According to the U.S. Department of Justice, human trafficking is the second fastest growing criminal industry — just behind drug trafficking. Approximately half of all victims are children.
The National Human Trafficking Resource Center estimates it's a $32 billion industry, with about 50% of this revenue coming from industrialized countries. This surpasses the sale of illegal arms.
Sex-trafficking is essentially systemic rape for profit. Force, fraud and coercion are used to control the victim’s behavior, which may secure the appearance of consent to please the buyer (or John). Behind every transaction is violence or the threat of violence.
What happens to trafficked children in the U.S. when they are discovered by the police? Often they are arrested on prostitution charges, thrown into jail and treated like criminals, even though they are minors.
Instead of receiving counseling in a safe, supportive residential facility, many are forced to endure the additional trauma of juvenile detention. One reason for this is the lack of training to help law enforcement recognize and assist victims.
In 2008, New York was the first state to establish a Safe Harbor Law to decriminalize underage victims of sexual exploitation. Since then, 9 states have followed suit, but in the remaining states, children who are bought and sold for sex are still sent to jail.
Legally, they cannot consent to sex with an adult, so the use of the term “child prostitution” in the media is misleading. In any other context, this would be considered statutory rape.
Fewer than 100 shelter beds are available in the U.S. for sex-trafficking victims, and most facilities are not equipped to address their needs.
This is a staggering contrast to the FBI estimate that about 100,000 children are sold for sex in our nation.
How Does it Work?
Pimps often recruit children into sex-trafficking by posing as a boyfriend, caretaker and protector. Many girls are runaways from abusive or dysfunctional homes, some are kidnapped and others are exploited by someone they know. On average, the trafficking begins when the victim is 13.
At this time, the vast majority are sold through classified ads on websites. This has been the source of great controversy over Backpage. The Attorney General’s office documented that underage girls were sold through these ads in at least 22 states.
The recent split between Village Voice Media and Backpage indicates a new social pressure to defend the rights of trafficked girls, but critics claim that closing down ads just forces sales underground and removes a viable way to follow the activities of traffickers.
The adult services ads on the internet offer an accessible means for the commercial sexual exploitation of children, but the truth is that the demand for sex with underage girls precedes the technology. Closing down such avenues may temporarily interfere with business, yet the industry of selling children for sex continues as long as there are buyers.
Children are trafficked in every major metropolis in the U.S. Currently, the top three hotspots include include Texas, New York and California.
According to The National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking: America’s Prostituted Children, “children exploited through prostitution report they typically are given a quota by their trafficker/pimp of 10 to 15 buyers per night. Utilizing a conservative estimate, a domestic minor sex-trafficking victim would be raped by 6,000 buyers during the course of her victimization through prostitution.”
What Can We Do?
Fortunately, there is a new wave of survivor-led organizations devoted to education and healing, including Girls Education and Mentoring Services (GEMS) in New York and Courtney’s House in D.C. I started SHE: Survivor Healing and Empowerment to reach out to survivors of rape, abuse and sex-trafficking in one place because ultimately all forms of gender violence overlap.
In his recent speech for the Clinton Global Initiative, President Obama noted, "For the first time, at Hillary’s direction, our annual trafficking report now includes the United States, because we can’t ask other nations to do what we are not doing ourselves."
Speaking of survivors, the President said, “These women endured unspeakable horror. But in their unbreakable will, in their courage, in their resilience, they remind us that this cycle can be broken; victims can become not only survivors, they can become leaders and advocates, and bring about change.”
I applaud his recognition of human trafficking as an important domestic issue, but public awareness is only the first step. Children should not be incarcerated for their own exploitation and abuse in any state. We need to immediately correct the conflicts between state and federal law by exempting all children from prosecution for prostitution. The burden of responsibility must fall exclusively on Johns and traffickers.
Insist on Dignity
In the closing statements of his speech, President Obama said, “We see you. We hear you. We insist on your dignity. And we share your belief that if just given the chance, you will forge a life equal to your talents and worthy of your dreams.”
Yes, we must bear witness to the suffering of trafficking victims and affirm their inherent worth, but we must also enact policies and create resources that will help children break free from sexual exploitation. This requires that we face the disturbing truth that the demand for girls’ bodies is happening in our own communities.
