Thread: Sex Slave trade in the US

Sex Trafficking in the US is big industry, it is estimated that it is a $9.5 billion industry. 83% of confirmed sex trafficking victims in the US were US citizens not illegal immigrants. I think most people just assume that most of the sex trafficking industry in the US involves mainly immigrants, while the truth is far lower. Here are a few interesting links for anyone interested in this subject.

This is a great article on sex trafficking from a victim:
5 Things I Learned as a Sex Slave in Modern America | Cracked.com

Just some statistics on it:
U.S. human trafficking incidents, 2008-2010 Journalist's Resource: Research for Reporting, from Harvard Shorenstein Center

Note: It was mentioned on another thread (White slavery thread in the history subforum) that we should start another thread to discuss the sex slave trade. There was another thread here about Eastern Europe human trafficking and sex trade but it was a year old, and not distinctly dedicated to this. If a mod decides this thread should be merged to the other one, go for it.

Canada too.
Inside the world of human sex trafficking | Toronto Star

Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery - Canada

The Slave Trade is Back: Confronting Human Trafficking in Canada and Beyond | C2C

Here is a report on the international situation
Walk Free Foundation – Global Slavery Index 2013 | Home - Walk Free Foundation - Global Slavery Index 2013

The thing that makes it most frustrating to research is that both voluntary and involuntary sex trading is categorized as "human trafficking". Some sources even categorize assisting an illegal immigrant in crossing borders as "human trafficking", such as a Coyote helping a Mexican person immigrate to the USA illegally.

I think the laws simply need to be changed to make the distinction between voluntary and involuntary prostitution more clear.

Forcing a woman to have sex with someone should be categorized as conspiracy to rape, and each time she has sex with a client should be a separate count of rape. The client may not be a knowing participant in the rape, but the one who is forcing her to sleep with that client is a fully knowledgeable participant.

Originally Posted by kojax

The thing that makes it most frustrating to research is that both voluntary and involuntary sex trading is categorized as "human trafficking". Some sources even categorize assisting an illegal immigrant in crossing borders as "human trafficking", such as a Coyote helping a Mexican person immigrate to the USA illegally.

I think the laws simply need to be changed to make the distinction between voluntary and involuntary prostitution more clear.

Forcing a woman to have sex with someone should be categorized as conspiracy to rape, and each time she has sex with a client should be a separate count of rape. The client may not be a knowing participant in the rape, but the one who is forcing her to sleep with that client is a fully knowledgeable participant.

It actually is a murky line, though. I'm acquainted with the head of the sex trafficking task force in Denver and we've talked about his work a couple of times. He's informed me that most women in sex slavery are not in chains. Some are immigrants who've passports have been stolen and are kept with threats of prison time, but the road to being a victim of human trafficking can be more subtle for many. A common tactic is for a man to befriend a woman, pretend to fall in love with her, move in with her, pretend to lose his job and pretend to be in debt and ask his supposed 'girlfriend' who he is now living with to help him out. He suggests she sell herself just a few times until they are caught up. The words 'us' and 'we' and 'together' are used a lot. He acts incredibly grateful and makes sure she knows how bad he feels about it and that it hurts him, too.

So after he has guilted her into prostituting herself he tries to get her to do it as many times as he can. Eventually, she will say, "You said this was only a few times, I'm done." at which point her reveals himself. He was never her boyfriend, he was playing the same game with half a dozen different women at once. But she's 'too deep to leave' now and he knows all her family and friends because they've been an item. Not to mention he could turn over all the evidence of her being a hooker to the cops now and get her thrown in jail. (This is not true, the cops would love her to testify against her pimp and wouldn't pursue charges. The pimp knows this, but he is a liar so he tells her that he could get her thrown in prison.) Finally, he threatens to kill her, her friends, her family, her kids, whatever, if she tries to leave. He probably beats her up just to show how serious he is.

This tactic might not have worked, but she already feels desensitized to being a prostitute because she's done it a few times and she is too afraid to leave. The scary part is, his threats aren't empty, (except the turning the evidence over to the cops part.)

Usually, this strategy is accompanied by getting her addicted to some drug. Ideally, she would have been clean before he met her that way he is her only connection to getting the drug. If she leaves him, she loses her chance to get a fix.

That story is a pretty common one for streetwalkers. I don't like prostitution myself, but if you are going to get professional companionship, use a mid to high level escort service if you don't want to rape somebody.

Originally Posted by dan hunter

Canada too.
Inside the world of human sex trafficking | Toronto Star

Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery - Canada

The Slave Trade is Back: Confronting Human Trafficking in Canada and Beyond | C2C

Here is a report on the international situation
Walk Free Foundation – Global Slavery Index 2013 | Home - Walk Free Foundation - Global Slavery Index 2013

A large portion of the human trafficking coming into Washington isn't coming through the port cities, but through British Columbia to the North of us. Eastern Washington has hundreds of miles of border that is rough terrain and hard to patrol tightly. I have friends that work for the Border Patrol and they estimate that they only bust a small fraction of all the illegal traffic going across the border near where I'm at. I once saw a diagram of the modern human trafficking and how they get into Washington from Asian countries (and Russia) and the diagram had them coming through Canada then into the US.