Wednesday, May 30, 2012

The Ugly Reality of Sex Trafficing

If you ever take a moment think about places in the world where girls and young women are forced into prostitution, what country comes to mind?  Maybe a country like Thailand, or Cambodia, or some other third world location.  But let's take a look at the United States.  Our government estimates that between 14,000 and 18,000 people are trafficked in the United States each year.  The Department of Justice estimated in 2005 that approximately 150,000 girls and young women had been forced to labor as sex slaves since 2001.  In New York city alone, thousands of women are sold for sex every day.  Assistant District Attorney Lauren Hersh recently indicted 32 gang members who targeted young girls from a Brooklyn playgroud and then used them to recruit their peers from school.  The sex trafficking unit she leads also successfully prosecuted a school mom who was coercing students to sell sex over the internet. 
Child prostitution is a problem the FBI says is getting worse. "The money involved in prostituting children is much higher than just regular prostitution," said FBI agent John Gillies. Morgan Perry, a Christian, is the executive producer of the recently-released documentary entitled Sex and Money. She found that the average age of entry for a prostitute in the United States is 12-years-old, 12 to 13.  So we're looking anywhere from 11 to 17- years-old. Every once in a while, the public hears about human trafficking in the U.S., like the raids that took place in October in 36 cities. Nearly 1,600 agents and officers worked together to bring federal and state charges against 691 suspects. According to the Children at Risk website, globally around 800,000 people are trafficked each year and become victims of commercial sex exploitation and forced labor. Eighty percent of these victims are women and children.
Many people are surprised to hear that human trafficking is such a big problem in the United States.
"We were shocked to discover that the same injustice was happening in our own backyards," the documentary's narrator explained. "Across America, thousands of children are bought and sold for sex each day. Meanwhile, most Americans are completely oblivious to this form of modern- day slavery."
"We've definitely found that it's a greater problem than what we were expecting," Perry said. "We've had a hard time solidifying statistics at first, because research in the United States is not as collected as international statistics so we have found that 100,000 to 300,000 American children are sex slaves in the United States, and that's a very big statistic for us, so that's hit home." The FBI says pimps are advertising more on social networking sites, including Facebook and MySpace, to attract the children.
"The Internet's being used widely now for juvenile prostitution," said one undercover police officer. "The girls of you know, the pimps, the handlers have now taken it off the street where it can be seen and have now concealed it on the Internet."
According to Jimmy Lee, Executive Director of Restore, a New York city based ministry that provides long term shelter for women who have been rescued out of sex trafficking, public education, federal law, and better law enforcement all provide a part of the solution.  Lee says it is primarily the church that needs to step in.  For starters, the church can contend against the cultural influences that make prostitution a viable industry: pornography, poverty, commercializaiton of sex in the media, and break-down of the family.  "As a Christian organization, we are able to offer true hope that other organizations can't provide.  We provide the option to know the Lord," says Lee. 
What can you as an individual do?  Get informed, and support through your prayers and finances ministries that are working to help these women escape from this modern day slavery.  Let your state and national leaders know that you are concerned and raise their awareness of this problem. 

Blessings,
Dr. Paul