Awareness Archives - Page 35 of 36 - Shared Hope International

August 17, 2010 by Guest

Craig – The Most Successful Pimp in the World

by Linda Smith, President and Founder, Shared Hope International

Recent news reports have highlighted the role of Craigslist in facilitating commercial sex involving minors – domestic minor sex trafficking. However, as we advocate for the closure of Craigslist’s adult services web page, we must acknowledge that for the lucrative business of online classifieds for “adult services” will continue to exist as long as the fuel that keeps this seemingly endless problem alive exists – DEMAND.

Shared Hope International’s research has demonstrated the connection between increased access and increased demand for paid sexual services. More men and boys are receiving unsolicited Internet advertising for pornography – this explosion in the amount of pornography is causing an unprecedented demand for commercial sex with a female who looks young and healthy – this female is too often a girl. Thriving demand has led to the migration of criminal ventures to the anonymous world of the Internet.

Perusing the local street corner turns into a virtual experience
In the 1980’s, we decimated the pornography industry by focusing on its primary distribution system, the postal service. Today we are faced with a pornography industry a thousand times more pervasive as it utilizes the anonymity and accessibility of the Internet. The dissemination of pornography and access to commercial sex through computers brings the market directly into your home.

Today, anyone can go online to a number of classified services websites and purchase sex with a minor. Where ten years ago these prostituted youth – victims of sex trafficking – might have been forced to stand on a busy street corner, fulfilling a nightly quota for their controlling pimp, today they are more likely to be standing on the virtual street corner of Craigslist, out of sight from those not looking for them but easily accessible for the shopper in the mall of human product.

Craig, the most successful pimp in the world
Craigslist is the giant in the nascent online classifieds industry. Ever the opportunists, child predators have spotted the potential of Craigslist’s “adult services” page and the website has become a bustling marketplace for the buying and selling of our kids for sex.

A new slavery block has been created on Craigslist and many other online classified web pages, and the modern-day slave is an American child under 18 years of age being recruited and ensnared through manipulation and violence by predators who sell them for sex in their own towns and cities across the U.S.

Craigslist has been under attack for facilitating the trafficking of women and children for sex by not preventing it from occurring on their web pages. Sadly, this has made Craig America’s most successful pimp, bringing in an estimated $36 million in profit from the posting of adult services ads last year.

In a 2009 lawsuit filed by the Cook County, Illinois Sheriff against Craigslist for creating a public nuisance through its provision of a forum for prostitution services, the judge said, “We cannot treat Craigslist as if it did create those ads.” While technically true that Craigslist is not creating the ads, shouldn’t they have a responsibility to their customers to refrain from posting them? Is the claim by Craigslist that they monitor the ads and remove those that suggest exploitation sufficient when we know from the mouths of survivors of domestic minor sex trafficking that they have all been marketed on Craigslist?

A minimal response
Craigslist states that the “criminal misuse of the site is quite rare,” and that the site is “one of the few bright spots” when it comes to fighting against child exploitation because the company manually screens each adult services advertisement to filter out those advertising prostitution. In addition, Craigslist claims to assist and be a tool for law enforcement in investigations because it provides phone numbers used in the ad posting and created a victim search interface. But it is clear that neither Craigslist nor any other online classified service can keep an adult service page clean and there can never be enough law enforcement or staff to enforce it. Craigslist claims to have screened hundreds of thousands of ads submitted for posting to the adult services web page, but has only reported 109 of the rejected ads to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for investigation into the potential of an exploited child in the ad. It is encouraging that Craigslist is cooperating with law enforcement and we commend the efforts and successes of law enforcement to investigate these heinous crimes, but maintaining the website for the purpose of corralling buyers and sellers of sex with children is inexcusable. Craigslist and similar online classified services are creating a marketplace and increasing sales as a result of the access.

Craigslist argues that if we close these web pages down in America, then this activity will simply move to Internet sites hosted in other countries – let it! This excuse for failing to prevent exploitation of children through online advertising of prostitution is not convincing to those Americans living with the effects of advertised sexual exploitation on their city streets, draining law enforcement capacity and most important, putting their children and families at risk.

One exploited girl is too many – legislators must respond
“Craigslist is making money misery by misery while we are left to rescue and restore the victims one life at a time,” explained Linda Smith, Founder and President of Shared Hope International.

Almost every girl who survives sex trafficking reports having been sold through Craigslist to ten or more men every day, sometimes forced to post the ad themselves – the conduit to their repeated sexual exploitation. Many girls don’t survive to tell. A conservative calculation reveals that a child victim of prostitution is raped more than one thousand times by as many different men over the course of one year enslaved.

While regulators, legislators and courts wrangle over the ability to control the content and outline the responsibilities of online classified businesses, we must put a stop to this 21^st century slave market that permits Craigslist to profit from the demand for commercial sex with our children.

