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TED Case Studies |
TRAFFICKING IN CHILDREN
FOR PROSTITUTION
IN THE
UNITED STATES
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General Information |
1.
The Issue
The
commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) is an elusive unlawful subculture
so surreptitious and alien that most people are unaware of its presence.
The victims represent an isolated sector of society, and their status
as easy prey usually goes unnoticed, unreported, unchanged.
Minors have been, are, and apparently will continue to be the most
sexually exploited class of citizens in the United States United States
Objectives
The objectives of this web case study are to further the collective discussion and constructive learning about the trafficking in children for the purpose of prostitution. A necessary condition for effectively preventing the phenomenon of sexually exploiting women and children for commercial purposes is acquiring better knowledge of the phenomenon.
Overview of the
Trafficking in Children for Prostitution in the
Girls and boys are trafficked
for the purpose of prostitution throughout the
Traffickers recruit victims according to demand, which often tends to target the children by their by age, appearance, race, the language they speak, or country of origin. [1] Since January 2001, at the Federal level, the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice has had nine cases involving the sexual exploitation of 53 children. Five of those cases involved 44 juvenile victims used in prostitution. The remaining four cases involved nine child victims who were sexually assaulted by the defendant or sexually exploited in bars. [2]
Inside
the
Victims
of sexual trafficking are deprived of their freedoms.
Few have access to phones. Prevented
from communicating with family members and isolated from making friends, they
may not even be aware that they are being trafficked illegally.
Furthermore, economic dependency, threats, and psychological and physical
abuse make victims fear police intervention.
Deportation is also a very common threat made by traffickers.
As many of the international women do not have legal status in the
“In
the
2. Description
DEFINITIONS:
Child
“Anyone below the age of 18 years unless, under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier.”[6]
Coercion
Threats
of serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; (B) Any scheme,
plan or pattern intended to 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. [7]
Commercial Sex Act
“Any
sex act on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any
person.”[8]
Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC)
The
commercial sexual exploitation of children consists of the businesses of
prostitution, pornography and trafficking for sexual purposes.
The
commercial sexual exploitation of children is a fundamental violation of
children’s rights. It comprises sexual abuse by the adult and
remuneration in cash or kind to the child or a third person or persons. The
child is treated as a sexual object and as a commercial
object. The commercial sexual exploitation of children constitutes a form of
coercion and violence against children, and amounts to forced labor and a
contemporary form of slavery.[9]
Forms of Commercial Sexual
Exploitation
There are three primary and interrelated forms of commercial sexual exploitation that comprise the sex trade: prostitution, pornography, and trafficking for sexual purposes. Frequently children in the sex trade participate in all three forms of business simultaneously.[10]
Child Prostitution:
“Child
prostitution is the act of engaging or offering the services of a child to
perform sexual acts for money or other consideration with that person or any
other person.”[11]
Pornography:
Child
pornography is any visual or audio material that uses children in a sexual
context.
Child
pornography consists of the visual depiction of a child engaged in explicit
sexual conduct, real or
simulated, or the lewd exhibition of the genitals intended for the sexual gratification of the user, and involves the
production, distribution and/or use of such material’[12]
The
purpose of audio pornography is similar. Because of easy and inexpensive access
through computer based information networks, child pornography has increased in
recent years and appropriate legislative remedies have become increasingly
difficult.[13]
Sexual Trafficking:
"A pernicious form of slavery; it is the purchase of a body for sexual gratification and/or financial gain.”[14]
“Sexual trafficking is the profitable business of transporting children for commercial sexual purposes. It can be across borders or within countries, across State lines, from city to city, or from rural to urban center.”[15]
Debt Bondage
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 hi 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.[16]
Involuntary Servitude
Includes a condition of servitude induced by means of 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 would suffer serious harm or physical restraint; or the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process.[17]
Severe Forms of Trafficking in Persons
Sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age; or The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.[18]
State Each of the several states of the
Task Force “The Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking established under section 105.”[20]
Trafficking in Persons
Trafficking in persons shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.[21]
Trafficking and
“The
sale of children is the transfer of a child from one party to another for
whatever purpose in exchange for financial or other reward compensation.”
