The prevalence of sex trafficking

 Sex trafficking is the dominant form of human trafficking internationally

 2/3 of cases reported to the national human trafficking hotline are sex trafficking cases
 Kristoff and WuDunn (2010) estimate that approx. 3 million women and girls around the
world are sex trafficked victims
 Uptick in sex trafficking due to globalization, AIDS awareness ---

Stages of sex trafficking

1. Recruitment
2. Trafficking experience
3. Identification
4. Recovery and reintegration

Recruitment:
Step 1- identify vulnerable individuals
The trafficker acts as a boyfriend and/or offers the victim employment

Trafficking experience:
Trafficking anywhere from one day to over a year
Dismal working conditions and no autonomy for victims
Victims are often isolated from others
Violence is often a part of the trafficking experience and used as a way for traffickers to
maintain control

Identification:
Identification does not occur for every victim, and when it does it varies
Misidentification, shame, fear of deportation, facing repercussions for actions, corruption,
general mistrust of the justice system

Recovery and reintegration:

Zimmerman et al. (2008) studied 198 women receiving assistance post trafficking
-physical symptoms- headaches dizzy spells, back pain, gynecological symptoms
-PSTD, depression, anxiety, hostility
Victims typically lack money or other forms of security to prevent them from being re-trafficked
Victims might return home to unsupportive families
To help- service providers could provide street outreach, focus on the victim's situation and
circumstances, and individualized treatment, trauma- inforced treatment

Polaris report: US citizens

70% of victims were adults, 95% were females
Survivors cited unemployment, unpaid debts, desperation to provide for their children,
homelessness, substance abuse, and lack of emotional support as fzctors that contrivuted to to
their exploitation
Reports of various methods of gaining control among traffickers
***Hotels/ motels are the most common venue
Recruitment methods
1. Romantic relationship (over half)
2. Job Offering
3. Kidnapping
4. Acting as benefactor
5. Related

Many survivors reported having interacted with someone who could have provided assistance
during their experience

Child Trafficking
US
 TVPA emphasizes that force, fraud, or coercion are not required to charge an offender
with human trafficking when the victims are under 18

International law
 Like TVPA, UN protocols set a lower threshold for identifying human trafficking of
children

Prevalence of child sex trafficking

27.2% of sex trafficking cases reported to the hotline in 2016 involved child victims
UNODC: in 2016, girls were 26% of sex trafficking victims; boys were 3 % of victims
Varies by region-
In central America and the Caribean over half of the victims are girls

Child welfare involvement

1 in 7 children runaways in 2017 were vicim sof sex trafficking
Of those, 88% were in care of social services when ran away

Addiction
Both drug addictions of child and drug addiction of the parents increases a child’s vulnerability
to traffickers
-drug addicted parents may sell their children in exchange for money or drugs
-drug addicted parens may not supervise their children adequately ehile under the influence of
drugs
Question of weather the childs is