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The Current State of Sex Trafficking and Celebrity Perpetrators

Although sex trafficking can happen to anyone, regardless of race, gender, or age, victims are most frequently identified as members of marginalized groups and communities. The National Human Trafficking Hotline stated that “56 percent of prostituted women were initially runaway youth.” Runaway and homeless youth often lack a strong support system making them especially vulnerable to becoming victims of trafficking. Since child participation in commercial sex acts of any capacity is illegal in the U.S. and many countries around the world, these children are a part of a strenuously handled special victims group. Other groups susceptible to human trafficking include those who have endured past…

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Featured

  Sex Trafficking and Prostitution — Big Business With Plenty of Victims

How is it that we don’t rally as a country to combat this? How is it that it barely gets our attention? Where are the headlines, the outrage, the campaigns to address this?

  Sex Trafficking of Americans: The Girls Next Door

Even as celebrity activists such as Emma Thompson, Demi Moore, and Mira Sorvino raise awareness about commercial sex trafficking, survivor Rachel Lloyd publishes her memoir Girls Like Us, and the Senate introduces a new bipartisan bill for victim support, the problem proliferates across continents, in casinos, on streets, and directly into your mobile device.

Articles of Interest

Here’s How Teens Are Starting To Talk About Sex Trafficking

Estimates of those being sex trafficked globally range between 12 million and 30 million. Educators and advocates want U.S. teens to know the problem could be very close to home.

Sex Trafficking in the US: A Warrior’s Story

“I went from being a victim to a survivor to a warrior.” – Tika Thornton Tika Thornton spends her days mentoring girls who’ve been arrested, providing peer counseling to sex trafficking survivors and raising awareness about the modern form of slavery, guiding with her own story. And while the Journey Out crisis response case manager wouldn’t wish the traumas she endured on her worst enemy, she feels they have led to her life’s purpose.

The Shocking Truth of Child Sex Trafficking

2 million children are victims of child sex trafficking each year across the globe. The number is staggering, and hard to believe. Yet, the numbers are true and society as a whole seems to look the other way.

When Sex Trafficking Goes Unnoticed in America

Many cases go unreported, making it a difficult crime for law enforcement personnel to spot.

Why Do We Lock Up Survivors of Sex Trafficking?

Jail or juvenile detention is no place for a victim of sex trafficking. Instead, survivors need services, housing, and real job and educational opportunities.

Sex Trafficking Is a $3 Billion Dollar Industry, and It's Happening in the U.S. Meet the Woman Trying to Bankrupt It

Three or four years ago, I saw a news report that thousands of young people were being trafficked and thought, How could it be true? So I decided to investigate further, and I started to uncover how bad and pervasive the trafficking of American youth was. I met Danielle Douglas [a survivor of sex trafficking and star of the documentary] and I interviewed her, and I just got very passionate about it.

Sex trafficking isn’t what you think: 4 myths debunked – and 1 real‑world way to prevent sexual exploitation

Often, trafficking victims are younger transgender people or teens experiencing homelessness who exchange sex with others to meet their basic needs: shelter, economic stability, food and health care. Trafficking frequently looks like vulnerable people struggling to survive in a violent, exploitative world.

Sex Trafficking Victims Are Being Punished. A New Law Could Change That.

According to James Dold, CEO of Human Rights for Kids, “Sara’s Law is really the first national effort to center trauma and child status when courts are deciding how to handle cases of child sex crime victims who have come into conflict with the law. This idea will revolutionize how we treat children in the legal system who have experienced unimaginable trauma.”

Sex trafficking’s tragic paradox: when victims become perpetrators

The issue of victims who become victimisers is a complex one. Certainly many victims do not become offenders, but research points to earlier experiences of victimisation being strongly associated with later offending. This victim-offender overlap has been recognised in other areas, for example, intimate partner violence.

Sonjia’s Story: A rare look into a sex trafficking survivors life

Sonjia’s story is a rare look at the real life of a sex trafficking survivor. This is the harrowing story of her fight to live, find help, health, healing, and restoration through the Crisis Aid U.S. Refuge Home.

Taking a look inside Britain's shocking sex-trafficking crisis

Most people associate the term ‘trafficking’ with victims being moved between countries in the back of lorries, but the reality can be far closer to home. Indeed, many – like Rose, who grew up in Nigeria – are from overseas, but others are UK-born nationals, including children and vulnerable teenagers who may have been in foster care or find themselves homeless due to domestic abuse. A report in January revealed that people lured by individuals or gangs and held against their will in the UK are now more likely to be British than any other nationality, overtaking Albanian, Vietnamese, Romanian and Chinese nationals for the first time.

The Facts Of, The Myths About, And The Solutions For Child Trafficking

Who are the children being sex trafficked in the U.S? What's being done to support survivors and hold traffickers accountable.

Understanding Sex Trafficking: What It Is and How to Recognize It

Sex trafficking involves the commercial sexual exploitation of people by force, fraud, or coercion. It’s important to understand that when minors are involved in commercial sex acts, they are automatically considered victims of sex trafficking regardless of whether force, fraud, or coercion was used.

Resources

8 Tech Innovations That Would Counter Sex Trafficking

Through an extensive analysis of extant literature and interviews with 70 anti-trafficking stakeholders, 8 recommendations for action by the public and private sectors emerged; these include local, state, and federal government agencies, anti-human trafficking organizations, technology-based companies, and socially conscious corporations.

Pure Hope Foundation

Strengthen families and restore survivors of sex trafficking.

4Sarah

4Sarah is a faith based nonprofit organization whose mission is to empower change in the life direction of women and girls who are adult entertainers, prostitutes, escorts, porn stars, or victims of sex trafficking by offering a holistic approach as well as an educational, emotional, physical, and spiritual support.

FACESS

FACESS (Freeing American Children from Exploitation and Sexual Slavery) is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to the care of young girls who have been rescued from sex trafficking and slavery here in the United States. It is an unfortunate misconception that this is not a problem that occurs in the U.S. But the truth is that the victims of child-sex-trafficking are from every state and every walk of life.

Journey Out

Journey Out is a Los Angeles-based nonprofit leading the fight for the freedom and survival of all those whose lives have been destroyed by sex trafficking or commercial sexual exploitation.

Stolen Innocence

Stolen Innocence delves into a hidden world; the untold story of young women captured and forced into a life of sex slavery. Without a voice, without a choice, these girls are violently trafficked into the world's largest sex ring.

ZOE

End child trafficking with ZOE. We strive to reach every person with the love of God and rescue every child from human trafficking. Through our comprehensive prevention, intervention, and restoration programs, we’re able to transform each child from her past and give her an opportunity for a better future.