Imagine the faces of 200,000 children staring into the eyes of the audience for help as they are being told they are sentenced to prison for prostitution. Without knowledge of what it was exactly that they have done, they are struck with a look of devastation and fear for what is about to come. According to the Justice Department, those 200,000 children are trafficked for sex annually in just America alone. While it seems illogical that these innocent people should be prosecuted of something so severe, it is an everyday occurrence globally, which needs to be stopped. Although it can be very difficult to establish the credibility of certain claims from speakers, charging victims of sex trafficking with prostitution should be illegal. In history, …show more content…
Credibility of these “victims” is extremely important in order to make sure the traffickers are not falsely convicted and wrongfully charged. Some of these people lie and say they were trafficked when in reality, they just got caught in the act and needed an easy way out of facing the consequences. Notably, most people only speak or testify simply because they believe they will be considered truthful and will be deemed truthful (Tuerkheimer). When these victims only speak out because they think they will be believed, it leads to false accusations. Since they believe they will be seen as credible, these people lie in order to get someone else in trouble for their own actions, or even to just be heard and believed for once. This way of thinking can quickly lead to false convictions of others at the hands of one person’s lie. “Trustworthiness valuations can derive from evidence or from prejudice; when they result from the latter, the resulting downgrading of credibility raises concerns for epistemic injustice” (Tuerkheimer). As previously stated before, it is not smart to trust each and every person that comes forward to accuse someone for such an extreme crime such as sex trafficking. When someone’s credibility is broken, it quickly raises the suspicion of their intentions and leaves them untrustworthy. Although it is sometimes difficult to truly determine someone’s motives behind accusing another, placing the blame on the victim themselves should be