Posted on 02/10/2006 7:41:45 AM PST by Sopater
International Sex Trafficking Is a Well-Known Problem, But It Happens Here as Well Feb. 9, 2006 - Fifteen-year-old "Debbie" is the middle child in a close-knit Air Force family from suburban Phoenix, and a straight-A student -- the last person most of us would expect to be forced into the seamy world of sex trafficking.
But Debbie, which is not her real name, is one of thousands of young American girls who authorities say have been abducted or lured from their normal lives and made into sex slaves. While many Americans have heard of human trafficking in other parts of the world -- Thailand, Cambodia, Latin America and eastern Europe, for example -- few people know it happens here in the United States.
The FBI estimates that well over 100,000 children and young women are trafficked in America today. They range in age from 9 to 19, with the average age being 11.
And many victims are no longer just runaways, or kids who've been abandoned. Many of them are from what would be considered "good" families, who are lured or coerced by clever predators, say experts. "These predators are particularly adept at reading children, at reading kids, and knowing what their vulnerabilities are," said FBI Deputy Assistant Director, Chip Burrus, who started the Lost Innocence project, which specializes in child- and teen-sex trafficking.
And, he said, these predators are going where the kids are.
"What you can see, time and time again, is that the predators will adapt their means to whatever the young people are doing -- whether it's malls, whether it's ski slopes, whether it's beaches," Burrus said. "Predators ... are going to do everything in their power to try to convince young girls, young boys, to come with them and enter this particular lifestyle."
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Looking at all the numbers the 100,000 is quite believeable. Every report out there references the difficulty in obtaining accurate statistics because of the very nature of this act.
Sorry but I give ABC the benefit of the doubt in this case because it hasn't been definitively shown they lied or exaggerated, especially on purpose.
Frankly, I find the number quite silly to be arguing over. It's a problem that's growing and affecting all parts of this country.
my thoughts exactly!
You are making this up out of whole cloth.
Go read the origin of this post. It refers to 100,000 women and children trafficked in this country. No where does it say "sexual trafficked" in relation to that number. Moreover, no where does it infer the 100,000 number refers to "underage prostitutes."
You've made that inference and then go on to try and defeat the inference you've made up out of whole cloth.
That is because the media is scaring people into believing the United States has become dangerous since President Bush has come into office. I find the numbers impossible. I mean 100,000 9-19 and the average is 11. How can they even say that? Plus this has been going on forever and only now is getting the attention. It is like everything else in the world, you tell your kids the dangers that lurk around and get them up to speed on signs, preditors etc. It seems to me like these are mostly runaways as has always been the case. OK maybe a few are girls who want the case as in the Phoenix case. Let's not scare ourselves silly here because the media wants us to. Plus we have 260 million people here in America and were talking 100,000 odds are your and my kids are safe (at least from this).
You of course are right. I agree the problem is growing. And I lost focus on that. I applaud that the Bush administration is taking the problem both here and overseas seriously. I had used the term sex trafficking because that was the emphasis of the report. But I would not limit that to mean just prostitution. For instance I would include pornography in that definition.
It also needs to be emphasised that a lot of money is being made from these children and women. And big money always attracts organized crime. These people not only endanger the victims but the communities they operate in.
We are naive if we think prostitution, participation in pornography and the like are always victimless crimes.
And I apologize for losing the point. I think 300,000 at risk is even more chilling than 100,000 estimated. Because if we know there is a population at risk so do the bad guys and they are targeting them all the time.
Go read the origin of this post. It refers to 100,000 women and children trafficked in this country. No where does it say "sexual trafficked" in relation to that number. Moreover, no where does it infer the 100,000 number refers to "underage prostitutes."
In the context of the story, Im sticking with my interpretation that its sex trafficking. The articles headline is Teen Girls Tell Their Stories of Sex Trafficking and Exploitation in U.S. It goes on to say International Sex Trafficking Is a Well-Known Problem, But It Happens Here as Well and The FBI estimates that well over 100,000 children and young women are trafficked in America today. They range in age from 9 to 19, with the average age being 11. In the context, trafficked in the last sentence can only mean sex trafficked. Sex trafficking is defined as follows: The term sex trafficking' means the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act. (Source: http://www.bayswan.org/traffick/deftraffickUS.html)
The 100,000 figure includes both children and non-children, as it ranges from 9 to 19, and those who have attained the age of 18 are no longer children (at least under the law). However, the average age of 11 implies that there can be relatively few in that number as old as 18 or 19 (otherwise the average would be higher). (Mathematically, at least 78,000 of the 100,000 must be underage (i.e., less than 18) for the range to be 9-19 and the average equal to 11, but realistically a lot more.)
Solson would include pornography in addition to prostitution in the term sex trafficking. However, there can be no pornography without customers either, and it takes many more customers to support a pornographic actress than to support a prostitute. So where are all those customers? I doubt that they exist in anything like the required numbers.
Several people on this thread (e.g., lastchance) have said the problem of sex trafficking is growing. It may or may not be; its impossible to tell without accurate time-series data, which are in very short supply (as demonstrated by the subject article of this thread). No ones personal experience of such a rare phenomenon permits a valid statement about whether it is widespread or growing.
My main point remains: stories in the press based on statistics are often dead wrong, and no careful reader can afford to drop his/her defense of skepticism.
BFLR
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