No business can afford you create a product for which there are no buyers. The first step in understanding the sex industry is to understand the customers, the johns. -Joe Parker 

Johns are men who buy and sell sex. Most commonly, “johns” reference men who purchase sexual acts, however this term can also refer to pimps and brothel owners. The reason that the term “john” is used is because all types of men buy sex and therefore a stereotypical male name, john, is used to describe them. In a research study titled “Comparing Sex Buyers with Men Who Don’t Buy Sex,” Melissa Farley explains that this is actually a myth. Though men of all different ages, races, and religions, buy sex, johns have common “attitudes, life experiences, and behavioral tendencies that distinguish them from their non-buying peers in socially and statically significant ways.” In this study 101 sex buyers were compared to 100 non-sex buyers. It was found that sex buyers were more likely to commit a crime, rape a woman, and use pornography. It was also reported that men who buy sex more commonly learned about sex from pornography. Many of the men who bought sex began with using pornography and it escalated to strip clubs, lap dances, and buying sex.

A Newsweek article entitled “The John Next Door” summarizes the findings of Farley’s study and discusses the implications of it. This article concludes with the fact that most (99%) of the study and focus of prostitution is on the prostitute, however, if we want to end the sexual exploitation of women and children we must focus on eliminating the demand for it. This article highlights the fact that men play a vital role in the elimination of sexual exploitation explaining that silence about the issue is as hurtful as the violence. For more information on how men specifically can take a stance against sexual exploitation visit: “A Call to Men” and “The Epik Project”.

Labor Trafficking

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) defines Labor Trafficking as:

The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision or obtaining of a person for labor or serviced through the use of force, fraud, coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery.

The National Human Trafficking Resource Center cites three forms of labor Trafficking: Bonded labor, Forced labor, and Child Labor. Bonded labor is the same as debt bondage explained in an earlier post. Forced labor is a situation in which the victim is forced to work due to the threat of physical or emotional punishment. Forced labor includes but is not limited to domestic servitude, forced agricultural labor, sweatshops, forced service industry labor (restaurant industry and hospitality industry), strip club work, and forced begging. Child labor is where a trafficker forces, coerces, or frauds a minor (under 18) into a working situation that is unsafe (physically, emotionally, or spiritually) or unfit for a child to be doing. There are many forms of child labor around the world: prostitution and pornography, domestic work, armed military service, agricultural work, factory work, and organized crimes (drug, people, and weapons trade). Children can be as young as 5 years old in the United States.

Labor trafficking is not something that just happens on foreign soil. Each of these forms of labor trafficking can be found in the United States. Exemplified here, is a report from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers reporting slavery in the agricultural sector of Florida.

Manipulation

Explained in previous posts, traffickers prey on the most vulnerable people in society. Traffickers manipulate victim’s venerable conditions in such a way that benefits the trafficker and produces a profit. For example, many of the young women whom are trafficked into prostitution in the US come from low income and troubled households. Pimps take advantage of these young girls vulnerable state and promise to provide financially and emotionally for the girls as long as they will sell their bodies for sex. Many young prostituted girls refer to their pimp as “daddy” or “boyfriend”; this is because the pimp has promised to fulfill the victim’s need for love, security, and affection in return for work. When a victim is being manipulated they are unaware that they are being taken advantage of; some victims truly believe that their trafficker is actually taking care of them. This can make it very difficult to help victims escape from a trafficking situation because they have formed a strong and dependent (emotional, physical, and physiological) bond with their trafficker.

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Human Trafficking is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world and is one of the largest criminal industries in the world, only second to drugs. The most commonly accepted international definition of human trafficking can be found in the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons created by the United Nations:

the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.

The United Nations has identified three key elements of Human Trafficking: The Act (what is done), The Means (how it is done), and The Purpose (why it is done).  The chart below created by the UN explains each element.

 Internet Prostitution 

Researcher Deborah Hughes argues that the rapid growth of the Internet since the mid 1990’s can be largely attributed to the sex industry. In 2000 in her article The Internet and Sex Industries: Partners in Global Sexual Exploitation, Hughes reported that the sex industry was among the top five groups buying state-of-the-art computer equipment.  Furthermore, in the same report she explained that in 1998 1 billion dollars (69% of Internet content sales) was spent on online “adult content” (including pornography, prostitution ads, and strip club ads, etc.).

