Stephanie Wieland, Rahab International Report
2006, Updated July 2008

The United States: Prostitution and Trafficking

Trafficking issues have received a lot of coverage in US media in recent years including heartrending personal stories on popular television shows such as Oprah. Prostitution and trafficking of women and children in the United States are indeed worthy of concern. The huge demand for purchasing sex in the US is evidenced by the enormous profits of both sexual service and pornography businesses. In addition, prostitution and pornography is often glamorized in popular culture. The government has taken many important legal steps to remedy these problems, but enforcement is a main challenge with many traffickers and customers not penalized while victims are often treated as criminals. There also remains a vast need for good rehabilitation and recovery programs for victims.

Prostitution

Though illegal in 49 states, prostitution in the US exists in a wide variety of forms and is offered through both legal and illegal businesses which thrive in all areas—urban, suburban, and rural. In addition to street prostitution and brothels, sexual services are sold through massage parlors, escort services, strip clubs, bars, adult entertainment businesses and theaters, and gambling halls. Especially in the south, US military bases tend to be surrounded by areas similar to rest and recreation (R&R) type districts near overseas bases with a disproportionate number of Asian women being sold. (1)

There are no reliably accurate numbers of the amount of people involved in prostitution. The National Task Force on Prostitution estimates there are one million women in prostitution in North America. (2) In 2005, the FBI reported 84,900 prostitution-related arrests (3), but this number includes pimps and customers and certainly does not capture the full scale. However, sources show that only 10 percent of people arrested for prostitution-related crimes are buyers (4). Most of the sexual services sold are those of women and the overwhelming majority of customers are men. In addition, an estimated 600,000 children are involved in prostitution or pornography in the United States (5). The U.S. Department of Justice says the average age of girls entering prostitution is 12 years of age (6). In June 2008, the FBI arrested 300 people suspected of child prostitution and rescued 433 victims (7).

The demand for prostitution in the US is huge, as reflected in the profits from it. It is estimated that prostitution is Las Vegas generates five billion dollars annually (8). A Florida prostitution ring leader busted in 1998 made $6 million a year; men paid $180-$200 a visit and one woman in the prostitution network had serviced 317 men in six weeks (9). A recent study also found that a majority of men admitting to purchasing sexual services were married (10).

Contrary to popular myths, few women and girls freely choose to be in prostitution. Various factors facilitate their entry and these vulnerable conditions are often exploited by direct recruitment by pimps; 75 to 90 percent of all women in prostitution were sexually abused as children (11), and 92% of women engaged in prostitution in San Francisco surveyed in a study by Kaiser Permanente said they wanted to leave prostitution, but could not because they lacked basic human services such as a home, job training, health care, counseling and treatment for drug or alcohol addiction (12).

Violence is an intrinsic part of prostitution used by pimps and customers to control and intimidate. Among women involved in prostitution, there is a high incidence of physical and psychological abuse, coercion, enticement by or forced drug use, confinement, and threats towards prostitutes. Drug use is both a method of coping and a means of control by making them dependent. Violence and pornography are also used to “initiate,” “educate,” or desensitize and traumatize women and children who are entering prostitution. According to Dignity House, a care and recovery organization, women in prostitution in Arizona are routinely subjected to repeated beatings from their pimp, and have likely been coerced into pornography, topless dancing and/or prostitution in order to support him or his drug habit. In addition, “every woman who has been in the Dignity House jail program stated she has been raped, robbed, kicked and beaten with fists, knives, guns, coat hangers, baseball bats, and boards – either by a trick or her pimp. Each girl knew someone who had been murdered while working in prostitution.” (13) Such violence both reinforces and reflects the dehumanizing nature of prostitution and attitudes toward women involved.

The majority of law enforcement agents report that organized crime groups control 76-100% of the sex enterprises in the Northeast, Metro New York, the Southeast, and Metro San Francisco. (14) A number of reports also note that mobile prostitution circuits exist throughout the US, which makes them more difficult to find and prosecute. In these cases, prostitution and trafficking are interlinked.

Trafficking

Human trafficking is the modern-day form of slavery and the US serves primarily as a destination country with victims trafficked both domestically and internationally. According to the United Nations defines sex trafficking as the “illegal trade in human beings by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, such as abduction, fraud, sale, deception, the abuse of power or the giving or receiving of payments to move people across national and international borders for the purpose of sexual exploitation. This frequently involves debt bondage.” (15)

Each year, approximately 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked into the United States. (16)

The number of U.S. citizens trafficked within the country each year is even higher, with an estimated 200,000 American children at risk for trafficking into the sex industry.” (17) Previous estimates ranged upwards to 50,000, (18) but have been reduced due to shifts in data collection. Estimating the scale of the problem is notoriously difficult because it is underground and numbers are debated. In January 2006, Congress agreed to fund studies researchers expect will find 100,000 to 1 million victims of human sex trafficking in the United States. (19)

Those trafficked into the U.S. are predominantly from Southeast Asia and Latin America though there has also been an increase of victims from Eastern Europe and the Former companies and adoption agencies may also be fronts for human trafficking operations. Soviet Union. (20) Trafficking victims who have been rescued in connection with federal government activities over the past several years have come from more than 50 different countries. (21) The Department of Justice estimates that 80% of trafficked persons are female,” (22) and half are under age 18. (23) The majority of women trafficked are forced into the sex industry, sexual servitude, or slavery. Some, though, are enslaved in forced labor.

