficking is applying a firm definition to the practice, and understanding the true scope of the problem. What counts as trafficking?

Some of these dark yachting stories might fall under “fraud” especially if women are lured onto ships with the promise of (non-existent) modeling contracts or acting gigs, only to be taken advantage of once on board.

The yachting situations can be ambiguous and difficult to determine as free-will vs. deceptive recruitment. The following interview talks about paying attention to the less egregious examples of exploitation.

The author wants people to take these more ubiquitous offenses seriously as well, because whether or not they meet the true definition of human trafficking, the scenarios can still be problematic and abusive.

Alyssa Merritt: You define this practice of recruiting women and using them for profit as a form of trafficking, but you have gotten pushback from those who reserve the term trafficking to define the more extreme form of sex trafficking. Does this resistance to recognize this practice as a form of trafficking play a role in minimizing the attention these issues receive?

Ashley Mears: Yeah, I’m sure it does. Usually, there has to be some kind of horrific event before a system gets critically examined, which is a shame. These systems are baked into a lot of institutions and a lot of basic assumptions about how the world works, so people kind of go along with these systems until something horrible happens.

Especially when something bad happens, like a Jeffrey Epstein situation. There is a tendency to think about him and the people around him as bad actors that perpetuated something that is somehow very separate from the rest of society.

What I show in my book is that trafficking is a pretty pervasive phenomenon. These sex trafficking rings are one type of this traffic, but male-controlled circuits that siphon off value from women’s bodies is a more standard form that everyday people are involved in or that nightlife industries, fashion industries, and college campuses are complicit in. When people hear about the trafficking of girls, their thoughts usually go to Epstein.

Alyssa Merritt: Your book shines a light on the pervasive, more subtle instances of this behavior. These are definitely instances of abuse or exploitation, but they don’t share the same high profile quality of the cases that do make the news. Why do these more common cases get swept under the rug?

Ashley Mears: They’re invisible because they’re common. They don’t make the news because people are used to them. Maybe another way of asking the question is “Why is it that, when there’s an Epstein, there isn’t a larger discussion about the everyday circulation of girls and systems of exploitation that appropriate girls’ value for the benefit of male-controlled networks?”

Yachts are part of a global, transient industry that crosses various jurisdictions, and this can be an additional hurdle when it comes to legally reporting sexual assault cases.

If you look into Jeffery Epstein and his private sex trafficking island, Jeffery also had some yachts under his belt, most famously, the Dancing Hare which was worth $15 million.

Some specific yacht users are known to regularly exchange sex for gifts such as luxury watches. “It’s the norm in the industry,” the captain said. “The owners want to hook up with the stewardesses. It’s quite crazy, and disgusting.” Friends and former colleagues working on several other boats have reported that female crew members are forced to test regularly for sexually transmitted diseases. The extent of prostitution is an open secret, the captain claimed, with women regularly transported to boats.

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