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The White-Slave Traffic Act, better known as the Mann Act, is a United States federal law, passed June 25, 1910 (ch. 395, ; ''codified as amended at'' ). It is named after Congressman James Robert Mann of Illinois, and in its original form made it a felony to engage in interstate or foreign commerce transport of "any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose". Its primary stated intent was to address prostitution, "immorality", and human trafficking particularly where it was trafficking for the purposes of prostitution. This is one of several acts of protective legislation aimed at moral reform during the progressive era. Its ambiguous language of "immorality" meant it could be used to criminalize consensual sexual behavior between adults.〔"Mann Act." Dictionary of American History. 2003. encyclopedia.com. 21 October 2013〕 It was amended by Congress in 1978 and again in 1986 to apply to transport for the purpose of prostitution or illegal sexual acts.〔Bell, Ernest Albert. ''(The War on the White Slave Trade )''. Chicago: GS Ball, 1910. eBook.〕 It is commonly thought that this legislation came to be due to racial biasness against boxer John Arthur "Jack" Johnson. ==Promotion== In the 19th century, most of America's cities had a designated, legally protected area of prostitution. Increased urbanization and young women entering the workforce led to greater flexibility in courtship without supervision. It is in this changing social sphere that the panic over "white slavery" began. This term referred to women being kidnapped for the purposes of prostitution. Numerous communities appointed vice commissions to investigate the extent of local prostitution, whether prostitutes participated in it willingly or were forced into it and the degree to which it was organized by any cartel-type organizations. The second significant action at the local levels was to close the brothels and the red light districts. From 1910 to 1913, city after city withdrew this tolerance and forced the closing of their brothels. Opposition to openly practiced prostitution had been growing steadily throughout the last decades of the 19th century. The federal government's response to the moral panic was the Mann Act. The purpose of the act was to make it a crime to coerce transportation of unwilling women. The statute made it a crime to "transport or cause to be transported, or aid to assist in obtaining transportation for" or to "persuade, induce, entice or coerce" a woman to travel.〔Brian K. Landsberg. Major Acts of Congress. Macmillan Reference USA: The Gale Group, 2004. 251-253. Print〕 Many of the changes that occurred after 1900 were a result of tensions between family ideals and practical realities. Family form and functions changed in response to a complex set of circumstances which were the effects of economic class and ethnicity.〔Elizabeth Faue. ''The Emergence of Modern America (1990 to 1923)''. Encyclopedia of American History, 2003. 169-170.Print〕 According to historian Mark Thomas Connelly, "a group of books and pamphlets appeared announcing a startling claim: a pervasive and depraved conspiracy was at large in the land, brutally trapping and seducing American girls into lives of enforced prostitution, or 'white slavery.' These white slave narratives, or white-slave tracts, began to circulate around 1909."〔 Such narratives often portrayed innocent girls "victimized by a huge, secret and powerful conspiracy controlled by foreigners", as they were drugged or imprisoned and forced into prostitution.〔 This excerpt from ''The War on the White Slave Trade'' was written by the United States District Attorney in Chicago: According to Connelly, such concerns represented a "hysterical" version of genuine and long-standing issues arising from the concentration of young women from rural backgrounds in the expanding cities of the era, many of whom were drawn into prostitution for "mundane" economic reasons. A number of Vice Commission reports had drawn attention to the issue.〔 Some contemporaries questioned the idea of abduction and foreign control of prostitution through cartels. For example, noted radical and feminist Emma Goldman asked "What is really the cause of the trade in women? Not merely white women, but yellow and black women as well. Exploitation, of course; the merciless Moloch of capitalism that fattens on underpaid labor, thus driving thousands of women and girls into prostitution. With Mrs. Warren these girls feel, "Why waste your life working for a few shillings a week in a scullery, eighteen hours a day?... Whether our reformers admit it or not, the economic and social inferiority of woman is responsible for prostitution."〔Emma Goldman, ''The Traffic In Women Red Emma Speaks: Selected Writings and Speeches''. New York: Random House, 1972. ISBN 0-394-47095-8〕 While prostitution was widespread, contemporary studies by local vice commissions indicate that it was "overwhelmingly locally organized without any large business structure, and willingly engaged in by the prostitutes."〔Langum, David J. (1994). ''Crossing Oover the Line: Legislating Morality and the Mann Act''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-46880-1〕 Suffrage activists, especially Harriet Burton Laidlaw〔(Laidlaw, H. B. (Harriet Burton), b. 1874, Papers, 1851–1958, A Finding Aid, harvard.edu )〕 and Rose Livingston, took up these concerns. They worked in New York City's Chinatown and in other cities to rescue young white and Chinese girls from forced prostitution, and helped pass the Mann Act to make interstate sex trafficking a federal crime.〔 Livingston publicly discussed her past as a prostitute and claimed to have been abducted and developed a drug problem as a sex slave in a Chinese man's home, narrowly escaped and experienced a Christian conversion narrative. Her story in several ways exemplifies the stereotypes used to pass the Mann Act- fear of foreigners, especially Jewish, Italian or Asian men, abduction and drugging in order to be raped and enslaved, a narrow escape and salvation through Christian conversion.〔Massotta, Jodie. ''(Decades of Reform: Prostitutes, Feminists, and the War on White Slavery )''. Diss. University of Vermont, 2013. Print.〕 Other groups like the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and Hull House focused on children of prostitutes and poverty in community life while trying to pass protective legislation. The American Purity Alliance also supported the Mann Act.〔(Bell ), pp. 44-45.〕 The 1921 Convention set new goals for international efforts to stem human trafficking, primarily by giving the anti-trafficking movement further official recognition, as well as a bureaucratic apparatus to research and fight the problem. The Advisory Committee on the Traffic of Women and Children was a permanent advisory committee of the League. Its members were nine countries, and several non-governmental organizations. An important development was the implementation of a system of annual reports of member countries. Member countries formed their own centralized offices to track and report on trafficking of women and children.〔 The advisory committee also worked to expand its research and intervention program beyond the United States and Europe. In 1929, a need to expand into the Near East (Asia Minor), the Middle East and Asia was acknowledged. An international conference of central authorities in Asia was planned for 1937, but no further action was taken during the late 1930s.〔Elizabeth Faue. The Emergence of Modern America(1990 to 1923). Encyclopedia of American History, 2003. pp. 169-170. Print〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mann Act」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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