Trafficking is very profitable business since one victim can be exploited many times over. In most of the major recent known trafficking cases, the traffickers made anywhere from one to eight million in a period ranging from one to six years. (24) Traffickers also increase profits by charging the victims exorbitant fees for travel and identification documents and using that as a means of debt bondage once they arrive, in several cases amounting to a $40,000 initial debt. (25) In the US, traffickers are generally crime rings and loosely connected criminal networks. But criminal networks are connected to global organized crime and both the CIA and FBI have documented the involvement of both Asian and Russian organized crime. (26) Major entry points into the U.S. are Florida, California, and New York and women are moved constantly in multi-state rings.

Trafficking also involves exploitation of American citizens, often poor or of an ethnic minority and legal distinctions are made according to whether the victim was transported across state borders. One case involved the kidnapping of Hmong girls from Fresno, California who were transported to cities across the US for sexual exploitation. (27)

Since 2000, the government has considered enforced prostitution and sex trafficking as slavery. But 49 states, while prohibiting prostitution, largely only prosecute the victims. Perpetrators represent less than one percent of all arrests. (28) Victims are often treated as criminals and sometimes child victims are even prosecuted as adults. Although some good rehabilitation and treatment exists, there is a lack of good care for the many victims.

Sexual Violence

According to the FBI, in 2005, there were 25,530 arrests of perpetrators of forced rape and 91,600 arrests for “other sexual offenses,” both numbers which had been about constant for the previous five years. (29) These figures represent only a snapshot since typically sexual abuse is grossly underreported and under-prosecuted. In addition, they do not reflect the incidence of domestic sexual abuse. Other forms of domestic violence are also prevalent in the US. According to a United Nations study, in the US, a woman is attacked every 15 seconds; one third of women admitted to emergency rooms are victims of domestic violence; and 47% of men who beat their spouses do so at least three times a year. (30)

According to some estimates, 300,000 children are being sexually abused in the US every year. (31) Perpetrators are usually someone whom the child already knows. More than 200 Roman Catholic priests were jailed in the 1990s for sexually abusing children and as many as 2,000 of the 51,000 priests in the US have been accused of sexual abuse in the last 2 decades. (32) Childhood abuse has been found to be a common experience among juvenile delinquents, many of whom continue in lifestyles of crime or abuse. About 46% of almost 1,000 girls in a groundbreaking study of California juvenile halls had a record of abuse or neglect in their case files and when researchers interviewed nearly 200 of those girls, the numbers were even higher with 80% reporting being physically abused, 56% reporting being sexually abused, more than 45 % reporting being beaten or burned, 40% having been raped, and 25% having been shot or stabbed. (33)

Pornography

Pornography, particularly on the internet, is a growing and lucrative business with major links to the sexual exploitation of women. Pornography is acknowledged as one of the causes of prostitution. FBI Director Robert Mueller told a House Judiciary Committee that U.S. law enforcement is “losing the battle to combat child pornography and child exploitation on the Internet.” (34) According to a Forbes.com analyst, the industry earns up to $3.9 billion a year. (35) The huge U.S. demand does not necessarily reflect demand for prostitution, but it does represent the increasing acceptance of the commodification of women. Further, while studying the effects of sustained exposure to non-violent pornography, psychologist Jennings Bryant, found that men rapidly begin to seek increasingly extreme material as their exposure increases. He says, “pornography can transform a male who was not previously interested in the more abusive types of pornography into one who is turned on by such material.” (36) No one is unscathed by pornography. Self-described porn addicts admit a warping of their emotional lives. Studies show exposure to internet pornography leads teenagers to engage in sexual activity earlier than their peers. (37)

The Department of Justice defines child pornography as the visual depiction of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct. By some measures child pornography is the fastest-growing of all internet businesses and estimated to bring in several billion dollars a year. (38) The law forbids possession, receiving, distributing, or producing child pornography. In 2005, the FBI estimated that cases of child sexual exploitation on the Internet had increased by more than 2,026 percent since 1996. (39) A federal appeals court has already ruled that police may search computer hard drives for child pornography. (40)

