Sex trafficking is one of the most unnoticed tragedies that occur every single day in the United States of America. Trafficking is defined as a modern form of slavery. It involves controlling a person through force, fraud, or coercion to exploit the victim for forced labor, sexual exploitation, or both. Sex trafficking almost always involves the forced prostitution of women, but is not limited to men and often times children. Trafficking is the illegal trade of people for exploitation or commercial gain. Every year, millions of men, women, and children are trafficked in countries around the world, including the United States. Child sex trafficking is positively child abuse. Children are recruited, moved or transported and then exploited, forced to work or sold. I think that it is one of the cruelest forms of exploitation of a human, especially when it involves children. They are often subject to multiple forms of exploitation. More times than not, children are trafficked for one reason and one reason only: sexual exploitation. You have to be an extremely heartless person to want to abuse a child in the form of sex trafficking.
Social media and other internet resources are some of the main ways that exploiters approach their victims. They attempt to make trustworthy relationships to appeal to victims’ emotions, such as heartbreak, mourning, and loneliness. Some exploiters, also known as pimps, even promise a new life or stardom to their victims. This often times gives the exploiters automatic entrance into the victims’ lives. In Illinois, a 19-year-old female responded to an Internet ad promoting modeling opportunities. Instead of offering her a modeling job, the offender enticed the girl to wait in a hotel room where she was expected to have sex with an unknown person. The offender, who would become her pimp, intended to sell the young woman for sex at an hourly rate. In this case, the pimp’s would-be client was an undercover police officer who brought the young woman to safety.
Many rappers and celebrities sing songs about how “pimpin’ ain’t easy”, but what some may not realize is just how real tis issue is. It really frustrates me to hear a rapper singing about being a pimp, even though more times than not they do not know the true meaning behind the term. If you are not one hundred percent sure what you are saying means, you should not say it. What you say may directly influence someone and how they feel. Many survivors of sex trafficking suffer from PTSD and other anxieties for the rest of their lives and hearing someone rap about being a “mother-censored pimp” may really upset them. “Pimpin’” may sound fun, but it is just a cowardly way to make a living and there is more to it than just a catchy song.
There are four major motives behind human trafficking: wealth, politics, war, and culture. Many victims want to get out of their social situation so they risk all that they have to lose the feeling of poverty. I find it extremely heartbreaking that men and women go to such extreme measures so that they can have just a small amount of cash. This gives trafficker bait to lure them into other countries and away from everything that they know. Political instability, militarism, generalized violence or civil unrest can result in an increase in trafficking as well. The destabilization and scattering of populations increase their vulnerability to trafficking. Armed conflicts can also lead to mass displacements of people in areas that are unfamiliar. Children are disconnected from their families and orphaned due to the fact that they are either fighting in the war or have passed away and are surrounded by hundreds of exploiters with no way out. Sadly, many countries find human trafficking normal and it is a part of their culture. Several societies and cultures devalue, exploit, and abuse women and girls, creating harsh living conditions for the victims. All of these things factor into human trafficking and each of these only increases the vulnerability to the tragedy.
Thirteen. Three hundred thousand. Two thousand and two hundred. Forty-eight. One in three. These are the numbers in which sex trafficking are accountable for. Thirteen is the average age in which children are being exploited for sexual reasons. Three hundred thousand children are at risk for sexual exploitation each year. Two thousand and two hundred children are reported missing each and every day. Within forty-eight hours, one in three runaway children will be approached by sexual exploiters who are looking to make these “runaway” children their next victims.
Sexual exploiters do not discriminate in the children that they victimize. Happy-go-lucky extroverts and children with mental disabilities suffer the same from being victimized. Some may argue that children with learning disabilities and those who have been exposed to sexual content earlier in life are more vulnerable than those who are straight-edged, picture-perfect youth, but in reality each child is just as likely as the other to be brought into the trafficking industry.
Trafficking victims often suffer from serious physical abuse and physical exhaustion, as well as starvation. Typical injuries can include broken bones, concussion, bruising or burns, as well as other injuries consistent with assault. Some of these serious injuries can cause lasting health problems and may require long-term treatment. Because women and youth who have been trafficked have been subjected to multiple abuses over an extensive period of time, they may suffer health consequences similar to those of victims of prolonged torture. Women who work in the commercial sex trade are vulnerable to sexual and reproductive health complications, including sexually transmitted diseases (most notably HIV/AIDS) and other gynecological problems. Some women who have been trafficked into the sex trade often may not have access to, or are not allowed to use, condoms or other methods of birth control, and may only have irregular gynecological examinations. Such women face the risk of unwanted pregnancies and miscarriages. Women and young girls who work in prostitution usually experience high rates of abortion, sterilization and infertility.
This type of physical and sexual abuse leads to severe mental or emotional health consequences, including feelings of severe guilt, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, substance abuse (alcohol or narcotics) and eating disorders. In extreme cases, the mental anguish can lead to self-mutilation or suicide. Victims of trafficking often need psychological care as part of standard medical treatment.
Child sex trafficking will remain an enormous tragedy in America and the rest of the world unless we can find a way to fight against it. It has been, and will continue to be, a crime hidden from the public view unless there is something done to make the nation aware of what terrible things are happening to the youth of the nation.
There are multiple organizations that have begun to bring America’s attention to what goes on behind the closed doors of sexual exploitation and trafficking of young women and men. Although many non-profit organizations focus on women and girls, Urban Light is an organization that focuses on helping young men and boys cope with some of the hardships they face in regards to being victimized by child sex traffickers.
Perhaps the most tragic statistic of all is that despite statutory rape laws in every state explicitly stating that children under eighteen cannot legally consent to having sex, most states still allow minors to be arrested and charged with prostitution crimes. Our criminal justice is extremely flawed in that area. There is a perverseness about it because you have to be arrested and charged for prostitution, even if you are under eighteen. Sixteen and seventeen year olds are prosecuted as adults even though-technically- the law regards them as victims. Moreover, the U.S Department of Justice found that law enforcement officers are more likely to arrest underage boys engaged in commercial sex rather than refer them to social service providers, as they do with girls.
Child sex trafficking and human trafficking in general are very despicable crimes that no one wants to discuss. It is a heart breaking thing to hear that a thirteen-year-old girl was forced into sexual labor by a pimp and equally heart breaking to hear that a fifteen-year-old boy was sold to a sexual exploiter. Even though trafficking is swept under the rug in topics of most conversations, it should be addressed just as much as the current election or racial issues. The children that are being exposed to sexual exploiters and the sex trade today are the same children who will grow up to lead this country tomorrow. Allow your heart to break for what is breaking these children and fight to stop the misfortune that is sex trafficking.