Sex trafficking in Tucson
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What is Child Sex Trafficking
| It Is An Unmitigated Evil |
When you hear “child sex slavery”, do you automatically think of countries in SE Asia or Eastern Europe? You may be shocked to learn that sex trafficking of minors is a rapidly growing evil involving at least 100,000 children in the United States. These children, most of whom are girls who begin at the age of thirteen, are forced to sell their bodies for sex in order to make money for their adult handlers (pimps).
‘In short, she was physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually broken.’
- Dr. Lederer
The vast majority of these girls had already been sexually abused and ran away from home. Within a couple of days, a third or these runaways are picked up by traffickers (pimps) who coerce or force them into sex slavery. Other girls are deceitfully lured from shopping malls, parties, and public events or kidnaped off the street to be drugged, branded and forcibly prostituted against their will. Their innocence is destroyed and their hearts are void of any hope of breaking free from their bondage. Beyond the sexual abuse and its inevitable diseases, these girls suffer from severe psychological and emotional abuse.
Even the small percentage of girls who begin by “willingly” selling themselves for sex [minors are legally incapable of consent] become controlled by pimps and trapped in a lifestyle from which there seems to be no escape. All forms of emotional and psychological abuse are used to keep these young girls from trying to escape: isolation, drug and alcohol addiction, death threats to them and family members, gang raping, beating and torture, and imprisonment. They earn no money for themselves and become totally dependent upon their pimps.
Every day thousands of children wake up in an enslaving nightmare. And every day they know they will have to complete the most dehumanizing of tasks before they will be allowed to sleep again.
These girls come to view themselves not as victims but as criminals, experiencing humiliation, guilt, shame, and self-condemnation on a daily basis. Most come to loathe themselves. Many become traumatically bonded with their abusers (the Stockholm syndrome), believing that they need their abusers and that their abusers love them.
Dr. Laura Lederer, Senior Director for Global Projects on Trafficking in Persons at the U.S. Department of State was drawn into the sex trafficking battle because of Rosa. When she was thirteen, Rosa was trafficked into the U.S. from Mexico with the offer of a better job. When Rosa refused to participate in prostitution, she was gang raped and tied up for three days without food or water. “Rosa was forced to service 10 to 20 men a day on weekdays, 20 to 40 on weekends. She was twice impregnated . . . and twice forced to abort. Men with guns guarded the girls 24 hours a day.” (Camerin Courtney, “TCW Talks to Laura Lederer,”Today’s Christian Woman, Jan./Feb. 2008, 17)
Rosa was rescued after another girl ran away and contacted police. “When the medical examiner checked Rosa, she had several STDs, pelvic inflammatory disease, and scar tissue from the forced abortions. Addicted to drugs and alcohol, Rosa also was suicidal. ‘In short,” Laura explains, ‘she was physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually broken.’” (Ibid.)
Children who are raped multiple times a day are among the most severely abused humans on the planet. Ministering to them is one of the greatest challenges we could possibly face.
(For statistics, look under the “Fact Sheet” tab. )
| It Is A Facet Of Global Human Trafficking |
Modern day slavery is called “human trafficking,” where people are commercially exploited against their will. Through force, fraud, or coercion people are forced to work for little or no personal gain and with little or no personal freedom. There are an estimated 12-27 million victims of human trafficking in the world today, more slaves than during the Atlantic slave trade.
About 80% of trafficking victims are women and 50% are children. Some 70% of the females are used as sex slaves.
While we actively support efforts to stop human trafficking in all of its forms, Streetlight Tucson’s specific mission is the eradication of child sex slavery in the U.S., which is called “domestic minor sex trafficking.”
| It Is A Federal And State Crime |
The federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000 defines the crime of “severe form of trafficking” as:
Sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age.
The term “commercial sex act” is defined as the giving or receiving of anything of value (money, drugs, shelter, food, clothes, etc.) in exchange for a sex act.
A child under 18 years of age is automatically considered a victim of “severe forms of trafficking” due to their age alone. In the case of a minor, no proof of force, fraud, or coercion is required.
(For a pdf file and links to the TVPA and other federal laws, look under the “Resources” tab.)
ARS §13-1307 makes it illegal to traffic an adult for sexual purposes using deception, force or coercion. The crime of sex trafficking of minors under 18 years of age does not require deception, force or coercion. If the victim is under 15 years of age, it is considered “a dangerous crime against children” and carries more severe penalties.
(For excerpts from the ARS and links to the laws, look under the “Resources” tab.)
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© 2012 streetlight Tucson.
Streetlight Tucson is a ministry of the Crisis Pregnancy Centers of Tucson (more).
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