End Craigslist by ending DEMAND

Although Craigslist adult services must be shut down, so too must the demand. If there were no demand for commercial sex with women and children, the market disappears. We cannot turn our backs on the rising demand for commercial sex with our women and children. Shutting down Craigslist adult services, and all those online classified businesses like it, is certainly a necessary step to stop the exploitation, but let’s be certain not to lose sight of the problem of demand.

June 11, 2010 by Guest

I am a Giant Fan, but not a fan of this Giant

Sports are part of the fabric of America. The national pastimes, whether baseball or football, allow everyday people to escape their problems for a three hour period and root, root, root for the home team. However, professional and even amateur sports have become big business through enormous television contracts, merchandising, and billion dollar sports stadiums. We are not just fans anymore; we are also consumers with choices. The salaries of athletes and coaches have gradually grown in millions with the cost being passed onto consumers. A consumer’s taste can drive the market and decide the millions doled out to our favorite sports stars. With this power, you would think we would use it more often.

A percentage of athletes, like a percentage of the populace as a whole, take the field or court with a criminal record or pending case files. With a diligent sports media, we are informed immediately when charges filed against athletes and have the opportunity to decide whether he is guilty to our eyes. Debates ensue about whether the athlete is more susceptible to criminality because of his background or the temptations that the sports star lifestyle provides. Tiger Woods’ arrogance to carry on numerous affairs is said to be linked to a feeling of immunity as the best golfer in the world. NFL Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger’s choice of women and place of intercourse is to be forgiven because his team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, cannot adequately replace a two-time Super Bowl champion. Lawrence Taylor, also a two-time champ and one of the greatest defensive players in NFL history is given the benefit of the doubt as he didn’t know that the woman he paid for sex with was only sixteen years old.

Fans – as a consumer of a high end product – demand success out of their home teams. They want great athletes on the field of play to enjoy their skills and to let out their frustrations upon. As children, sports fans grow up idolizing their favorite athlete. The expectation is of great performance, but also great humanity. As adults, sports fans know that athletes are fallible, but tend to ignore their flaws if they provide great performance. As sports media has grown, the enormity of sports has been overstated. Teams are now believed to carry cities out of the doldrums, i.e. the Saints in New Orleans.

What we tend to forget as sports fans is that we are also citizens and our consuming habits can change behavior. Fair trade goods are growing in popularity in the United States and are an important part of the work to end modern-day slavery. Keeping companies accountable for their labor practices changes corporate behavior in the same way that refusing to purchase Tiger Woods’ sponsored goods or Ben Roethlisberger jerseys does. Telling your favorite team that employing a sexual batterer is unacceptable will send the message to that athlete that the privilege of earning millions of dollars to play a game can be taken away. Sports may be a billion dollar industry, like sex trafficking, but we are not powerless to change its practices.

February 19, 2010 by SHI Staff

Why does the exchange of money for sex with a child convert a child rapist into a “john”?

A sex offender is a person convicted of a sexual offense, such as rape, sexual assault, or lewdness. Our society treats sex offenders as criminals. We try them in court, and if convicted, sex offenders serve prison time. Once released, they are required to register with the authorities as a sex offender. Megan’s Law, passed in 1996, requires each state to have a way of notifying the public so most states maintain registries, easily available online. It’s easy to find out where sex offenders live, what they look like, and what sex crime they committed. We do this because sex offenders present a threat to children and we want parents to be aware of any threats to their child.

However, there is a group of people you won’t find listed in registries of sex offenders — the buyers (generally men) of sex with prostituted children. These “johns” are rarely listed in sex offender registries because they are rarely arrested or charged when caught having sex with a prostituted child and, if arrested for soliciting prostitution, law enforcement do not identify the victim as a minor.

Sex offenders face hefty fines and/or prison time, but buyers of prostituted children are rarely charged. The few that are arrested often escape punishment; the few who are arrested get off with misdemeanors, light fines and suspended sentences. A large majority of the men arrested in a sting operation in Chesterfield, Virgina last year were given $100 fines and 30-day suspended jail sentences. Some states also allow charges to be dropped if first-time offenders attend “johns’ school”, where law enforcement officials and prostituted women seek to “educate” them as way to change their behavior. “Johns’ schools” are never appropriate for the buyer of sex with a child – this is child rape and should be prosecuted as a serious felony.

Even more disturbing – law enforcement are more likely to arrest a minor on prostitution charges and let the buyer go free. One situation highlighted in the National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking is particularly revealing. Police in Las Vegas approached a parked truck after observing it pick up a girl. The police report reflects that the 50-year-old man was observed with $45 in cash hanging from his pocket and lotion on his hands. The 12-year-old girl stated that he was paying her for a sex act. The police arrested the girl for prostitution and sent the man on his way.

We have full databases of names, faces and addresses for sexual predators in our neighborhoods, but we turn a blind eye to the people who walk among us who are paying to have sex with children. Why the difference?