The Internet has lead to an increased accessibility to prostitution and has been key in bringing sex trafficking to an all-time high. The Internet has been identified as the number one resource for the buying and selling of prostituted persons in the United States today. Buying sex is simply a click away. The Polaris Project identified three unique reasons why the internet is such a big supporter of human trafficking: first, a code language is used to disguise illegal prostitution; second, anyone can post ad’s and everyone has access to them; and lastly, the huge volume of ad’s that are posted.

AIM, the worlds leading consultancy in interactive media and classified advertising, tracks 5 websites that advertise prostitution services. AIM reported that in the past year these 5 websites have generated at least $37.2 million for escort and body rub ads. AIM reports that 80 percent of this total can be attributed to backpage.com, the leading website for Internet prostitution sales. Nicholas Kristof, a respected OP-ED columnist for the New York Times, states that it appears that backpage.com as “THE biggest forum for sex trafficking of under-age girls in the United States.” In April, Kristof wrote an article of a 12-year old girl who was sex-trafficked in the US, sold on backpage.com. You can read her story here.    

 Immigration Status

Undocumented immigrates are one of the most vulnerable populations to fall victim trafficking within the United States. Since undocumented immigrants are in the state illegally, they are unaware of their rights and are afraid to report any mistreatment for fear of deportation or jail. Traffickers take advantage of undocumented immigrants perceived inability to go to the police. Sometimes it is difficult for law enforcement to differentiate between illegal immigrants and Human Trafficking Victims. In some cases victims are treated as illegal immigrants and punished instead of provided assistance.

Efforts have been made by the U.S. to protect and identify undocumented immigrants that have fallen victim to human trafficking. One of the key goals in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) is to identify victims and make sure they are treated properly, not deported back into their country or given prison time. Victims of trafficking have the ability to get immigration relief. The T Nonimmigrant Status (T Visa) or U Nonimmigrant Status (U Visa) are offered to undocumented immigrants who are victims of trafficking or another serious crime such as rape, murder, or domestic violence. This visa allows the immigrant to legally stay in the United States and assist law enforcement in the investigation and prosecution of the crimes committed against them. These steps have been taken to protect undocumented individuals from being exploited due to their immigration status. However, many undocumented immigrants are unaware of these possibilities for help and therefore do not take advantage of them.

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In 1930 the ILO established an international definition of forced labor in the Forced Labor Convention stating:

Forced or compulsory labour shall mean all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.

In 2012 the ILO published the ILO Global Estimate of Forced Labour that further explains the issue and its estimated scope. The ILO explains that forced labor is not defined by the nature of the work but the exploitive relationship between the laborer and the trafficker. Victims are coerced and manipulated into labor situations in which they are unable to escape. Forced Labour can be understood as human trafficking. The ILO conservatively estimates that there are currently 21 million victims of forced labor in the world today. They break forced labor into three classifications: state imposed labor, privately imposed labor, and privately imposed labor specifically for sexual exploitation. Privately imposed labor exploitation is estimated to be the most prevalent form of forced labor, accounting for 68% of cases. The least estimated category is state-imposed labor at 10%.

Fraud

Fraud is one of the three main indicators of human trafficking as stated by the UN definition of human trafficking. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services explains fraud in human trafficking as the following:

Fraud involves false promises regarding employment, wages, working conditions, or other matters. For example, individuals might travel to another country under the promise of well-paying work at a farm or factory only to find themselves manipulated into forced labor. Others might reply to advertisements promising modeling, nanny, or service industry jobs overseas, but be forced into prostitution once they arrive at their destination.

Fraud allows traffickers to seem like they are assisting or helping a victim out of a bad situation such as poverty, family abuse, or some other hardship when in reality they are taking advantage of a victim’s vulnerable state.

