More Models Come Forward With Disturbing Claims of Sex and Labor Trafficking

Kaja Sokola, one of the women who came forward with accusations against Harvey Weinstein during the #Me Too movement, says that the culture of the industry still provides men like Weinstein special access and proximity to the young models, many of whom are still teenagers launched into New York City with essentially no adult supervision. In September 2002, a 16-year-old Sokola had just arrived from Poland when she attended an event hosted by her modeling agency, NEXT. She met Weinstein there, and three days later, Sokola says the producer sexually assaulted her. “Modeling agencies are sometimes like pimps for rich people,” she says.

“The modeling industry really does in some cases rise to the level of trafficking—labor trafficking and sex trafficking,” says Ziff, who helps educate models about their rights within the industry and is currently fighting to improve their workplaces. “This lack of transparency, the power imbalance, the vulnerability of these mostly young, immigrant women, it's a recipe for exploitation. In the early stages of doing this work, I refrained from using the language of trafficking because it felt too extreme. But that's what it is.”

Ziff and other members of the Model Alliance helped craft legislation titled the Fashion Workers Act, which was designed to hold modeling agencies accountable for model abuse they've caused or enabled. On June 8, the New York Senate passed the law, bringing models one step closer to basic rights such as requiring agencies to provide workers copies of their contracts and enacting a zero-tolerance policy for abuse.

The Assembly is expected to return later this month for a final vote on the act—and let's hope it actually does something.