In Southeastern Wisconsin, news stories of creepy guys asking odd and invasive questions to women and kids have been in the news and on social media a lot more lately, along with stories of attempted abductions. Thankfully in most of the situations, no one was harmed. These articles have been portrayed as possible attempts to abduct someone for human trafficking. Yes, abductions happen for multiple reasons, including human trafficking. However, in Southeast Wisconsin and throughout the United States, abduction isn’t the common way that someone is forced into selling their body.

Individuals are typically forced into selling their body by someone that they know. I know it is hard to believe but it’s true. A woman or young girl is often pursed by someone within their family or someone they may enter into a romantic relationship or friendship with. In this relationship, the perpetrator works to gain trust and find vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities can include lack of basic needs (food, clothing, shelter), the need to make more money, lack of love, lack of a father’s love and engagement in their life, insecurities, promised a job, and the list goes on.
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While the recent stories of attempted abductions and creepy guys asking weird and invasive questions is alarming, it is important to not miss out on how human trafficking victims are usually groomed and tricked. I have taught personal defense classes for over 4 years to thousands of people, so please be aware and stay vigilant however, don’t let what is shocking cause for us to miss out on the subtle tactics most traffickers use. 

​For more information: 
Psychology Today - Human Trafficking: Psychology of Recruitment 

​As we address the demand side of domestic minor sex trafficking, it is important to discuss how prevalent pornography, and specifically child pornography, is within today’s culture. This issue has been highlighted in recent news, as high profile celebrities and spokesmen have been arrested and sentenced for possession of child pornography. However, what few may realize is that within the pornography industry, child pornography makes up $3 billion of the total global sales annually, with the majority of the child pornography being produced, distributed, and possessed in the United States.

​Child pornography is not only an exploitation of children, but also clearly falls within the definition of sex trafficking. The typical age of a child that is exploited through pornography is between six and 12 years old; however in recent years there has been a steep increase in exploited children even as young as infants. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a 2005 report stated that of the offenders arrested for child pornography possession throughout the year, 83% had images of children ages six to 12, 39% had images of children ages three to five, and 19% had images of children under the age of three.

As the pornography industry grows with new technologies, the number of sexually exploited child images also increases. As the use of web cameras and smart phones have become a norm, it has made it easier to produce, access, and distribute these images. Furthermore, anyone can have access to large storage devices, which allows offenders to collect thousands of photographs of a child.
According to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in October of 2003, they reviewed more than 20,000 images of child pornography each week. Further, The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s Victim Identification program has reviewed over 90 million photographs and videos since 2002, when the program began. 22 million of those suspected child sexual abuses images were in 2013 alone.
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Child pornography and the solicitation of sex from children often go hand in hand, and it is important to address both within the same conversation. There have been many men who have spoken out against pornography, highlighting the dangers and harm that it causes to the viewer and their relationships. However, as advocates for victims of trafficking, one must also view the child, woman, or man in the image as a likely victim of exploitation.

Written by: Katie Linn | Previous Executive Director of Exploit No More

There is no question that media and entertainment have a deep and profound impact on youth, the way that they view the world, and how they interact with it. From a very young age, they are continually bombarded with images and sounds that shape their worldview – from the music that they listen to, the movies and television shows that they watch, and the advertisements that they view in magazines or on billboards.
Throughout the years, entertainment and media has become more sexualized in it’s portrayal of women and of relationships between men and women. When we view this in light of demand and normalization of sex trafficking and exploitation, there are two main cultures within the media that play a factor in the normalization of prostitution.

Sexualization of Women
Many discussions have taken place in recent years about the portrayal of women in media and entertainment. While the message may or may not be so straightforward and clear, media continually gives men the idea that they have a right to control women and that women should pleasure them, while also giving women the idea that they need to work to meet certain standards of beauty and behave a certain way in order for men to give them attention.

Many images and messages, specifically within advertisements, portray women in a particularly sexual and exploitive manner, often with the women wearing little to no clothing or in violent positions. In a recent fashion clothing advertisement campaign, images showed men dressed in suits touching and interacting with fully nude women. While the company received a great deal of pushback due to their controversial campaign, there have been many other advertisements that have pushed the boundaries and portrayed men’s control over women.
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Advertisement campaigns, fashion magazines, and celebrities styles also often indirectly have an impact on exploitation. Media often shows  youth and young women in a more mature light, encouraging young girls to grow up faster and to act in a way that is beyond their physical years. Young teenagers often deal with self-esteem issues and insecurities, striving to become culture’s ideal picture of beauty, causing some to soak in any attention that they receive from boys and men. Yet, on the other side of the coin, media and entertainment also sexualizes childhood and youth, with some pop artists and advertisement campaigns dressing down in age to look like a child or a teenager, while still maintaining the sexual aspect.

