A Missouri Republican candidate for Senate claimed the sexual liberation of the 1960s played a role in the rise of sex trafficking in America.
Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, running for United States Senate, presented his theory on the causes of sex trafficking when speaking to those with the Missouri Renewal Project in December, reported The Washington Post.
One of the effects of the sexual revolution of the 60s and 70s was the sex trafficking of women, Hawley claimed.
“We’re living now with the terrible aftereffects of this so-called revolution. We have a human-trafficking crisis in our state and in this city and in our country because people are willing to purchase women, young women, and treat them like commodities. There is a market for it,” Hawley said in audio released by the Kansas Star Wednesday. “Why is there? Because our culture has completely lost its way. The sexual revolution has led to exploitation of women on a scale that we would never have imagined.”
Hawley, endorsed by the president, is running against Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill. The president previously said Hawley would make a “great senator” before promising to join Hawley on the campaign trail.
A spokeswoman for Hawley defended the attorney general’s comments, saying that men are to blame for the exploitation of women.
“In the 1960s and ’70s, it became OK for Hollywood and the media to treat women as objects for male gratification,” spokeswoman Kelli Ford said. “And that demeaning view of women has helped fuel harassment, inequality and, yes, sex trafficking. As Josh often says, to end sex trafficking, it’s not enough to put the criminals behind bars; you have to change the culture of male exploitation of women.”
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