Sex Trafficking

As a young girl who used the computer often, my parents always told me to be careful of what I was posting online and never to accept or meet face to face with anyone I came across online. I never had the courage to do so and I could never understand why my parents stressed this so much. One night, I was on the phone with two of my friends who were having a sleepover that I wasn’t able to attend. We were sharing pictures online and writing statuses together. They mentioned how sad they were I couldn’t be there with them, so they jokingly said, “We’’re gonna come kidnap you and have you spend the night.” We all laughed and I decided it would be funny to make this my status on Facebook. I posted, “Genesis and Che are gonna come kidnap me xD.” I thought nothing of this at the moment. Later on, in the week, my mom calls me downstairs and she sounded fairly upset. I was trying to figure out what I had done that made her so upset with me. She brought up the status I posted on Facebook the other night and told me that it was very insensitive. I argued it was only a joke, but she wouldn’t give up on it. She continued to lecture me and I just couldn’t figure out why she was so mad at me for that. I just brushed it off as her overreacting. Looking back on this I wonder if maybe she was so upset with me because of the terrifying reality of sex trafficking.

Now I log onto Twitter and every so often I will see posts about missing girls and children in my home county of Sacramento and I can’t help but wonder if maybe they have become victims of sex trafficking. In October of 2013, Sacramento was named the second worst city in the country for sex trafficking. But the thing is, Sacramento, California isn’t the only place sex trafficking occurs. In fact, the United States isn’t the only place this is happening in. Globally, it is estimated that 25 million people are victims of trafficking each year. Asia has become one the worst places in the world for sex trafficking because of it’s huge population, growing urbanization, and poverty (Ferreira, 2018). The worst part is that it isn’t slowing down and many developing countries are having the same problem.

Sex trafficking is an issue that affects females more than males. But it is not to say men are not victims of sex trafficking. Traffickers tend to target women because they are seen as weaker and often easier to control and manipulate compared to men. The United Nation’s estimates that about 71% of women are victims of trafficking. Most of the victims are sexually exploited. Women find themselves trapped in debt and bondage or slavery-like conditions after being trafficked. The demand for female labor in the sex industry is one of the major reasons sex trafficking still continues. In the 2017 State Department Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, there were 14,894 prosecutions and 9,071 convictions in 2016 with about 63,000 victims.

It is difficult to determine exactly who will be a victim of sex trafficking but some factors such as low-self esteem, child maltreatment, and substance abuse may contribute to a female’s likeliness of becoming a victim.

Low self-esteem

Girls with lower self-esteem are often targeted by traffickers because these girls look to others for validation and affection. Girls with lower self-esteem don’t see value in themselves and thus cannot see their value to others. If a young girl doesn’t properly deal with her low self-esteem it might lead to her becoming dependent on another for her to see her as a whole. Traffickers are aware of this and often use the girl's low self-esteem to get her to do things that she might not be fully comfortable with. Traffickers will try and disguise this as affection and love and she might not see that he is using her for her own benefit. Abby (pseudonym) is a 16-year-old girl who has struggled with low self-esteem most of her life. She began dating a guy who would use her psychologically and emotionally. A year later she began being sexually exploited.

Child Maltreatment

This can include child neglect, sexual abuse, or physical abuse. This contributes to a girl’s likeliness of being trafficked because of the consequences of the maltreatment. It may lead girls to run away, to begin using drugs, or engaging in underage sex. Young girls who are sexually abused become more vulnerable to exploitation because they develop psychologically and emotionally in ways that don’t allow them to see sexual predation as a problem. Low self-esteem can also play a role in this since someone in their family did not respect them they may find it difficult to find respect and value in themselves.

Substance abuse

Those who have become addicted to drugs may also be at risk of being sex trafficked because they may begin to sell themselves to purchase a high. This can lead to a young woman being taken advantage of or abused by a man. Even those trying to get clean from drugs may be at risk.

External factors

In countries where it is difficult to pay for necessities, families may send off their daughters, sisters, or wives to work around the world. Globalization has created a need for cheap low-skilled labor in countries around the world. Many women and even children now have the option to migrate around the world for labor. In some cases, families have even sold their family members to sex trafficking in order to survive. Some families have no idea what will happen to their children in the process and some don’t want to know.

One short film OBLIVIOUS shows another way that sex trafficking can manifest and that it isn’t always forced.

Sex trafficking is happening all around us. There need to be more policies put in place to deal with the perpetrators of this crime. There need to be more interventions with young girls to teach them the warning signs of becoming victims of sex trafficking and teach them ways to combat it as much as they can. We need to allow girls to speak up for themselves and teach them what love is so others won’t trick them.

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