As a society, we’ve placed a priority on protecting children from sex offenders and predators in our neighborhoods. Yet we haven’t placed the same priority on protecting or helping prostituted children who are being coerced, recruited and forced into the sex trade. We need to start arresting the buyer and treating him as a sex offender and start rescuing the prostituted child and treating her as the victim. Without proper law enforcement, demand for prostituted children will continue to exist.

Protecting our children is a high priority for every state – adding the names of those who buy sex from a child is an important step in protecting all children from exploitation.

February 12, 2010 by SHI Staff

Breaking the Silence against Child Sex Trafficking in America

There was a time when “domestic violence” didn’t exist. Merely forty years ago, society was silent when women were violated in the home; yet today, domestic violence is strongly prohibited, and programs and funding are in place to prosecute the abuser and protect and support the survivors.

Today we struggle with the problem of domestic minor sex trafficking – the exploitation of America’s children through prostitution, pornography and sexual entertainment. Prostituted children are raped multiple times an evening and held under physical and emotional threats from their trafficker — yet they aren’t given the sympathetic treatment that victims of domestic violence receive, even though their situations hold striking resemblances. How can the anti-trafficking movement learn from the success of the anti-domestic violence movement and shorten the time of success from forty years to…less?

In the anti-domestic violence movement women held the key in unveiling domestic violence by talking within their communities, opening shelters and pressing for laws that protect victims, charge abusers, and fund support programs for victims. Ordinary women in communities, at the grassroots level, raised funds and opened shelters. The very first shelter, Women’s Advocates in St. Paul, was opened in 1974 by a group of women who started responding to domestic violence by setting up a hotline and then quickly realized that what women and children needed most was a safe place so they could leave their situation of abuse. They funded the country’s first domestic violence shelter by sending letters to friends and family members, and by applying for every government funding program they could find.

Women led in lobbying for tougher laws and government funding. In doing so, they changed the way we as a society understand and approach domestic violence by giving voice to the problem and tackling the stigma and the silence directly. We now live in a time where acts of domestic violence are automatically recognized as crimes, and victims have support through laws, legal enforcement and government funding.

Today’s “battered wife” is the prostituted child. Victimized and stigmatized into silence and not aware of any place to escape, shelter or redress, these American children of domestic minor sex trafficking are left on the streets, repeatedly victimized and then identified as the cause of the problem of prostitution instead of the victim.

Experts estimate that at least 100,000 American juveniles are victimized through prostitution in America each year. In America, the average age for a child to be lured by a trafficker (pimp) into commercial sexual exploitation is just 13 years old. Once this child falls into the situation of prostitution, it becomes incredibly difficult for her to escape. She is financially dependent on the pimp, and like a victim of domestic violence, it is dangerous for her to try to leave. The hotlines with information, safe shelters to escape, strong laws and legal enforcement to protect them, and funding to support their survival and healing which allowed the battered woman to escape are critical also for the prostituted. These do not currently exist in the number required for a meaningful response to the crime of domestic minor sex trafficking.

The anti-trafficking movement can succeed in fighting the exploitation of children by taking a lesson from the movement to end domestic violence: increase support for the organizations that are raising awareness, setting up shelters, and advocating for tougher laws and government funding, and engage the community networks fully to be the safety net that is so badly needed by those children who are at-risk for trafficking or who have already become victims of this crime. Changing perceptions at the community level will affect the priorities of our leaders.

February 3, 2010 by SHI Staff

Haitian Children in the Aftermath

The hearts of compassionate people around the world have been broken by the devastation in Haiti. Because you are one of those compassionate people, we know you have no doubt responded, as we have individually, to their immediate need for shelter, food, clothing and comfort.

There is another group of people responding to this crisis-not with compassion, but with malevolence. As the experiences of the tsunami and other natural disasters have already shown, the secondary disaster lurking for many shocked and helpless people is slavery. Traffickers use the opportunity presented by desperation, grief, and disorientation to lure or abduct suffering people with promises of help. Please continue to keep this secondary threat in mind as you consider how to help mitigate the disaster in Haiti.

Haiti is no stranger to human trafficking. The restevek phenomenon has been going on in Haiti for many years. Resteveks are children from the countryside sent by their desperate families to live and work as servants with families in the city on the promise of attending school. Too often the promised education is never given and the child becomes a slave.

Haiti is now grappling with an even greater child trafficking misery. Unscrupulous people are preying on children, many of whom have lost their entire family in the earthquake and are both physically and emotionally traumatized. They are easy prey for sex traffickers who take them from their communities and put them into “product” distribution networks around the world to meet the sick demand for sex with young and vulnerable children.

What is being done?

The international community is rallying around Haiti in this issue. The U.S. State Department is working closely with UNICEF and various international and local nongovernmental organizations to stop the trafficking of children in Haiti in these chaotic post-earthquake days and weeks. ECPAT-USA has drafted a manual about protecting children from trafficking and sexual violence during emergencies, such as the one in Haiti.

Though Shared Hope has no direct presence in Haiti, we continue to fight sex trafficking throughout the world. And along with you, we pray for Haiti’s recovery and protection of its children.