Characteristics Of Survivors Of Juvenile Sex Trafficking : Implications For Treatment And Intervention Initiatives Essay

Children within the United States who are being trafficked are part of what is called, domestic minor sex trafficking. These adolescents are citizens who have been forced, coerced, or misled to become a part of the commercial sex industry. Some of the most common ways to force minors into trafficking is through exotic dancing also known as stripping, brothels, porn, escorting, and massage services just to name a few (Minor Domestic Sex Trafficking). It is disturbing to know that there are children who are going through this. In order to create prevention and intervention programs for trafficking, it is important to understand what a sex trafficker is and the strategies they use to recruit children.

“ She was just seventeen when she got into prostitution- child trafficking- but she didn’t know she was a victim at the time. She had been beaten and raped by her father since she was twelve years old.” (Zhai Yun, 1.) Young victims of youth sex trafficking are not just kidnapped by unknown people into this. It can be by their father, mother, brother, or sister. It can be forced upon them by people who have come into their life claiming they can make it better. When in reality it just makes it worse. They have no idea what they are getting into and what is going to happen to them. They are fed with lies and false pretentions of what is going to happen. They are caught in a trap that is hard to get out of. Often they are to scared to try to run or be rescued. They just do what they are told so that they live or so their loved ones live.

“43% of victims are used for forced commercial sexual exploitation, of whom 98% are women and girls” (UNGIFT). Women and girls are ensnared in sex trafficking in a variety of ways. Some are lured in with offers of real and legal work in restaurants, massage parlors, or anything else. Others are promised marriage, education and a better life. Still others are sold into trafficking by boyfriends, friends, neighbors or even parents (SOROPTMIST). Many of the girls and women are also forced into pornography. With all of the types of sexual exploitation comes abuse. Sexual, physical, and emotional are all types of abuse put onto females in human trafficking. Many people traffic others in hopes of getting money, work done, or just pure pleasure.

Sex Trafficking has been a key component in “ degradation of human and women's rights” because they believe that these people are only good for sex (Deshpande Para 1). Often victims who come back, if they ever can, have a hard time adjusting back to normal life. These girls have trust issues towards men, and sometimes even women. They also could have numerous health problems ranging from STD’s to unplanned pregnancy or even worse “ broken bones, concussions, bruises and burns” can all be found on these victims of sexual assault. These girls could also have mental issues, such as anxiety toward older men and women, fear of going outside ever again and social issues. The saddest thing about this is not only are these victims going through a horrible amount of sexual abuse, they also have been ripped away from what they know and may love. Some people believe that women and some men are just objects and they are the ones that are often pimps in the sex trafficking, but this is a completely skewed way of thinking of people.

Human trafficking is one of the largest growing criminal activities. The commercial sexual exploitation of children, also known as CSEC, is often perceived as a hidden atrocity that occurs in an international setting. However, this manifestation of sexual abuse has increased and has become a recognized health issue in the United States. You may hear this problem to be known as domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST). Domestic minor sex trafficking is defined as the “recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act” where the person is a citizen younger than the age of 18 years by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. This includes sexual acts like survival sex, prostitution, and stripping, where the child is the victim of criminal exploitation in exchange for remuneration in the form of money, food, shelter, or other valued entity. Approximately twenty-eight percent of US minors living on the streets are reported to exchanging sex for drugs or money. The estimation so far is that 150,000 to 300,000 children are falling at risk of being victimized each year, and the average age at which they are recruited is twelve to fourteen years of age. By raising awareness we are avoiding children suffering from long-term health consequences such as severe sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. By raising awareness a family may not lose their little boy or girl to human trafficking. Consider how many young women have been kidnapped, drugged, tricked or even sold by

Rehabilitation for victims is available such as Freedom Place and Dream Center. Joy Friedman, a survivor of 27 years of sex trafficking in the United States, now serves as women’s program manager at Breaking Free, a Minnesota nonprofit group that helps women and children escape that world. On average, sex trafficking victims are between 12 and 14. It is estimated that between 100,000 and 300,000 U.S. children are sex slaves. Providing care for these victims is very important, their self-esteem is completely demolished and don’t know where to begin to fix themselves.

Human trafficking has received increasing global attention over the past decade. Trafficking of women and girls for forced sex work and, to a lesser extent, domestic servitude, were the sole focus of advocacy and assistance. There is recognition in today’s society that women, children, and men are trafficked into many different forms of labour, and for sexual exploitation. In her article, “Understanding and Addressing Violence Against Women”, Cathy Zimmerman and Heidi Stockl focus on the commonality of human trafficking and how evident it is in everyday life. They bring in the health effects and possible solutions to human trafficking to help validate their opinion and argument. In the solutions they offer, Zimmerman and Stockl shine a light on policy-makers/decision-makers, health-care providers, and researchers/funders and what each of these groups of people can do to help combat the issue of human trafficking. In a quote from their article, Stockl and Zimmerman say: “Health care providers and organizations involved with trafficked persons should increase their capacity to identify and refer people in trafficking situations and provide sensitive and safe services to people post-trafficking”. This quote shows how Zimmerman and Stockl believe human trafficking should be combated by caring and talking to those affected by the issue but how they also believe awareness should be made about human trafficking so as to allow people surrounding the issue to identify and help victims of this issue. Zimmerman and Stockl’s view on the ways human trafficking should be combatted relate to those of Soroptimist due to the fact that the two groups of people are focused mainly on helping women and girls who have been trafficked and trying to get them to a better life after getting out of the trafficking situation. Both groups focus on helping men as well, providing options to help them such as raising money and awareness, and getting educated on being able to identify victims of human trafficking.