Health

Prostitution destroys the human spirit. One woman working on the streets of Berlin says of her work, “My soul is in the pits.” In addition to injuries and conditions associated with the violence described above, 85 percent of the prostitutes in the United States are addicted to crack, heroin, prescription drugs, or alcohol. (41) Interviews with prostitutes reveal that most patrons expect to have sex without a condom (42), which suggests that many are at risk for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). According to Dignity House, a recovery and care organization, many have STDs and some are HIV positive, most are deeply depressed and a small portion say they are mentally ill. (43) Prostitutes have a mortality rate 40 times higher than the national average with suicide not uncommon; 78% of the women who sought help from the Council for Prostitution Alternatives in Portland, Oregon program had attempted suicide at some point. (44) According to psychologist Melissa Farley and her multinational research, a very high incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder is found in among women working or who have worked in prostitution.

Sex Tourism

The United States is one of the worst sex tourism offenders, making up an estimated 25% of the world’s sex tourists, targeting children, especially. (45) Favored destinations for sex are the Philippines, Thailand, and Latin America. According to data from the Tourism Authority of Thailand, an estimated 70% of male tourists visit Thailand for sex. The profile of US tourists in Thailand in 2005 was 62% more male than female and between 35-65 years old. (46) It is unknown how many of those men went specifically for sex or became involved once in Thailand, but because of the ratio of men to women tourists it was probably not for a family vacation. Travel agents specializing in sex tourism make it very easy for those interested. In fact, there are more than 25 organized sex tour companies based in Miami, New York, and San Diego as well as a pedophile network based in Seattle. According to these companies, U.S. men going on sex tours come from different backgrounds including judges, attorneys, school board, members, a father treating his son on his 18th birthday, and clergymen. (47)

Laws

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 is the centerpiece of US legislation against trafficking, and seeks to treat people involved as victims and traffickers as criminals. In addition to broadening the scope of criminal activities covered and increasing penalties, TVPA has authorized funding for victim services, provided for immigration relief in severe cases (the T-visa), and established the State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP). (48)

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act was reauthorized in 2005, increasing penalties, providing more grants for assistance to victims, and calling for more official reviews and information gathering and again in 2007. In 2003, the PROTECT Act (Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to end the Exploitation of Children Today), which makes it a crime for a US citizen to travel to a foreign country and engage in illicit sexual activity with minors without requiring proof that the traveler intended to do so prior to traveling. There is also no statute of limitations on crimes under this law.

In 2007, the U.S. government opened 182 investigations, charging 89 individuals, and obtaining 103 convictions in cases involving human trafficking. Under TVPA, traffickers face up to 20 years’ in prison. In an effort to protect children from prostitution in the U.S., the FBI made 308 arrests in 2007, with 106 resulting in convictions and 181 children rescued. (49)

The law against trafficking seems to be quite robust, but enforcement falls way short of the estimated 17,500 yearly cases. According to Justice Department figures, from 2001 through 2005 the Civil Rights Division and U.S. Attorneys’ Offices prosecuted 287 traffickers a 260 percent increase over the 80 prosecutions started during the prior five years; of the 287 traffickers, 228 were charged with allegations of sex trafficking. (50) In the same period 480 new investigations into human trafficking were opened, a 325 percent increase over the previous five years.

One original initiative begun in San Francisco is proving successful. Men arrested for soliciting a prostitute can agree to pay a $1000 fee and spend a Saturday afternoon in a John School where they hear from sex-trafficking experts, physicians, and ex-prostitutes in exchange for having the misdemeanor charge against them dropped. The curriculum educates johns that prostitution is actually exploiting the woman and is not a victimless crime. With data gathered over 12 years, researchers conclude that men who complete this section of the First Offender Prostitution Program are 30% less likely to be rearrested for the same offense. San Francisco’s program began in 1996 and has since been an inspiration for programs in 39 other cities. (51)

International Initiatives

Many of the provisions of the TVPA are carried out as foreign policy by the State Department’s TIP office and Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration as well as by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). In particular, The TIP Office assists foreign governments in drafting or strengthening anti-trafficking laws and funds law enforcement and victim assistance training to foreign governments. (52)

The U.S. signed both the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children and the UN Convention Against Transnational and Organized Crime in 2000, but the Senate has yet to ratify either. Three other international instruments that address the trafficking in children have been adopted — ILO Convention 182 concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor (ratified in February 1999); the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography (ratified in December 2002); and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (ratified in December 2002).

In September 2003, in an address to the United Nations General Assembly, President Bush announced a $50 million international initiative to combat human trafficking. As part of this, initiative, by 2004, the U.S. Government supported approximately 251 international anti-trafficking programs benefiting more than 86 countries. (53)

In addition to international initiatives, the US Government often attaches conditions to bilateral foreign aid, requiring any organization receiving US aid to combat AIDS or human trafficking to condemn prostitution in word and in deed. Recently Brazil decided to forgo $48 million in U.S. funds rather than sign the anti-prostitution agreement. (54) These policies have been criticized as too restrictive for a full aid effort against AIDS.

