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The Daily Signal
Sex Trafficking
Is a Pandemic in the US, and It’s Time to End Demand
Kevin Malone
December 04, 2018
This past October, a Dallas-area man was sentenced to life in federal
prison for trafficking children for sex. The case offered a rare
glimpse into a dark underworld most Americans don’t realize exists,
right in their own backyards.
Because of the hidden nature of this crime, many Americans don’t
realize that sex trafficking is not just an international problem.
Hundreds of thousands of people are being sold for sex against their
will right here in the U.S. Eighty percent of them are Americans, and
most of them are children.
The 2017 Federal Human Trafficking Report found that of the 661 active
sex trafficking cases last year, 65.8 percent involved child victims.
And there are potentially hundreds of thousands of victims beyond that
number who have not yet been found.
Some of these children are young teens, lured into capture by older men
or women who have befriended them on social media. Some of them are
children as young as 3 or 4 who have been kidnapped, or sold into the
industry by a relative or guardian.
Trafficking does not require travel—it can happen right in a victim’s
own backyard. Because there are far more victims still out there than
arrests that have been made, it is impossible to know with certainty
the exact number of people trapped by sex trafficking today.
What I can tell you with certainty is that it exists, and it has to end.
I was in retirement from a successful career as the general manager of
the Los Angeles Dodgers when I first met Rachel. Rachel was 4 years old
when she was first sold for sex by her father. She was trapped in the
industry for 14 years, until she left high school and was able to
escape her father’s control.
Her story, along with hundreds of others like it, prompted me to
co-found the U.S. Institute Against Human Trafficking. Through our work
with victims, rescuers, policymakers, community leaders, and faith
groups, we have learned that while attacking the problem from the
supply side is important, there is only one sure way to stop human
trafficking in America: We have to end demand.
Rescuing victims and arresting those who are selling them is noble
work, but it’s reactive, and a full step behind the predators.
Moreover, it doesn’t address the real problem.
A staggering 1 in 5 men in the U.S. today have bought sex at least
once. These are seemingly ordinary men—they could be your neighbors,
your co-workers, your children’s friends’ fathers. American men are
purchasing sex in greater numbers than people from any other nation in
the world.
Until we decrease the number of people willing to pay for sex in this
country, every rescued victim will just be replaced by another.
The uncomfortable truth is that our hypersexualized society has created
an environment where paying for sex is considered acceptable, even if
illegal. Child pornography is also illegal, and yet, disturbingly, it
is the fastest growing online business today, with estimated annual
revenue of over $3 billion in the U.S. alone. And almost half of child
pornography websites in existence worldwide are U.S.-based sites.
As long as the demand for sex buying exists, traffickers will fill the
supply with victims—even if it means using coercion. The average annual
profit generated by a woman in forced sexual servitude is $100,000.
That’s an enticing number for a criminal looking to make easy money.
The cycle will not end unless we end demand. This can be achieved at
the policy level by legislation that focuses on the sex buyers rather
than those being sold. Studies have shown that men arrested for buying
sex are less likely to buy sex again in the future.
Women involved in prostitution, however willing they may seem, should
be considered victims. Most of them have been sexually abused at some
point in their lives.
Ultimately, however, we need to make those Americans who are
considering buying sex aware of the repercussions, both to themselves
and others. The U.S. Institute Against Human Trafficking’s flagship
program, TraffickingFree Zone, is a multisector collaboration involving
community leadership, law enforcement, businesses, schools, medical
facilities, and community-based organizations.
TraffickingFree Zone advocates a zero-tolerance policy against sex
buying by raising public awareness, using advertising, and using social
media campaigns to reach buyers online, and mobilizing churches, health
care providers, employers, judges, and others against sex trafficking.
More, it shows an organization’s commitment to taking a public stand
against this plight.
Human trafficking is modern-day slavery, and we can’t afford to ignore
it any longer—especially now that it has clearly invaded our soil.
Unless we focus on ending the demand for sex buying, we can never fully
protect our children from this dark industry.
Read this and other articles at The Daily Signal
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