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March 23, 2010 by SHI Staff

Senate proposes legislation to address sex trafficking of American youth

In our own backyard, children are prostituted on main streets across America. Instead of shying away from the uncomfortable reality that over 100,000 U.S. children are prostituted every year within U.S. borders, the Senate has instead proposed legislation to address this troubling reality.

On February 24, 2010, the Senate Judiciary Committee invited experts in the field of child sex trafficking to weigh in on recent legislation introduced by Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and co-sponsored by Senators John Cornyn (R-Tex.), Al Franken (D-Min.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.). The Trafficking Deterrence and Victims Support Act of 2009 aims to provide large block grants to provide shelter and services to survivors of child sex trafficking and to provide funding to implement improvements on tracking missing and exploited children.

As the key senator behind the bill, Senator Wyden explained that child sex trafficking in the United States is a multi-billion dollar business and once a child is involved, it’s very difficult for the child to get out. “We need to be clear that we are not going to sacrifice our children to pimps.”

Senator Durbin (D-Ill.) drew attention to how young children are when they are recruited into sex trafficking, often in their early teens (13 is the average age). “….The scourge of human trafficking continues to plague our nation and our world,” said the Senator. “There is no more heartbreaking part of this problem than the sexual exploitation of children.”

On a well-balanced panel representing many aspect of the field, each panelist highlighted the importance of treating the child as a victim, providing appropriate services for the survivor and setting effective deterrence against buying sex with children.

What was most welcomed, however, was the voice of a survivor of child sex trafficking. Shaqwanna is a survivor of domestic minor sex trafficking and currently an outreach volunteer at GEMS (Girls Educational and Mentoring Services, founded by Rachel Lloyd, also on the panel). Shaqwanna spoke of the need to provide safe shelter for this vulnerable population.

“Girls need support, not jail,” emphasized Shaqwanna. “We need a safe place and people who will be patient and non-judgmental so we can start our lives over.”

Currently, there are very few safe places for a child to go – less than 60 beds in the entire United States. Without a safe place for a child to go, it’s easier to return to the pimp who provides basic needs like shelter and food. Anita Alvarez, a prosecutor in Cook County, Ill., told of a child with a mother addicted to drugs. The pimp provided the child with food and clothing, and the child was reluctant to report him. “He gives me a Subway sandwich whenever I ask,” the child said.

However, it was Senator Franken who highlighted the role of the male who is supporting the demand for commercial exploitation of children. “What about the men, the American men who are paying for sex with children?” asked Franken. “The ‘johns,’ the adult males who visit prostitutes, are the ones who should be prosecuted. They are the ones who should be in prison.”

In response, speakers called for tougher state laws to prosecute men who pay for sex with children, language that currently isn’t strong enough in the proposed legislation. Studies have shown that men who buy sex don’t care what age the woman/girl is, but they do care about being stigmatized and embarrassed.

The Trafficking Deterrence and Victims Support Act of 2009 is not only important for the safety of America’s children, but also to set a benchmark for other countries to replicate. Ambassador Luis Cdebaca, Ambassador at Large to Combat Human Trafficking, plans to assess the United States in the 2010 Trafficking in Persons Report. “We in the U.S. need to do an honest self-assessment. NGOs (non-governmental organizations) that work in this area serve as the ‘conscience of the community.’”

However, until legislation is passed to strengthen our response to domestic minor sex trafficking, the Ambassador highlighted the importance of helping all victims of child sexual exploitation. “It doesn’t matter if the victim once consented or returned to the pimp; it doesn’t matter if the chains were psychological or physical and whether the acts taken by the pimps inspired feelings of love or fear in the victim. This is still a victim.”

Please visit our website (sharedhope.org) to read more about the Trafficking Deterrence and Victims Support Act of 2009, watch the Senate Hearing and read President Linda Smith’s Testimony.

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.

January 13, 2010 by SHI Staff

Media & News Coverage 2010

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