In light of the recent DNA Foundation's Real Men Campaign and criticism raised in response by the Village Voice, I thought now would be the right time to address the underlying societal stigma that surrounds the commercial sexual exploitation of children in our nation.
As the CEO of Minga, the only not-for-profit organization dedicated to combating the global child sex trade by harnessing the power of teens, I am familiar with just how taboo my cause is. In 2006, during our Freshman year of high school, my friends and I learned that children, both in the United States and abroad, are sold in a vicious global child sex trade. We researched the issue further to find that the average age of entry into prostitution in our nation is just 13. Shocked and appalled that millions of young people just like us were being sold for sex, we knew we had to do something. None of us had been sexually exploited, abused, or trafficked. We were a group of suburban students from stable homes who simply felt a responsibility for our peers who were suffering.
From the first yard sale we held in 2006, we have met constant questioning: "Why are you all even talking about this? You are kids! This is not actually happening in the United States." Our cause is among America's darkest secrets, and many want it to stay that way.
But there is an underlying set of myths that have contributed to the stigma around child victims evident in our nation's media, legal system, and public opinion. Our media promotes a distorted picture of the prostitution industry, glamorizing pimps and encouraging young people to believe the industry is one of high class, endless cash, and opportunity. Our legal system allows states to set laws around prostitution and child sex trafficking, and many states penalizes child victims more so than perpetrators. Public opinion has bought into the following myths that have in turn made ending the child sex trade in our nation low on our list of priorities.
Myth #1: Children involved in the child sex trade in the United States are trafficked from foreign countries
Most children being sold for sex in our nation are American children. Our nation's child victims are from New York City, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Miami, Los Angeles, Dallas and everywhere in between. While children from abroad are trafficked here as well, they are the minority in the United States commercial child sex trade.
Myth #2: Children involved in the child sex trade in the United States are "bad kids"
No child, age 5, 12, or even 17 dreams of becoming a prostitute. Many child victims do come from broken homes, but very few children are drug addicts prostituting themselves to support their addiction, crazed alcoholics, or promiscuous sex addicts. Children of all ethnicities, socioeconomic brackets, and geographic areas are being sold for sex in our nation. The only uniting quality all children pulled into the trade life share is vulnerability.
Myth #3: Children are kidnapped and then pimped out
Sometimes this is the case, but in the United States the recruiting process pimps execute time and time again is not kidnapping. Instead, American pimps lure girls in gradually. Pimps search for girls with low self esteem. They are absolute experts at finding the girl on the train, in the mall, at a school, or even just walking down the street, who is in pain. They will test their hypothesis, giving her a compliment and gauging her reaction. He gives her his number and asks her out on a date. He gains her trust, giving her the love and attention she has been craving. For months he buys her dinner, designer clothes, jewelry, and in exchange she gives more of her trust and love to him. Then, he asks her to move in with him. Suddenly he is short on rent, or needs a favor to repay some debt to a friend, and she is that favor. He tells her he loves her, needs her, and after all he has given her, she should be eager to help him. Feeling confused and alone, she obliges and suddenly her loving boyfriend becomes her pimp. Months later, she is turning thirty tricks a night, he shoots her up with heroin to keep her weak and addicted to him, he beats her and holds a gun to her head, threatening to kill her if she ever disobeys. She is trapped in plain sight in our hotels, train stations, airports, and on our street corners. I have met several young women from Boston, New York, and Los Angeles who lived this story and survived.
Myth #4: Only girls are victims of the child sex trade
In the United States and around the world young boys are sold for sex and used for exploitative child pornography. In the United States New York City has long been known as a hub for trafficking young boys for sex. In the Caribbean, young boys sold for sex are known as "cabaña boys," and in Sri Lanka, young boys are the majority of child victims.
Myth #5: Only pedophiles are buying child sex
Exploiters come from every ethnicity, background, and location. The typical john is not a pedophile, but a situational abuser. Millions of men are justifying having sex with children each year. In the United States, fathers are exploiting children in their home states and going on sex tours abroad. Businessmen are feeling indulgent and reckless, exploiting children in cities they visit worldwide. Religious leaders, truckers and politicians are guilty too. Our society has sent the message that it is okay to buy sex from a child. These exploiters remain hidden and engrained in our social fabric.
To the Village Voice, claiming that because only 827 children on average are arrested for prostitution, every expert who offers 100,000 to 300,000 as an estimate for the number of children trapped in the trade life annually is wrong, is just silly. To start, no child involved in prostitution should be arrested. No person under 18 in the United States can legally consent to sex. When money enters the equation, why then do these children become criminals instead of victims? If our law enforcement officers were bringing in every child victim, the commercial sexual exploitation of children in America would not be a crisis because those children would be receiving the help and support they need.
