YOUR OPINION OF THIS ARTICLE? — 10 Surprising and Counterintuitive Facts About Child Sex Trafficking
1. Boys make up 50 percent of the sex trafficked victims in the U.S
The modern response to commercial sexual exploitation of minors has been driven by a centralized view of the victim: predominantly a girl, rescued by law enforcement, who doesn’t engage in self-help. This more popular ‘sex trafficking narrative’ has tended to focus on the plight of women and young girls, while young boys have been essentially left out in research, policy and practice. Yet, studies show that boys are as equally affected by sex trafficking as girls and along with transgendered youth are considered a high-risk, hidden population.
According to a 2008 John Jay College study in New York, Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in New York’, as high as 50 percent of commercial sexually exploited children in the United States were boys alone. These findings coincide with a more recently released study, ” And Boys Too” by End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purpose (ECPAT-USA), which discovered that boys make up almost half of the victims. Of the 40 informants contacted in the ECPAT study, 18 said they would serve boys.
2. Most children who are sex trafficked don’t have a traditional ‘pimp’
While most of us are familiar with the conventional pimp portrayed in the media who preys upon and kidnaps children off the streets, in reality, this is not typically how children enter ‘the life’ of prostitution.
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