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Kristof fights sex trafficking, genocide
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nicholas "Nick" Kristof has used his position as a columnist for The New York Times since 2001 to champion human rights around the world. He's observed in person many of the world's worst atrocities, including the ongoing genocide in Darfur, Sudan, sex trafficking in East Asia and gang rape in Pakistan. Kristof gave the Rosenfield Lecture Thursday as part of a Rosenfield symposium on genocide. The S&B spoke to Kristof Thursday morning before his speech.
When did you first hear about the genocide in Darfur?
I heard rumblings about it in early 2004, and then made a trip there, partly to write about it. ... I was a little skeptical about what I could find. Then I got there and I was just blown away. There were tens of thousands of refugees, and they all had stories that were just heart-wrenching. People were being killed every day in the area that I was in. I wasn't so much hearing about it as bumping up into it.
What do you think is the most important thing that President Bush could do to improve the situation in Darfur?
The single most important thing he could do is to put it at the top of the international agenda. If he were to make speeches about it, if he were to call up other leaders, if he were to visit the region, then that attention would result both in a decline in atrocities in Darfur and the first step towards solutions.
If President Bush were to do this, what would it cost the United States?
Speaking up would cost nothing, and I think it would improve the reputation of the U.S. around the world. I think that being associated in a purely humanitarian effort would be a good thing for American image.
Actually providing security in Darfur will cost money. It will have to be an international effort. I don't think we can send in U.S. ground troops, but we will have to pay for foreign ground troops.
For conservative Christians, issues like Darfur and the sex trade are very important. Given how politically important conservative Christians are to President Bush, why don't you think he's done more?
Conservative Christians were very important at the beginning of this ... but overall evangelicals haven't been quite as active as I would have liked. They've been much more active than the general public, but not nearly as active as they could be. As to why President Bush hasn't responded ... most of all, I think he's afraid of raising an issue ... when he isn't really sure what'll happen next, that he can't control. He talks about genocide, and then it continues, and he's helped put it on the agenda without resolving.
A couple of days ago, a number of prominent evangelical leaders published a letter urging action on global warming. Do you think there's a possibility for a broader, liberal-conservative alliance?
Absolutely, in a way that was not possible 10 years ago. Particularly on human rights issues. Sex trafficking, for example. The main constituencies pushing for more action on sex trafficking are evangelical Christians, typically on the right, and feminists, traditionally on the left. At a time where our country is so polarized, I think it would be great to ... find areas of cooperation ... It's great to get action against genocide, but it's also great to get some action across the political divide.
When you're traveling in places like Darfur, where there's not much security, what security precautions do you take?
On rare occasions, government soldiers have provided some security to prevent me from being kidnapped. In general I just go. I do the various things you do, you ask local people what the road ahead is like. You stop all the time and ask people at every village, are there land mines, is it safe?
When did you first get started ... traveling, visiting dangerous places?
I had a Rhodes scholarship, and was studying at Oxford. Oxford had long, wonderful vacations. I traveled around the world during those vacations, and helped subsidize my travels by writing articles. Eventually I was backpacking through Africa and Asia and writing about it. That was when I got the travel bug.
What kind of things can students do to make a difference on Darfur and the sex trade?
The most important thing students can do is to yell. No politician is in favor of genocide or ... sex trafficking. It's just a matter of perceiving that constituents care about these issues, and then they manage to show some interest as well.
Do you think that internet companies [like Google and Yahoo] should work to get more information in the hands of the Chinese people if it means having to block information about democracy and human rights?
I think in general it's good to have more companies of all kinds, including internet companies, active in China. I think those companies, however, have been much too willing to kowtow to the Beijing leadership. For Yahoo to turn over the name of an owner of an account so he can be arrested ... without any kind of legal obligation to do so, strikes me as an utter betrayal of its responsibility.
Would you say that sex trafficking is comparable to anything we experienced in the West in the past?
In some ways, it's comparable to slavery at its worst. There's all kinds of sex trafficking, and some of it involves girls or young women who know what they're getting into and choose it in some form, maybe because their options aren't great. But there are also plenty of girls who are enslaved in any meaningful sense, and for them, difference with 19th century slavery is they end up dead of AIDS by the time they're in their 20s.
-interview by David Montgomery
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