Hotels 

Hotels are a common place for prostitution to take place. A typical scenario for hotel prostitution is for a man to answer an Internet ad, purchase a woman or child online, and arrange a hotel room in which the sexual services can take place. Women and children are also bought on the street and then taken to hotels to provide services as well. Sometimes, hotels are part of the human trafficking ring, granting rooms to pimps and johns for the purpose of prostitution. However, because of hotel’s key role in sex trafficking they have been labeled as potentially great prevention tools as well. Hotels have begun working with law enforcement to train employees how to detect and report human trafficking within hotels. The travel and tourism industry has created a “formal code” in hopes of creating protection for victims versus assisting in their exploitation. One CNN Report explains how one man’s call for greater accountability for the hotel industry has lead to greater action from hotels to prevent human trafficking. This report highlights the role of consumers in keeping the hotel industry accountable.

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Debt bondage, as explained by the U.S. State Department of Health and Human Services, is the practice in which:

traffickers demand labor as a means repayment for a real or alleged debt, yet they do not reasonably apply a victim’s wages toward the payment of the debt, or limit or define the nature and length of the debtor’s services. Traffickers may charge victims fees for transportation, boarding, food, and other incidentals; interest, fines for missing daily work quotas, and charges for “bad behavior” may be added.  Debt bondage traps a victim in a cycle of debt that he or she can never pay down, and it can be part of a larger scheme of psychological cruelty.

A commonly cited scenario of traffickers using debt to enslave victims begins with unfair transportation fees. In order to transport victims, some traffickers will promise to provide sustainable employment if the victim agrees to travel to the destination state. However, once reaching the destination state traffickers will explain that the victim must work off the costs of transporting them to a new place. Then traffickers charge fees for room and board and pay the victim very little for their work. The debt continues to build and the victim has no hope of ever paying off the money they “owe” to the trafficker. The victim is then enslaved by debt in a country where they often don’t know the culture or language. This practice is used in labor and sex trafficking. In sex trafficking, women may agree to work as a maid or waitress, but then are forced to work in the sex industry to pay off their debt. Another common occurrence happens in sex trafficking where a trafficker pays for a victims clothes, food, or other expenses and then demands a return on the cost, but does not fairly apply any given money to the debt.

Exploitation

The United Nations defines sexual exploitation as: “”any actual or attempted abuse of a position of vulnerability, differential power, or trust, for sexual purposes, including, but not limited to, profiting monetarily, socially or politically from the sexual exploitation of another.” Exploitation in general can be defined similarly, but for other purposes such as labor. All victims of human trafficking have been exploited in some way because all victims have been abused in a position of vulnerability.  Common examples of exploitation found in human trafficking include coercing a young runaway woman into sex work, manipulating illegal immigrants to work for unfair wages while working in harsh conditions, and manipulating impoverished women into prostitution.

Force 

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services explains:

Force can involve the use of physical restraint or serious physical harm. Physical violence, including rape, beatings, and physical confinement, is often employed as a means to control victims, especially during the early stages of victimization, when the trafficker breaks down the victim’s resistance.

Traffickers use force as one way to control their victim. Victims become so afraid of their trafficker that they do not try to escape and become willing to submit to all the trafficker’s demands.  Some victims develop Stockholm Syndrome, in which the repeated abuse over time causes victims to have a strong attachment to their traffickers.

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The U.S. Department of Justice defines commercial sexual exploitation of children as the “sexual abuse of a minor for economic gain.” This includes child pornography, prostitution, and sexual entertainment. The Stockholm Declaration adopted in 1996 at the First World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, explains CSEC as constituting “a form of coercion and violence against children, and amounts to forced labor and a contemporary form of slavery.”

Based on previous cases, the U.S. Department of Justice developed a “continuum of abuse“. Often an adult begins by abusing a young family member or friend. The abuse then becomes more often and the abuser seeks more children. The exploitation continues to escalate to child pornography shared and sold via the Internet. The last step in the continuum is pimping children out for sexual services. Pimps prey on young children: the average age of entry into prostitution is between 12 and 14 years old; traffickers look for vulnerable children, more commonly young girls, and coerce them with promises of emotional and financial security.

It is difficult to pinpoint the magnitude of CSEC because it is underreported and under recognized. However, one study projects that 30% of shelter youth and 70% of street youth are victims of CSEC.

