What is sex trafficking?
Sex trafficking means the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act.
Commercial sex act means any sex act on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person.
Involuntary servitude includes a condition of servitude induced by means of (a) any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that, if the person did not enter into or continue in such condition, that person or another person would suffer serious harm or physical restraint; or (b) the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process.
Debt bondage means the status or condition of a debtor arising from a pledge by the debtor of his or her personal services or of those of a person under his or her control as a security for debt, if the value of those services as reasonably assessed is not applied toward the liquidation of the debt or the length and nature of those services are not respectively limited and defined.
Coercion means (a) threats of serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; (b) any scheme, plan or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that failure to perform an act would result in serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; or, (c) the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process.
Commercial sex act means any sex act on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person.
Involuntary servitude includes a condition of servitude induced by means of (a) any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that, if the person did not enter into or continue in such condition, that person or another person would suffer serious harm or physical restraint; or (b) the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process.
Debt bondage means the status or condition of a debtor arising from a pledge by the debtor of his or her personal services or of those of a person under his or her control as a security for debt, if the value of those services as reasonably assessed is not applied toward the liquidation of the debt or the length and nature of those services are not respectively limited and defined.
Coercion means (a) threats of serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; (b) any scheme, plan or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that failure to perform an act would result in serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; or, (c) the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process.
Why don't victims escape?
- The mere threat of violence to the child or to the child’s family is enough to deter the powerless victim from escaping.
- Some children believe they have a romantic relationship with their traffickers.
- Sex trafficking is hard to recognize even by the victim as it occurs over an extended period of time and place and is sometimes condoned by the child’s family.
- A lack of familiarity with the manifestations of abuse in children causes unknowing witnesses to overlook cases of possible sexual exploitation.
- They have no one and nothing else to return home for. They feel that no one cares.
- Traumatized children are more likely to be reluctant to explore their surroundings when they have been conditioned to fear unfamiliar people, places, languages and cultures.
- Child victims feel damaged beyond redemption. Some may be suffering from mental disorders. Learned helplessness conditions the child to silently accept his or her fate.
- As children grow in the industry, their values become so distorted that they begin believing abuse and exploitation is part of their job or a normal part of life.
- The guilt and shame of one day having to face people they knew back home deters children from wanting to return to their place of origin.
- They have learned to endure their routine and are content to earn money in that manner.
Where does it happen?
The prime area for recruiting sex slaves has shifted rapidly from one zone of economic depression to another. In the 1970s, traffickers targeted girls from Southeast Asia “above all Thailand and Vietnam” as well as the Philippines. After ten years traffickers shifted their focus to African girls from Nigeria, Uganda, and Ghana flooded the international sex trade. In the mid-1980s and early 1990s, Latin American girls from Brazil, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Central America (especially El Salvador and Guatemala) became the favored pool.
Traffickers move opportunistically to prey on vulnerable populations. In the 1980s, the trafficking of girls out of eastern Europe hardly registered on the radar screen. Following the economic and political collapse of the Soviet Union, that situation changed dramatically. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that roughly a quarter of a million females were trafficked within Europe alone “from East to West” since 1991. Even within eastern Europe, the prime recruitment zones for trafficking shift rapidly to exploit opportunities. In 1992, the vast majority of trafficked victims came from Poland, Romania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. By the mid-1990s girls in those markets had been depleted, so traffickers started targeting Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Moldova. After the turn of the century, the prime recruitment zone shifted to central Asia “Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan” and Georgia.
Wherever the greatest profit can be extracted, there the traffickers move.
Traffickers move opportunistically to prey on vulnerable populations. In the 1980s, the trafficking of girls out of eastern Europe hardly registered on the radar screen. Following the economic and political collapse of the Soviet Union, that situation changed dramatically. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that roughly a quarter of a million females were trafficked within Europe alone “from East to West” since 1991. Even within eastern Europe, the prime recruitment zones for trafficking shift rapidly to exploit opportunities. In 1992, the vast majority of trafficked victims came from Poland, Romania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. By the mid-1990s girls in those markets had been depleted, so traffickers started targeting Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Moldova. After the turn of the century, the prime recruitment zone shifted to central Asia “Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan” and Georgia.
Wherever the greatest profit can be extracted, there the traffickers move.