Child
prostitution, sale and trafficking, and child pornography are closely
linked. Trafficking for sexual purposes
implies prostitution as a consequence and prostitution is frequently combined
with the production of pictures, videos and other forms of sexually explicit
visual materials involving children.[22]
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Rosa’s Story Later that week, men drove her to a place
at the edge of the Mexican border. There, they met up with several other men
and more young women and children who had been recruited from other small
towns in Only then was For the next 6 months The traffickers circulated Rosa and the
other young girls between a series of trailer brothels in 16 people were indicted and a number were prosecuted and convicted in April 1998. This was the first successful sex trafficking case prosecuted by the United States Department of Justice. [23]
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3. Related Cases
For more information on case studies
that are significantly correlated to the child sex industry:
4. Author and Date:
Ashleigh
Kramer-Walthall, May, 2003
II. Legal Clusters
5. Discourse and
Status: Disagreement and Complete
As a result of
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of
2000 (TVPA) was enacted to combat trafficking to ensure the just and effective
punishment of traffickers and to protect victims. The legislation concentrates on cooperation
between government agencies in dealing with trafficking cases. The Act also emphasizes prevention, protection,
and assistance for victims, awareness programs, and provisions for prosecution
and sentencing of violators. These
stipulations have a significant impact on training programs and services available
to victims of trafficking, which are necessary proponents for the success
of the victims’ rehabilitation process. The federal government addresses issues of trafficking
in persons more in depth than at the state or local level because occurrences
and implications of human trafficking in the
6. Forum and Scope: The
7. Decision Breadth: The
8. Legal Standing: Law
III. Geographic Clusters
9. Geographic Locations
a. Geographic Domain:
b. Geographic Site: The
c. Geographic Impact: The
In recent years, girls have been
trafficked into the
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Major U.S. Region |
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Cities Typically Included in the Trafficking Circuit |
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North |
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Central and Mid-Western |
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Southern and South |
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Honolulu, Las Vegas, Miami, New Orleans, Portland, Reno, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle; extends into Canada as well: Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver |
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North |
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Source: Estes, Richard J. and Neil Alan Weiner. 2001. The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the U.S., Canada and Mexico (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work).
10. Sub-National
Factors: No
11. Type of Habitat: Temperate & Dry
IV. Trade Clusters
12. Type of Measure: Import & Export Ban
13. Direct v. Indirect
Impacts: Direct Impact
14. Relation of Trade
Measure to Environmental Impact
a. Directly Related to Product: Yes, Children
b. Indirectly Related to
Product: No
c. Not Related to Product: No
d. Related to Process: Yes.
In certain cases, the relationship
between the role of NGOs and legislation to combat sex trafficking is to some
extent counter-intuitive. The TVPA is supposed to increase coordination between
law enforcement and NGOs. However, Hae Jung Cho, the project director of the
Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST) in Los Angeles, testified
in the United States Senate that since the TVPA has been implemented, the
number of referrals for social services to her organization from law
enforcement agencies has decreased.[25] In the same
period, the number of referrals made by concerned members of the community on
behalf of the victims of sex trafficking has increased. Ms. Cho considers this
to be a sign of growing awareness of the problem of sex trafficking.[26]
One measure of the effectiveness of anti-trafficking efforts is the number of
cases that are investigated. Since the establishment of the toll-free hotline
to report trafficking, the number of trafficking under investigation has
tripled. [27] At the same time, investigations have slowed. Slower
investigations are not being resolved as quickly. A possible explanation is
that resources are being diverted to the war on terrorism just as sex
trafficking cases are beginning to come to light in greater numbers. [28] The
director of the Washington-based group the Initiative Against
Trafficking in Persons, Ann Jordan, stated before a Senate Subcommittee in
March 2002 that training of INS and FBI agents is not occurring rapidly enough
and that many attorneys still do not understand the legal difference between
human trafficking and smuggling. [29]
In the same hearing, Ms. Cho also blamed a lack of training for the
inconsistency and inefficiency of law enforcement agencies. She testified that
while local agents are often dedicated to fighting sex trafficking, law
enforcement governance falters in the middle levels of command. As a result,
agents who deal with trafficking victims do not always receive training as it
is legislated at the federal level. [30] Through CAST, Ms. Cho had worked with
victims who experienced a wide range of difficulties with the justice system.
Some victims wanted to testify against traffickers but were never contacted by
prosecutors, others were housed in homeless shelters for months while awaiting
trials, and some were victims whose cases progressed so slowly that there was
no chance of obtaining relevant evidence. [31] Cho also raised the issue of INS
work permits, which were sometimes not issued to victims until months after
their escape form forced labor. Without work permits, these women risk repeated
victimization because they can only work in the underground economy. [32]
At the same time that it is disquieting to find that law enforcement agents who
are dedicated to stopping human trafficking are not receiving proper training,
it is more disturbing to consider agents who are still unaware or apathetic to
the problem of sex trafficking. There are institutional biases, particularly in
the INS, which must be overcome to properly address sex trafficking. In 1998,
an anti-trafficking conference attended by Ukranian government officials, NGO
representatives, law enforcement officers and media was held in
15. Trade Product
Identification: Children
16. Economic Data
The global trade in women and children
is estimated to earn traffickers $7 billion per year. It is the third leading
money earner for organized-crime networks following the trade in drugs and
arms.