Corruption

The World Bank defines corruption as “the abuse of public office for private gain.” Human trafficking thrives in countries with high corruption rates because it gives traffickers an avenue to do illegal activities without being punished.   The Report presented by the Council of Europe in 2005 hypothesized that “organized trafficking requires systematic corruption.” In order to traffic individuals, traffickers need to be able to transport, harbor, and sell victims without being persecuted. Common examples of corruption aiding trafficking include: cops being paid off (monetarily or with sexual services from victims) to keep brothels and illegal labor quiet; government agencies being paid off to not pass legislation combating trafficking; and customs officers assisting in transporting victims across borders in return for some sort of payoff. Survivors of sex slavery in the U.S. and abroad have reported local officials and police officers frequenting and supporting the trafficking ring.   Corruption is arguably vital to the success of traffickers and therefore corruption, like trafficking, is found all over the world. The Renewal Forum supports a zero tolerance policy for all municipal workers, so if they are found buying a prostituted person they should be dismissed from their position of authority.

Destination, Transit, and Origin State

Origin states are where victims of trafficking come from and transit  states are countries in which victims are transported to destination states; and destination States are where the victims end up. Kristina Kangaspunta found that Africa and South Asia were the most common origin regions and developed countries were by far the most cited destination states. Transit states tend to be countries that have access to developed countries, and have enough poverty and corruption to make transit possible. According to the UN data the United States of America was the most frequently mentioned destination state. NOTE: Trafficking does not require movement and many victims never leave their country that they were trafficked in. This means most victims in the U.S.are U.S. citizens.

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Abduction

Abduction occurs when a person forcibly takes a man, woman, or child against their will, forcing that individual into circumstances that they are not in control of. In the context of human trafficking, individuals are kidnapped and then forced to be a sex slave, labor worker, or child soldier. Most trafficked individuals are not directly abducted, but are coerced or manipulated into trafficking situations due to circumstances outside of their control, such as but not limited to false promises of love and security, blackmail, forced addiction to drug, and threats against their loved ones.

Brothel

A brothel is a place in which individuals can buy sexual services from prostituted women/children/men. The majority of prostituted peoples working in brothels are women and children and men make up a large majority of the consumers. The average age that girls begin prostituting in the United States is 13, therefore, there are many children working in brothels in the U.S. Brothels can be found in all socio-economic neighborhoods. The Polaris Project describes these two common types of brothels found in the United States: residential brothels and Asian massage parlors.  Within each of these brothels prostituted peoples are forced to have sex with many men each day; the Polaris Project reports that prostituted women/men/children service as many as 48 customers in residential brothels and 6-10 customers a day in massage parlors. Prostituted individuals are often beaten, harmed, and even killed by the men that buy sex as well as by the owners of the brothels. In some brothels women are locked in and unable to leave, however, this is not always the case. In many brothels it is not chains and locked doors that enslave prostituted individuals but coercion, debt bondage and manipulation. Additionally not all prostitution happens in brothels.

Coercion

Human trafficking is not simply the use of physical force in order to control a victim.  Individuals are also coerced or deceived into the control of their trafficker. The Legal definition of coercion found in Washington D.C. § 22-1831(3)[1] states:

(3) “Coercion” means any one of, or a combination of, the following:

(A) Force, threats of force, physical restraint, or threats of physical restraint; (B) Serious harm or threats of serious harm; (C) The abuse or threatened abuse of law or legal process; (D) Fraud or deception; (E) Any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that if that person did not perform labor or services, that person or another person would suffer serious harm or physical restraint; (F) Facilitating or controlling a person’s access to an addictive or controlled substance or restricting a person’s access to prescription medication; or (G) Knowingly participating in conduct with the intent to cause a person to believe that he or she is the property of a person or business and that would cause a reasonable person in that person’s circumstances to believe that he or she is the property of a person or business.

Often, victims of human trafficking are manipulated into acts such as prostitution that they otherwise would not choose in light of other alternatives. Traffickers prey on the most vulnerable, such as undocumented immigrants, the impoverished, and homeless youth.  Every type of legal coercion listed is used by traffickers in order to exploit victims.

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