An estimated 27.6 million people are trapped in forced sexual exploitation worldwide. Behind that number is a system sustained by demand — buyers whose anonymity exempts them from scrutiny.
At CMC, the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights hosts a student-led task force that directly deals with this issue: Students Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation (SACSE). In light of the ongoing national focus on the release of the Epstein files, co-president of the task force Vivienne Arndt CM ’28 described how her team works to address many of the questions this scandal has brought to the forefront of public debate.
“I think that with Epstein in the news right now, we can see people feeling angry about this … feeling like it’s a very political issue,” Arndt said. “But [there are] also so many things to remember. Like, why do we feel that way? Is it because the victims look a certain way? Is it because the buyers look a certain way and because they’re in positions of power? And does perceiving Epstein in this way make us forget about gender-based violence that can exist all around us?”
On Friday, Feb. 20, Arndt and other members of SACSE hosted Cristian Eduardo and Yasmin Vafa at The Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum for a talk titled “Dismantling Demand: Who Fuels the Sex Trade and at What Cost?” At the fully booked lunch event, the speakers discussed the severity of issues surrounding the sex trade and shared insight on ways to minimize harm and ultimately dismantle the system.
Eduardo and Vafa each bring their own unique expertise to the conversation. Eduardo is a prominent advocate dedicated to advancing the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community as well as victims of sex trafficking. He became a survivor of sex trafficking shortly after immigrating to the United States, which later motivated him to help others in similar situations.
Conversely, Vafa approaches the work from a legal background; she is an activist and a lawyer, and additionally cofounded the national human rights organization Rights4Girls.
At the end of 2025, the organization published a report titled “Buyers Unmasked” that examined the people who purchase commercial sex. These buyers ultimately create the demand that drives the sex trade. In addition to highlighting the lived experiences of some of the exploited people, the report redirects the spotlight onto the men who buy sex.
Eduardo and Vafa began their talk by explaining why it’s crucial we use informed language when engaging in advocacy work. Often, people refer to the industry as “sex work,” and the people exploited as “sex workers.” Using the term “work,” Vafa explained, falsely equates this form of incredibly exploitative and dangerous labor with typical jobs.
“Child labor is work,” Vafa said, highlighting the absurdity of referring to clearly immoral labor arrangements as “work.”
Unlike most economic transactions, buyers in the sex trade have some degree of anonymity, which allows them to act more directly and, in some cases, more violently. This anonymity can make the buyer’s role disappear completely, which is why we as a society often place sole blame on the people who sell sex.
Many people — especially across the internet — often perpetuate the idea that people selling sex are immoral, and the root of this problem. The truth, as the speakers explained, is that the demand for sex lies at the core of the sex trade industry. Vafa grounded the claim in structural analysis, explaining how legal systems, cultural narratives and economic inequality intersect to sustain demand.
Eduardo’s personal anecdotes contextualized Vafa’s statistical claims, making the talk intense, educational and necessarily explicit. He explained that his traffickers told him “you won’t succeed” and “no one will hire you,” to strike fear into him and keep him where they wanted him.
As Vafa and Eduardo acknowledged, the politics of how we talk about and advocate against the sex trade are part of a larger conversation around the roles of sex and empowerment in our society. There are many groups on campus, such as Scripps Advocates, that work to address different dimensions of these issues, acknowledging the larger questions while also focusing on avenues for advocacy at the Claremont Colleges.
“Being an advocate for survivors of sexual assault is deeply connected to the broader fight against sex trafficking because both require centering those most impacted and actively working to transform the systems that enable harm.” Scripps Advocate Blake Weld ’26 said.
SACSE members and Scripps Advocates alike acknowledged that discussions about the sex trade are often very heated. One central tension within this debate is what many perceive as the clash between the right to autonomously choose what you do with your body and the exploitative nature of the sex trade.
As SACSE event planner and researcher Ava Fleisher SC ’28 explained, however, arguments about this tension are often not rooted in the material facts of the sex trade.
“The task force centers our work on survivor experiences and statistics that show that the sex trade is an intersecting oppressive system that reinforces racial, gender and socioeconomic hierarchies [and preys] on the most vulnerable people in society,” Fleisher said. “If entering the sex trade was really a choice, then the least privileged people [would] not be the ones who are being bought and sold.”
Her statement captured the nuance many students grapple with — how to affirm bodily autonomy while recognizing and fighting against exploitation and power imbalances.
For students at the Claremont Colleges, the panel underscored that conversations about sex autonomy and empowerment must also include accountability and recognition of power imbalances.
Even after the event ended and the speakers stepped down from the stage, the conversation lingered. Ultimately, it left students with a sense of responsibility to scrutinize how systems of exploitation are sustained and how they might be disrupted.
In addition to working as a researcher and event planner for the SACSE task force, Ava Fleisher SC ’28 is a news editor at TSL.
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