This essay also focuses on the issues of child – sex trafficking. The study claimed that trafficking women especially children for sexual slavery is one the fastest growing common criminal and a social issue in the world. The study states that in the united states, almost 6 in 10 identified trafficking survivors were trafficked for sexual abuse. Out of that figure, 98% of the victims are female and 70% of it are children. This because the number of victims of sex trafficking is children, this may go as young as the age of eight. This is because children are easy targets when

This journal article examines the issue of minor sex trafficking in the U.S and provides the reader with the results of the research that was conducted on the matter at hand. A data analysis consisting of 115 minor sex trafficking was thoroughly examined and studied. The information surrounding these cases was collected using two specific methods. One method included the reviewing of press releases of human trafficking cases

In reality, not everyone has a pleasant family life. Unfortunately, some children are forced to grow up with drug-addicted parents who do not care if their child has clothes on their backs and a roof over their heads. More and more kids have to grow up with emotional vulnerability and “homelessness.” The children having to grow up with this kind of home life have not had the pampering of their mothers or the guidance of their fathers; this may cause them to be more likely to veer off on the wrong road or the trafficking business. Troubled offspring often look for the wrong kind of help. Approximately fifty-five per cent of children that become trafficked are runaways. The trafficking business is not bias to a particular race, ethnic, or socioeconomic group, children from poor or uncaring families appear to be at a high risk for trafficking (Corbett). There are also the chances of an unemployed teenager just looking for perceived job opportunities or what they think is “easy” money.

Many youths who run away from home have suffered a trauma of sexual, physical and emotional abuse. Most homeless youth die by drug overdoses and more than 50% have mental health issues. The girls who have suffered the sexual abuse do not only come from their family but can come from their boyfriend who makes her sell herself for sex. It was reported by Covalent house that the youth girls who are traded into the sex industry, are terrified to leave the relationship because the romance soon turns to violence. Covalent House also reported that 42% of youth girls were trafficked into the sex trade before they had turned 18. The youths are easy targets for predators since they know that the youth need food, shelter and clothing. It also reported

Chapter seven is principally about providing helpful suggestion that can further enhance encouraging efforts to combat sex trafficking. The chapter starts off by implicating the use of the research findings that were found to be effective with sex trafficking victims. These proposals are not meant to be perceived as the remedy to aiding sex trafficking, but to cultivate additional research on these methods. These methods include survivor-informed programming, survivor defined practices, trauma-informed practices, and sex-trafficking-specific services. Further, the chapter begins to talk about the services that are needed for labor trafficking victims. Translating agencies, labor-specific services, and housing are examples of services that labor

As mentioned before human trafficking has been an issue in the United States for many years; but where do we start when it comes down to, “why this problem isn’t resolved or human trafficking rates are not lowered?” Well, we should look at the similarities of the adolescent females who are targeted which is looking at the risk factors of these females. After reading the article titled, Human Sex Trafficking in America: What counselors Need to Know, there were three main areas where risk factors were mentioned. Those three areas were: the environment, the socioeconomic background, and the education of the females and their parents. Before discussing the risk factors in an environment, I want to point out, there are some females who chose

Traffickers manipulate adolescents and youth into the sex trafficking through targeting their emotional vulnerabilities. To begin, traffickers use threats, intimidation and violence to enforce or entice adolescents into trafficking. One adolescent, a runaway from Baltimore County, Maryland, is gang raped by a group of men associated with the trafficker, who thereafter executes a “rescue” (Walker-Rodriguez & Hill, 2011) Following the “rescue”, the trafficker imposes she recompense him by working for him as one of his prostitutes (Walker-Rodriguez & Hill, 2011). Unfortunately, in many cases youth are generally beaten up until they yield to the trafficker’s orders (Walker-Rodriguez & Hill, 2011).

Human trafficking is a worldwide problem and can happen anywhere, to anyone, and at any time. Human trafficking is known as “modern day slavery”. In this world, there are two types of human trafficking: labor trafficking and sex trafficking. Because human traffickers mostly target teenagers and young children, friends and families are terrified to think that their loved ones can be taken at any moment. It is devastating to find out if a loved one has been, or is, a victim of human trafficking. The friends and families of the rescued victim(s) can be greatly impacted. The situation can negatively affect a victim’s relationship with family members and/or friends, due to the trauma the victim had/has obtained, the victim(s) must be rehabilitated to live a normal life, and the experience allows the families gain more knowledge on the signs of human trafficking.