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Since starting all of my research and policy work on sexual
trafficking, I have thought often about the issue of choice; and when
things are "real" choices. Do people ever choose to enter the sex
trade? I've met people who certainly think they have, and would be
insulted at being told it wasn't a rational choice. And yet... the
average age of entry in Canada is 14, and most prostituted persons
have histories of poverty and sexual abuse (which profoundly alters
your thinking). So, even if they're making a rational or real choice
to enter, are they really?

Or take the case of domestic violence. Do women choose to stay in
intimate relationships where they are
physically/emotionally/sexually/spiritually abused by their partners?
The simple answer is yes – some women choose to stay. But that choice
is usually made with numerous considerations, including fear,
self-esteem, poverty or economic hardship, sexism or racism, children
(and society's idealization of two-parent families), community
pressures, shortage of community resources, etc. Is the choice to stay
(or return) really a choice when you have been afraid and intimidated
for years; when you have little self-esteem or self-respect left, when
all of your finances are in your husband's name, when you want your
children to have a Daddy, and when your church community tells you
that marriage is for life and a woman's patient love and persistence
will eventually guarantee her husband's salvation?

And yet how could I ever say that women are unable to make real
choices about their lives because of their life circumstances? Isn't
that disempowering? The issue of choice seems complicated.