17. Impact of Trade
Restriction:
Medium. In respect to Public Law 106-386, Division A—Trafficking Victims
Protection Act of 2000, the overall legislation is very well thought out,
and once fully implemented and enforced, shows great potential for effecting
the well-being and security of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of
women and children.
There are, however, two comments that I would like to make in regard Sec.
102. Purposes and Findings, (21) & (22).
(21) "Trafficking of persons is an evil requiring concerted and vigorous
action by countries of origin, transit or destination, and by international
organizations." “Evil” is a moral judgment that discredits
the legislation. Not only does it violate the separation of church and state,
the statement is misleading because it implies that there are countries that
are entirely immune to the problems of severe forms of trafficking.
(22) "One of the founding documents of the United States, the Declaration
of Independence, recognizes the inherent dignity and worth of all people.
It states that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable rights. The right to be free from slavery
and involuntary servitude is among those unalienable rights. Acknowledging
this fact, the United States outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude in
1865, recognizing them as evil institutions that must be abolished. Current
practices of sexual slavery and trafficking of women and children are similarly
abhorrent to the principles upon which the United States was founded."
This statement is weak. Some believe that the “founding documents” were in fact kindling for the current explosion of sex trafficking. The Declaration of Independence fails to recognize half of the world’s population in the majority of its content. Furthermore, it excludes everyone under the age of 18 years from the right to choose governmental representation. Many people agree with the latter exclusion, claiming that children don’t understand politics or the government. Children do however understand when their body is being abused and no elected government official, who is supposed to be chairing or coordinating the implementation of the Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking, is enforcing the legislation that could help them, because the “elected” government officials are too busy trying to take over the world. Some view the lack of specific inclusion of both women and children in the “founding documents” to access of rights in this country, as having only encouraged the problem by implicating that women and children are of less importance than men.
Sec. 104. Annual Country Reports On Human Rights Practices
The prevention methods taken by the Department of State (DOS) include the
annual publishing of the Trafficking in Persons Report. The Trafficking in
Persons (TIP) Report is tool to evaluate and rank the countries accountable
for their lack of action against the trade of women and children that goes
on within their borders. According to Donna Hughes, a professor of Women’s
Studies at the University of Rhode Island,
"The 2002 TIP Report has been widely criticized. In fact, I have not
herd one word of praise. It has been called ‘an insult to women and
children,’ ‘[a] grave disappointment,’ ‘a whitewash,’
and ‘a deplorable shirking of responsibility.’ As a tool to combat
trafficking it ‘falls short,’ ‘serves to strengthen the
complacency of the worst offending countries,’ and fails so miserably
that it ‘undermines the usefulness of the new law.’" [37]
Donna M. Hughes considers the overwhelming criticism to be the result of two
major shortcomings in the Report. Hughes declares,
"First, the efforts to combat trafficking that a country had to make
were pathetically low. Ambassador Ely-Raphel has said that prosecutions of
traffickers was the factor weighed the heaviest in determining tier placement,
yet, there are countries in Tier 2 and even Tier 1, that have imprisoned few,
if any, traffickers. Even in countries where there are more convictions, there
is little evidence that they have been sufficient to stem the tide of trafficking
of thousands of victims.
Second, the TIP Report fails because of a lack of comprehension of demand
factors that create trafficking for the sex trade. Ambassador Ely-Raphel has
told audiences at briefings that the evaluation team did not consider prostitution
or the demand for trafficking victims in their evaluation of countries’
efforts to prevent and combat trafficking…To not understand the relationship
between prostitution and trafficking is like not understanding the relationship
between slavery in the old South and the kidnapping of victims in Africa and
the transatlantic shipment of them to our shores.
Ambassador Ely-Raphel has said that the connection between legalized prostitution
in countries like the Netherlands, Germany and Australia and the trafficking
of women and children for the sex trade is only ‘anecdotal.’ I
believe that view is either extremely naïve or a gross lack of political
will to face-up to what the trafficking of women and children for the sex
trade is all about." [38]
As of February 2002, the Department of Justice reports 91 trafficking cases
pending, 20% more than the same time the previous year. Since the creation
of the Trafficking in Persons and Worker Exploitation Task Force toll-free
complaint line in February of 2000, this represents a 300% increase. To facilitate
the growing caseload, the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division recently
received another $770,000 to hire seven additional prosecutors and five more
support staff. [39] In February, the Department of Justice reported that they
would be holding “comprehensive anti-trafficking in persons training”
for federal prosecutors in October of 2002.[40]
Prosecution in sex trafficking cases is unusually difficult. Currently, a
prosecutor must prove coercion and threats. Psychological abuse and financial
dependency are not enough to convict a trafficker of holding persons in involuntary
servitude. In other words, exploitation is not a crime unless it involves
direct examples of intimidation. [41] A conflicting report states that the
TVPA successfully outlaws the mean intimidation and coercion traffickers employ,
including: psychological manipulation, deception, and document seizure. [42]
Other aspects regarding security include the fact that the public heavily
relies on law enforcement officers to identify these women and children who
become involved in commercial sexual exploitation. Additionally, the public
depends on law enforcement to remove them and participate in providing evidence
for the prosecution of their exploiters. Barnitz explains,
"These officers hold a position of public trust. Unfortunately, officers
are not always encouraged to be sensitive to the plight of prostituted children.
