Why Seattle?

It is thought that Seattle and Portland are major hubs for child sex trafficking in the United States. While there has been a great deal of focus on these cities, particularly after the infamous 2010 FBI raid, it is difficult to say with certainty where the problem is because of the clandestine nature of the crime. It is very difficult to compare cities because there is no consistent methodology for measuring. What is clear, however, is that access to technology and increasing gang involvement are driving more young girls into prostitution in cities such as Portland and Seattle that attract young people.


Authorities list a few reasons why Seattle's sex trafficking problem may be worse than in other parts of the country:

• there is a major sex trafficking highway running from Mexico, through California, Oregon, and Washington, and then up to Canada
• the city’s famously robust homeless youth population is a beacon for opportunists on the hunt for desperate kids
• there is a major sex trafficking highway running from Mexico, through California, Oregon, and Washington, and then up to Canada
• Seattle's status as a port city, where sailors often seek out prostitutes
• proximity to the border with Canada, where prostitution is legal and sex trafficking thrives
• a decades' long historical pattern of sex trafficking to California and Nevada

Historically, Seattle has had extremely lax laws and penalties for the exploiters and predators. This changed in late 2010:

Before the law change, customers paid a $550 fine for soliciting sex. Now they face 21 months to 12 years in jail and a $5,000 fine, which will be deposited in a special prostitution prevention and intervention account.

• Under the old law, pimps were not subject to a fine. Now they face nearly 8 to 26 ½ years in jail and a $5,000 fine.

• Buyers of prostitution previously could say they did not know the age of the victim. That is no longer a defense. Defendants have to prove a reasonable attempt was made to determine the true age of the victim.

• A child-sex-trafficking victim charged with a crime previously may have been ineligible for crime-victim's compensation because of participating in the crime of prostitution. Under the new law, a minor is considered a victim and can receive benefits through a compensation program. 



Van der Voo, L., & Smith, C. (2011). Prostitution of children in Seattle mushrooms, while Portland's reputation suffers. Investigate West. 


Federal  Bureau of INvestigation news link:

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2010/may/trafficking_052010/sex-trafficking-convictions-seattle-gang-dismantled

Sweatshop Hall of Shame 2010

Although this blog primarily focuses on human trafficking with specific focus on child sexual exploitation, a peripheral issue is unjust labor practices and exploitation of all kinds. 

Find out more from the International Labor Rights Forum. 

The Sweatshop Hall of Shame 2010 highlights apparel and textile companies that use sweatshops in their global production. Hall of Shame inductees are responsible for evading fair labor standards and often are slow to respond or provide no response at all to any attempts by the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF), workers, or others to improve working conditions. 

  

The official inductees of the 2010 Sweatshop Hall of Shame are: Abercrombie and Fitch, Gymboree, Hanes, Ikea, Kohl’s, LL Bean, Pier 1 Imports, Propper International, and Walmart.  This list also includes an Honorable Mention to the American Apparel and Footwear Association, a national trade association representing apparel and footwear companies.  This association has exhibited a flagrant disregard for workers’ rights by primarily focusing on maintaining trade with Honduras in the middle of a military coup.

The alleviation of sex traffic through a social work lens

Summary: These articles address the alleviation of the child sex trade from a social worker's point of view. As a future educator, I find this extremely helpful, as every employee of a school district also acts as a social worker from time to time. The breakdown the author provides for the "script" of exploitation follows the generally accepted elements: recruitment, extraction, control, violence, and exploitation (this is not necessarily linear - violence, in particular, continues to factor in and is a means of control).




Sexual trafficking in the United States: a domestic problem with transnational dimensions (Social Work)

Hodge DR

Abstract: The trafficking of young women and children for prostitution and other forms of sexual exploitation is one of the most significant human rights abuses in contemporary society. In keeping with the social work profession's commitment to social justice, this article examines the issue of sexual trafficking in the United States. The transnational scope of the problem is discussed along with the means that traffickers use to recruit, transport, and initiate victims from around the world into the sex industry in the United States. Some legislative responses to the problem are discussed, and a number of suggestions are offered to help social workers advocate on behalf of some of the most vulnerable and oppressed people in the global community.

Human Rights
Prostitution -- United States

To purchase full article, go to:

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/40544893/Sexual-Trafficking-in-the-United-States-A-Domestic-Problem-with-Transnational-Dimensions

Young People Abused through Prostitution: Some Observations for Practice - Practice (Social Work in Action)

Author: Margaret Melrose

Abstract This paper discusses the situation of young people sexually exploited through prostitution noting the semantic and practical shifts that have occurred in relation to this issue as it has risen up the political agenda in recent years. It explores what we know about the context in which the commercial sexual exploitation of young people occurs, the scale of the problem and the processes through which young people become involved. The paper then considers what these young people might need in terms of practice responses if they are to be supported out of prostitution.

Keywords: young people; commercial sexual exploitation; prostitution; child abuse To purchase full article, go to: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a713665954~frm=abslink?words=young,people,abused,through,prostitution,some,observations,practice

Sex Trafficking Into The United States: A Literature Review (Criminal Justice Review)

(This article is an excellent primer and introduction to the issue of the domestic sex trade)

Edward J. Schauer and

1. Elizabeth M. Wheaton

1. ¹Prairie View A&M University
2. ²Temple University

Abstract

This study is an investigation of the literature relating to the trafficking of women and children into the United States for sexual exploitation. The intent is to discover the extent and complexity of the problem, the cost in both human and economic terms, and research directions toward the development of probable political, legal, economic, and social solutions. A subject rife with research possibilities and probable solutions, trafficking is poorly defined, differentially and intermittently quantified, and handicapped by obsolete legal codes and a sexist prostitution enforcement paradigm. Recommended are state statute creation, police training and paradigm change, and increased/broadened victims’ services.