The Pimp Culture
Another aspect of media and entertainment that normalizes prostitution and ultimately trafficking is the normalization of the pimp culture. There are many forms of media that glamourize this culture, causing young men to strive for the dream of being a pimp, without fully recognizing who a pimp truly is.

Music
There are a number of popular songs that address the pimp culture and glamourize the idea of this culture. In 2006, a song by Three 6 Mafia’s song It’s Hard Out Here For a Pimp won an Academy Award  for  Best Original Song, which was featured in the movie Hustle and Flow. In the song, the writers discuss their desire and the struggle to make money, their lavish material items, and the girls that work for them. They also sing that for the right price the girls will perform sexual acts.
Other main stream artists have also included the pimp culture in their music, including Jay-Z in his song, Big Pimpin, and his collaboration with Kanye West, Niggas in Paris, where they sing, “You know how many hot b****** I own?”.  Even the well known indie pop singer Lykke Li perpetuates the prostitute culture as she sings, “Like a shotgun needs an outcome, I’m your prostitute, you gon’ get some” in her song Get Some.

Video Games
One of the most popular adventure-action video games, Grand Theft Auto, has had many controversies surrounding it’s violent and criminal fictional activities since it’s first version.  In Grand Theft Auto III, the violence and crime within the game continued to get worse, with new technologies making the image look more realistic. Also within this new version, the characters were able to solicit sex from prostitutes in order to boost their health, and were also able to then kill them in order to keep their money.

Reality TV and Marketing
In 2004, MTV debuted a new reality television show called Pimp My Ride, which upgraded and customized older and run-down cars. While the show itself did not promote the pimp lifestyle, simply by naming the show as they did begins to normalize the word ‘pimp’ and gives a misrepresentation of the definition of the word.

In addition to Pimp My Ride, there have numerous other shows and products using the word pimp out of context, using it to imply that something is made better or improved from what it once was. It was through these names that the word become used in everyday language.

Celebrities
There are also a number of celebrities that  are former, or current, pimps – showing a glamorize side to the life that young men, and women, strive to achieve. Highly recognizable people like Snoop Lion (previously known as Snoop Dogg) and Hugh Hefner pride themselves in their grand lifestyle that includes an abundance of material items and women. However, Snoop Lion has been open about his past life as a pimp, while Hugh Hefner is known for his Playboy legacy, which includes the Playboy mansion and bunnies – the women who live with him. While some of the women who have been a part of Hugh Hefner’s Playboy world have denied rumors of exploitation, others have spoken out about being forced to perform sexual acts against their will and about unwillingly participating in Hefner’s reality television series without compensation.
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Another celebrity who is very well known for his involvement as a pimp is Don “Magic” Juan, who is highly regarded among pimps as a poster child for the pimp culture and who ran one of the most successful prostitution rings. Currently a hip-hop artist, actor, and fashion designer, he founded The Player’s Ball, an annual award ceremony for pimps around the country, most often hosted in his home city of Chicago.
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All of these messages – whether obvious or subtle – help to form the minds of children, youth, and young adults, as well as sometimes older adults, making it seemingly alright to belittle women and exploit them. It is encouraging to see actors, musicians, and other leaders in the entertainment and media world taking a stand against stereotypes of women and speak out against trafficking, but it is also important to form a greater sense of self-esteem and good morals in the youth in our own communities. The task of changing certain parts of our culture is not an easy task, but can be done over time with the help of many.

Written by: Katie Linn | Previous Executive Director of Exploit No More

As we look at a number of different types of sex trafficking that youth can fall victim to, there are some that are still hidden from view, specifically the exploitation of boys and homeless youth.
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Child exploitation consists of more than just the traditional idea of sex trafficking – it can also include survival sex and the exploitation of boys, which can look different than the exploitation of girls. These two types of exploitation can be closely related, as can the exploitation of homeless youth and gang or pimp controlled trafficking.

Homeless Youth
Of all the factors that make youth vulnerable to exploitation, homelessness and running away from home are two of the most prevalent. Traffickers specifically look for youth who are missing the family connection and aim to fill that position in order to lure them in to be trafficked. Within 48 hours of being away from home, one in three adolescents will be sexually exploited.

In addition to runaway and otherwise homeless youth, many youth find themselves on the streets and in vulnerable situations due to being forced to leave home or prevented from returning by their own parents. These children are known as throwaway youth – those who have been thrown out of their homes. As a child often becomes a throwaway through conflict or discord with the family, many children who self-identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) are at a higher risk for exploitation. Through their own journey to discover who they are, some families are not supportive and refuse to allow their child to live in their home, giving the child no place to go other than the streets and potentially to traffickers.

