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What is Human Sex Trafficking?

By definition, human sex trafficking requires 3 individual people. The person doing the trafficking, the person being trafficked and the person who is buying. California State and Federal law states it this way:

“the recruitment, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act, in which the 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.”  (22 U.S.C. § 7102(11)(A)).

Let’s focus on the three elements of sex trafficking, force, fraud, or coercion.

FORCE: Approximately 25% of survivors are forced into sex trafficking initially. However, this element usually enters into a case of sex trafficking after the fact. The truth of the matter is that a person experiencing human sex trafficking has no choice and cannot leave their trafficker. Force is equated with physical violence or threats of physical violence, rape, threats to family among other things. Local and international gangs have figured out that there is money to be made by selling people for sex. According to the Department of Homeland Security, 70% of victims of sex trafficking contacted by law enforcement are trafficked through gangs and 66% of those are minors. Gangs are incredibly violent in their approach to dealing with people in general. This is why “gang affiliation” is considered when a criminal is being sentenced through the justice system.

FRAUD: Olive has yet to encounter a survivor of sex trafficking that has not experienced some sort of fraud. Fraud can consist of a number of things. One common manipulation is, “let me hold your documents so they don’t get lost.” The people we come into contact with often don’t have their own documentation because they’ve been held by their trafficker. Another common fraud consists of promises made and not kept. Promises of “the good life” (i.e. a job, house, marriage, etc.) are often used to defraud someone into the crime of sex trafficking.

COERCION: Coercion is the most common and complex way that a person is pulled into human sex trafficking. Relationships of many types are the means by which traffickers gain control over their victims. We have had women who have been trafficked by brothers, mothers, fathers, boyfriends, husbands, neighbors, and doctors. Generational sex trafficking is a very real issue. We are finding more and more survivors whose mother was involved in prostitution and so the daughter is expected to perform as well. We’ve also had survivors who have had fathers who are pimps and so they trafficked their children. The “boyfriend pimp” is the most common. Boyfriends get their girlfriend to love and trust them and before they know it, they are out on the internet selling their bodies like a commodity. This manipulation can go on for years and is incredibly difficult for the survivor to break free from. While there are no physical chains, the mental and emotional chains are very real. Once a person who’s being trafficked wants to break free, that’s when the force comes into play and threats or actual physical violence begins. This power and control cycle is used in multiple cases we’ve encountered.

The reality of this is, it is incredibly violent. Physical abuse, rape, and mental manipulation are always key tactics of traffickers. Buyers are also guilty of abusing them as well. He/she’s a commodity that is purchased. Since he’s paying for it, he can do whatever he wants, right? People working in the commercial sex industry are 400 times more likely to be murdered at “work” that in any other job according to studies done by Exodus Cry.

Human sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation is this country’s great stain. Freedom is the cry of the heart from every person in this nation. However, every day, thousands of people are trapped in the surreal world of being sold at a price that nobody should be forced to pay. It’s incredible that such things are happening in the United States of America. I thought we abolished slavery a long time ago, but I guess we just made it invisible.

Written by: April Molina, Director, Case Manager, Victim Advocate

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