Minga was founded in 2005 by a Newton girl named Katie with her friends: Ben, Sarah 1, Taryn, Sarah 2, and Riley. After learning about sex trafficking and the horrifying abuse of children, Katie became inspired to raise awareness and money to build a shelter for abused women and children in Guatemala. Katie, along with her core founding group and a few friends picked up along the way, organized an enormous weekend-long yard sale in her house that raised thousands of dollars for their cause. At least two years later, Rebecca joined Minga. Although Rebecca has worked hard to promote this cause, she is NOT the founder, nor was she with Minga in its first couple of years. She is given an extraordinary amount of credit for the hard work and vision of others. Although she has been instrumental in this cause, she should give credit where it is due.
This statement is a bit misleading.
There are other nonprofit organizations dedicated to combating the global sex trade. Perhaps they do not exclusively harness "the power of teens", but they are there.
Instead of attempting to put down the other organizations, perhaps you should partner with them? This exclusivity looks bad because you are trashing other good organizations.
Next. Numbers are very difficult. To say 100,000 to 300,000 children are trapped into the sex trade each year shows how untrustworthy the number sources are. Such a wide variation! Fact? the numbers are large, but unknown. We haven't enough information to set reasonable boundary figures.
And lots of girls being offered as sex workers live right at home with mom and dad harboring the secret of abuse. They earn a little money for themselves and lots more for their pimp, but they are not pumped with drugs. There are lots of means of coercion.
The most horrific tale makes a good story. But the facts would suffice. The facts show a wide variation in recruiting, types of abuse, and length of involvement. Children exit this trade and the terrible effects of their abuse causes problems for years.
The Child Sex trade needs to be stopped. Absolutely. I agree. But more care with numbers, less generalization, and partnering with other organizations in this struggle will enhance your work. Regards.
100,000 prostitutes were expected at the Dallas super-bowl a few months back. Nowhere near that number turned up, and few, as always, were children. RESULTS: There is clearly something wrong with their math.
http://www.havocscope.com/black-market/human-trade/human-trafficking/
Look at the most recent data: The US State department only found 33,000 people around the world in 2010 who were identified by law enforcement as trafficking victims.
But then, you also see that 3 children a DAY are sold to traffickers in Nigeria.
I honestly don't know what to believe anymore.
Simply put, think of the demand side if you think 300,000 - 2.4 million makes sense. According to this study of 160 women they averaged 14 "tricks" a night. http://economics.uchicago.edu/pdf/Prostitution%205.pdf
So do a little math here... Multiply 300 thou by 14 and you get 4.2 million guys into pedophilia (or looking the other way for thrills?) to 33.6 million men out on the prowl for the underage thrill (but lying to themselves?).
If this were true, there would be far more household names than Laurence Taylor being busted a year... There are 151 million men - they are still the majority buying in the sex trade, so 22% of the male population are buying underage kids in this country... That seems believable?
I am just trying to get a handle on the size, in testable numbers, of this problem. For those who so far, have provided high numbers of instances of child prostitution by projection and extrapolation they can't defend except with passion and insistence, your experience in law enforcement might look like corroboration of their beliefs, but it's still not data exactly. It's personal experience. I don't want to belittle your personal experience, but I don't know how to count it in either.
While I of course support efforts to end child sex trafficking, this statement is false and providing misinformation does not help. The age of consent varies by state and is 18 in only twelve of them. It is 16 in thirty states and the District of Columbia and 17 in the other eight. Thirty states and D.C. also have provisions that recognize consent at an earlier age based on the age of the other participant. For example, Hawaii recognizes consent by children as young as fourteen with anyone five years or less older. It is perfectly legal, in Hawaii, for a child celebrating their 14th birthday to consent to non-commercial sex with a young adult celebrating their 19th birthday. In Kentucky, the older person could be one day less than 21 and a younger person could still legally consent on their 14th birthday.
The only purpose of "age of consent" is determining whether the action of the older person engaging in sexual activity is criminal.
That said, the Village Voice statistic is meaningless. Here in Connecticut, the definition of prostitution excludes those under 16 and for 16 and 17 year olds provides "there shall be a presumption that the actor was coerced into committing such offense by another person". Regardless of the specific prostitution law, law enforcement always has discretion to not make an arrest.
That means that, for every 17 year old who enters prostitution, there have to be three 12 year olds, for every 19 year old, you'd need three 11 year olds, or however you want to monkey with the numbers to make the average come to 13.
I just don't believe that there are either so few entering prostitution later than 13, or so many younger than 13 to make up for the older ones. Certainly, there has to be much more conclusive data before I'd be willing to throw that number around.
I can accept that 13 is probably the most frequent age of entry. At 17 years of age, children are much more independent and are harder to control. Taking them at 13 years or so exploits the fact that children at that age long to be older and more independent. They are inexperienced enough to be easier to influence and control. Recruiting a child younger than 13 produces problems with lack of sexual interest, more difficulty getting the child out of the home, etc.
It is a pity that such organizations do not hire competent statisticians. They ruin their credibility with wild statements that people can easily pick apart. Yet these organizations do a good work.
Crimes against Children Research Center ● University of New Hampshire ● 126 Horton Social Science Center ● Durham, NH 03824
(603) 862‐1888●Fax: (603) 862‐1122●www.unh.edu/ccrc
http://www.unh.edu/ccrc/prostitution/Juvenile_Prostitution_factsheet.pdf