While living on the streets, youth typically tend to meet and stick with others their age who are in the same situation. They will work together in order to find food and shelter for each other, may travel to a new or different part of the city or state together, and form a familial bond between them – often calling each other ‘brother’ or ‘sister’. In the sense of relationships, traffickers also aim to create this sense of family among themselves and their victims, with girls calling each other ‘wifeys’ or ‘sister-wives’ and their trafficker ‘daddy’. Therefore, for youth who have their alternative family on the streets, coming into an alternative family of a trafficker does not feel out of the ordinary or different – it feels normal.
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Many youth who find themselves with a home – whether it be from running away, being thrown out by family, or other factors – go without the basic necessities of shelter, food, and clothing. In order to fulfill these basic needs, some engage in survival sex, which is the exchange of sex for food, shelter, clothing, or money in order to meet those needs. Survival sex, while exploitation within itself, also forms greater vulnerabilities to being trafficked.


Exploitation of Boys
Despite the main focus on exploitation of girls, it is thought that boys make up anywhere between 10-50% of all exploited youth. This wide range of a possible percentage is due to the fact that it is much more difficult to identify male victims, due to a few key differences between the exploitation of boys versus girls.

The majority of exploited male youth are not trafficked by a pimp, but rather work independently. They often secure their own ‘dates’ themselves on the streets, online, or via magazine advertisements, giving themselves and others the illusion that they are in control of their own sexual engagement and transactions. These ‘hustlers’, as they may call themselves, often have a higher rate of drug addictions than other exploited youth, and typically do not self-identify as a victim or admit any involvement in the sex trade.
For those boys who are trafficked under a pimp, it is extremely difficult for law enforcement to identify the victims. Pimps practice a greater caution with boys, as they are treated more harshly  in prison by other prisoners if arrested for trafficking boys. This often leads to the requirement of a buyer to perform the sexual act while the pimp is still in the room, which limits undercover law enforcement’s opportunities to successfully identify and rescue victims.
Another difficulty in identifying exploited boys is the lack of self-identification. Many boys hesitate to self-identify as being trafficked or exploited within the sex trade out of fear and shame that they may be labeled as gay. While the majority of buyers and exploiters of boys are adult men, in reality only 25-35% of victims self-identify as gay, bisexual, or transgender.

Written by: Katie Linn | Previous Executive Director of Exploit No More

It is not uncommon to see a story featured on the news about children abroad who have been sold into the sex trade at a very young age by their own family. These parents often make the decision to sell their children in order to make extra money to care for more valued children, often boys; to purchase material items; or to feed a drug or alcohol habit. However, right in our own cities, American families also sell and traffic their children, and are much more difficult to identify than the families abroad.

While families in impoverished countries justify selling their children out of necessity, parents who traffic their children in the United States are motivated by a very different reason – the pursuit of power and control. Children who are victims of familial trafficking often grow up in a home and a family that is very well respected within the community. While the family may have strong connections to the leaders in society, they also may have ties to gangs and pimps who work with them in the trafficking of the children.

Familial trafficking is perhaps one of the most difficult types of domestic minor sex trafficking to detect. Often a ‘family business’, trafficking is a culture within the family that is passed down from generation to generation. Therefore, within a family that traffics their children, it is rare that one single person is the trafficker and enabler; but rather the parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins have all been raised in a similar way and may play a role in the trafficking. As a result of this, it is difficult for someone who grew up in a familial trafficking environment to recognize their victimization and to brake the cycle with their own family.

From an extremely young age, sometimes even from the moment of birth, violence and abuse become a part of the child’s life, with rape and sexual abuse beginning as young as possible. These children grow up with the normalization of rape and violence, being told that there is nothing wrong with having sex with adults. If the child does begin to detect an abnormality about their family, parents us a form of mental abuse called gas lighting, through which the truth is twisted and false information is given to the victim, causing the child to question their own memories, beliefs, and sanity.

Parents will also use manipulation through threats of abandonment and separation from the family. They continually tell their children that if they were to ever tell someone what happens within the family, they will be separated and will never see each other again. Even as adults, the family may cut out a victim if they decide to admit the abuse and speak out, leaving them without a family unit altogether.

As the main goals of the trafficker in a familial trafficking situation is power and control, they will work hard to maintain normalcy to the world outside of their own family. Many children will continue to regularly attend school, may receive good grades and often participate in extra curricular activities. While they are manipulated by their parents and influenced by he family culture, the children will be very cautious of what they tell adults and may have very limited, if any, one on one access to an adult who may be able to pick up on any trafficking signs.
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Due to the manipulation, the strong family ties with respected community members, and the parent’s efforts to appear as normal as possible from the outside, child victims of familial trafficking are very difficult to identify. The younger the child is, the more likely they will be able to be identified and recovered from their exploitation. Any individual who has contact with a child on a regular basis should be aware of the subtle signs of potential familial trafficking and be able to get the child help if needed.