Victims

Children who are victims of sex trafficking usually come from struggling families. By struggling, I mean poor, jobless, or low-income families who cannot provide for their members and who are fighting for survival. There are also the instances when children are born into poverty, or are abandoned at birth. From day one, these children have no sense or choice of freedom and know nothing better than prostitution. On the other hand, children are lured into prostitution by what they think are going to be decent job offers. Most of the countries involved in heavy trafficking are extremely poor, third world, and have annual average incomes less than $300. This is why child exploitation is so common because it creates profit; children are sold for sex (usually by their parents or other family acquaintances) to meet economic means. They are manipulated and controlled by their “bosses” or “pimps.” If they try to escape or disobey, they are punished (beaten, neglected for days, threatened their families would be killed, etc.). In most cases, these victims are too poor they have no way out. Moreover, they have no voice. They are condensed to specific housing- usually small, squished, hidden brothels, with numerous other young children and are lied to about location. They are treated inhumanely and starved while the sex industry flourishes. Ages can range from five to 18 years old and a majority of victims are young girls. From stories I have read, most of these children were “taken” at early ages and escaped in their late teens.

Here, I have provided some brief profiles on some children who were once prostituted.

-One interview by Dateline NBC focused on a 14 year old female from Cambodia. She was lured into sex trafficking when a woman approached her walking home from school and asked her to work in a café. The café turned out to be a brothel and she had no money to get home. She was forced to have sex with older men, usually American. “She forced me, and I was scared. I did not want to be with those men, but being beaten was worse.” She tried running away but got caught and was constrained with no food or drink for three days and then sold to a different brothel. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4038249/

-Another 14 year old female from Nepal was drugged by her foster brother and sold to prostitution. She woke up far from home, owned by a man who also owned other young girls. “Girls in the brothel suffered terribly. Many of them are locked in dungeons in utter darkness, unable to tell if it is day or night, unable to talk to anyone at all, their only contact--the men that use them.” http://www.sharedhope.org/what/storiesofhope.aspofhope.asp

-In Italy, a 13 year old Albanian female dated a 21 year old man (never seen again) who locked her in their hotel room and a group of men entered beating and raping her. She was sold to prostitution twice until she was “unusable,” and was threatened that her mother and sister would be raped and killed if she didn’t obey. Police raided her brothel and she was deported back to Albania. http://www.state.gov/g/tip/c16482.htm

-A 12 year old female was sold into sex slavery by a family member in India. She was locked in a room where she was tortured if she didn’t serve the men 24 hours a day. She served 10 to 20 men a day for a few years until she escaped. When she returned to her family, they wanted nothing to do with a prostitute. http://www.sharedhope.org/what/storiesofhope.asp

These stories break my heart, but I think in each of these cases, the girls escape at some point by running away or by police raids. However, not every child is this lucky. Clearly there are many commonalities of sex trafficking within countries. Almost all of the victims are young, poor, female teenagers (race not an issue) who are manipulated into sex tourism then exploited and constrained to unhealthy, horrible, living conditions. When I looked for stories, I was surprised to find none about young boys--I may need to look further into this fact. But the idea that most of these children were once deemed “unusable” is repulsive; they were sexually exploited enough times they were no longer pleasurable or worthy.

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