• sex trafficking
 
• economics
 
• sex work
 
• feminism
 
• United States

• To purchase full article, go to:

• http://cjr.sagepub.com/content/31/2/146.abstract

Girl, woman, lover, mother: towards a new understanding of child prostitution among young Devadasis in rural Karnataka, India (Social Science & Medicine)

Summary/Commentary of article: While I cannot say that I agree with the author's assertions, they certainly place the sexual exploitation of children into a completely new framework that is interesting to consider. The author argues that in some parts of India, prostitution can give girls from certain castes more social weight and provide them with a vocation and identity they would not otherwise have been able to achieve. I parallel this to the contemporary argument for legalization of adult prostitution in westernized countries. Through my research, I have come to believe that, while it can be done in a way where no adults are marginalized, it has been proven time after time that child prostitutes are easier to find in places that have legal adult prostitution. The black market thrives where laws are lenient (http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/about/slavery/). 

Girl, woman, lover, mother: towards a new understanding of child prostitution among young Devadasis in rural Karnataka, India (Social Science & Medicine)


Treena Rae Orchard

Abstract:

The emotive issue of child prostitution is at the heart of international debates over ‘trafficking’ in women and girls, the “new slave trade”, and how these phenomena are linked with globalization, sex tourism, and expanding transnational economies. However, young sex workers, particularly those in the ‘third world’, are often represented through tropes of victimization, poverty, and “backwards” cultural traditions, constructions that rarely capture the complexity of the girls’ experiences and the role that prostitution plays in their lives. Based on ethnographic fieldwork with girls and young women who are part of the Devadasi (servant/slave of the God) system of sex work in India, this paper introduces an alternative example of child prostitution. Demonstrating the ways in which this practice is socially, economically, and culturally embedded in certain regions of rural south India underlies this new perspective. I argue that this embeddedness works to create, inform, and give meaning to these girls as they grow up in this particular context, not to isolate and produce totally different experiences of family, gender identity, and moral character as popular accounts of child prostitution contend. Data pertaining to socialization, ‘positive’ aspects of being a young sex worker in this context, political economy, HIV/AIDS, and changes in the Devadasi tradition are used to support my position. Taken together, this alternative example presents a more complex understanding of the micro- and macro-forces that impact child prostitution as well as the many factors that affect the girls’ ideas of what they do and who they are as people, not just sex workers.

Keywords: Child prostitution; Sex work; Devadasis; India; Social construction of adolescence; Gender; HIV/AIDS

To purchase full article, go to:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBF-4NF2HPJ-2&_user=10&_coverDate=06%2F30%2F2007&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=gateway&_origin=gateway&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1666525231&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=733fcbf22d756a1fae32dad7aa11b41c&searchtype=a

PBS Program Entitled "Fighting Child Prostitution"

Child prostitution is on the rise not just in other countries around the world, but right here in America. The Department of Justice says, on any given day, tens of thousands of children across America are involved in prostitution. But what's being done to stop it?

This week NOW on PBS visits Atlanta, Georgia to see how one American city is handling the tragic phenomenon of child prostitution. It is one of 27 American cities where the problem seems to be spinning out of control.

"It's one of those issues that doesn't get discussed and therefore there's an assumption that perhaps either it doesn't exist at all or the young women and girls who are prostitutes are there by their own free will," Atlanta's Mayor Shirley Franklin tells NOW.

About two years ago Mayor Franklin launched an aggressive campaign in her city—where the adult entertainment industry is booming—to crackdown on pay-for-sex customers, or "Johns."

She's also launched an ad campaign to raise awareness of the problem of child prostitution and ordered her police department to develop better ways to protect children caught up in the trade.

"[The child prostitutes are] ten or 11 years old, and the age is getting lower. We're not talking about 17 and 18 and 19 year olds, although we could," Franklin says.

One would think fighting child prostitution is a cause everyone could get behind. But the battle against this epidemic in Atlanta has been difficult, and the more NOW on PBS dug into the story, the more challenges we discovered.

This show was originally broadcast on May 30, 2008.

A Vocabulary Lesson

A program on KUOW's Weekday back in January discussed the ways in which modern vernacular has neutralized terms such as pimp and john. They made suggestions for substitutions so that it is clear that these are not glamorous or desirable things to be. Not only did it make me want to share this new, more appropriate vocabulary, I thought it a good opportunity to clarify other terms as well.

Pimp = Exploiter

John = Predator

Child Prostitute = Victim (children have not reached the age of consent, therefore cannot sell their bodies)

Commercial Sex Act = any sexual act for which something of value is given or received; this includes, but is not limited to, prostitution, stripping, survival sex (sex in exchange for a play to stay, food, etc.), and pornography

Human Trafficking = This term often refers specifically to individuals being coerced, kidnapped, or mislead into crossing state, national, and international borders (where they are difficult to track). But this term is a blanket term for any time an individual is bought and sold as property