Many children who are prostituted, especially those who have been trafficked
from their home countries, are afraid to go to the police for help…There
are cases of police corruption where children have reported being physically
and sexually abused by officers themselves. In some places law enforcement
officials excuse the commercial sexual exploitation of women and children
as a necessity of local peacekeeping." [43]
In the live, video-taped interview conducted at Youth Advocate Program International
with Laura Barnitz, the Interim director of YAP-International, she felt that
“the TVPA has helped set a standard for the engagement of law enforcement
and prosecutors.” [44] While the safety of these women and children
is considerably dependent upon law enforcement and prosecution, the public’s
visibility of issues concerned with the trafficking in persons is the key
to stopping the violence, harm, and human rights violations.
18. Industry Sector: Entertainment
19. Exporters and Importers:
"The demand is the driving force behind trafficking. The trafficking
process begins when men and pimps create the demand for women and children
to be used for prostitution. Where the demand for prostitution is high, insufficient
numbers of local women and girls can be recruited. In each locale, women and
girls with certain physical attributes are in demand. The Pimps place orders
with traffickers for the numbers of women and girls they need." [45]
V. Environment
Clusters
20. Environmental Problem
Type:
The sexual exploitation of children through
prostitution is a perilous form of commercialized violence against the world’s
most vulnerable citizens. Child-sexual exploitation in the
"The physical health consequences include: injury (bruises, broken bones,
black eyes, concussions…The sex of prostitution is physically harmful
to women in prostitution. STDs (including HIV/AIDS, Chlamydia, gonorrhea,
herpes, human papilloma virus, and syphilis) are alarmingly high…General
gynecological problems, but in particular chronic pelvic pain and pelvic inflammatory
disease (PID), plague women in prostitution…Another physical effect
of prostitution is unwanted pregnancy and miscarriage…Other health effects
include irritable bowel syndrome, as well as partial and permanent disability.
The emotional health implications of prostitution involve severe trauma, stress,
depression, anxiety, self-medication through alcohol and drug abuse; and eating
disorders. More succinctly, women in prostitution suffer the same broken bones,
concussions, STDs, chronic pelvic pain, and extreme stress and trauma that
women who have been battered, raped and sexually, abused endure. In fact the
case may be made that women in prostitution – because they are subject
to being battered, raped and sexually abused all at the same time over an
extensive period of time – suffer these health consequences more intensively
and consistently." [46]
"the world wide fear of AIDS appears to be one of the factors explaining
why adults are sexually exploiting children as well as one of the consequences.
Adults in many parts of the world are seeking younger and younger commercial
sex partners in the belief that this practice will protect them from exposure
to AIDS. People reason that a young prostitute is less likely to be infected
with disease than an older prostitute.
Sexually active children actually are at greater risk of being infected by
STDs and the HIV virus than a mature adult. Children are more vulnerable because
their body tissues are more easily damaged—the thin tissues around a
boy’s anus and rectum and a girl’s vagina are easily ruptured.
It should not be overlooked that many children in the sex trade are drug users,
another risk factor for HIV and hepatitis…The immediate danger posed
by prostitution is the physical, mental and emotional violence of pimps and
madams. Outreach programs in the United States have reported prostituted children
who have been, raped, sodomized, beaten, emotionally abused, tortured and
killed by the adults that control them or by people who use them…These
children experience stigmatization, betrayal and powerlessness in combination
with adults’ strategic measures to enforce silence about the abuse."
[47]
The experience of shame, betrayal and powerlessness impact the behaviors of
these children, ultimately hindering the victim’s escape and reintegration.
As a result of lacking trust, inability to speak the language, and/or bearing
feelings of powerlessness and shame, children who have been trafficked for
prostitution are often unable to communicate their experiences to adults.
The development of these women and children is dependent upon the awakening
of the public.
21. Name, Type, and
Diversity of Species
Human Beings
22. Resource Impact
and Effect:
23. Urgency and Lifetime:
High.
In the
24. Substitutes:
VI. Other Factors
25. Culture:
26. Trans-Boundary Issues:
27. Rights:
28. Relevant Literature
1/2001