Sources Cited

1. Hughes, Donna M., and Janice G. Raymond, Sex Trafficking of Women in the United States: International and Domestic Trends, CAATW, March 2001, p. 9.

2. http://veronicasvoice.org/statistics.html

3. Easy Access to FBI Arrest Statistics: 2000-2005, US Department of Justice, National Center for Juvenile Justice, http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org/ojstatbb/ezaucr/asp/ucr_display.asp

4. Knickerbocker, Brad, “Prostitution’s Pernicious Reach Grows in the US,” Christian Science Monitor, 23 October 1996, cited in CAATW, The Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation, Donna M. Hughes, Laura Joy Sporcic, Nadine Z. Mendelsohn, Vanessa Chirgwin, Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, 1999, http://www.catwinternational.org/factbook/usa1.php

5. Costello, Gary, Exploited Child Unit of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, “Danger for prostitutes increasing, most starting younger,” Beacon Journal, 21 September 1997, cited in CAATW Factbook

6. http://veronicasvoice.org/statistics.html

7. Donaldson-Evans, C. and Catherine Herridge, Fox News, June 25, 2008.

8. Farley, Melissa, Human Trafficking and Prostitution, Psychologists for Social Responsibility. Accessed at www.psysr.org/issues/trafficking/farley.php

9. “Alleged prostitution ring busted,” United Press International, 11 February 1998, cited in CAATW Factbook.

10. Hughes, Donna M., and Janice G. Raymond, Sex Trafficking of Women in the United States: International and Domestic Trends, CAATW, March 2001, p 11.

11. Debra Boyer, University of Washington, “Danger for prostitutes increasing, most starting younger” Beacon Journal, 21 September 1997, cited in CAATW Factbook.

12. “People in prostitution suffer from wartime trauma symptoms caused by acts of violence against them,” Business Wire, 18 August 1998, cited in CAATW Factbook.

13. Dignity House, “Developing Individual Growth & New Independence Through Yourself,” cited in CAATW Factbook.

14. Hughes and Raymond, p 32.

15. U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, 2006 Report on Activities to Combat Human Trafficking, U.S. Department of Justice, March 2006, p. 1.

16. Batstone, D. (2007). Not For Sale. Harper: San Francisco.

17. U.S. Department of Justice. 2004. Report to Congress from Attorney General John Ashcroft on U.S. Government Efforts to Combat Trafficking in Persons in Fiscal Year 2003. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, cited on DOJ Office of Justice Programs website http://www.ojp.gov/ovc/ncvrw/2005/pg5l.html

18. Richard, Amy O’Neill, International Trafficking in Women to the United States: A Contemporary Manifestation of Slavery and Organized Crime, CIA, April 2000.

19. Walch, Tad, “BYU speaker decries human trafficking,” Deseret Morning News, March 3, 2006.

20. Richard, p. iii.

21. U.S. DOJ, 2006 Report on Activities to Combat Human Trafficking, p.10.

22. DOJ, 2004 Assessment of U.S. Activities to Combat Trafficking in Persons, in Penfold, Amy, Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women (GAATW) Working Paper: North America and Mexico, GAATW, 2004, p. 2.

23. Powell, Alvin, “IOP student report raises U.S. sexual slavery profile: Students discuss results with state Senator Montigny,” Harvard News Office, Harvard Gazette, March 16, 2006.

24. Interview with FBI, cited in Richard, p. 19

25. Three cases cited with $40,000 debt incurred in CAATW Factbook.

26. Richard, p. 13.

27. Richard, p. 15

28. Hughes, Donna, quoted in Tad Walch, “BYU speaker decries human trafficking,” Deseret Morning News, March 3, 2006.

29. Easy Access to FBI Arrest Statistics: 2000-2005, US Department of Justice, National Center for Juvenile Justice, http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org/ojstatbb/ezaucr/asp/ucr_display.asp

30. United Nations Study, “UN proposes pact on family violence,” ALC News Service, 24 July 1998, cited in CAATW Factbook.

31. Fernando Toledo, Inter-American Institute for Children, cited in CAATW Factbook.

32. Rene Sanchez, “Dallas diocese in huge abuse settlement,” the Providence Journal, 11 July 1998, cited in CAATW Factbook.

33. CAATW Factbook.

34. Ryan, Jason, “Mueller: ‘We’re Losing’ the Child Porn War,” ABC News, posted April 23, 2008, http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/FedCrimes/Story?id=4712725&page=1

35. Richard, Emmanuelle, “The Naked Untruth,” AlterNet, posted May 23, 2002, http://www.alternet.org/story/13212/

36. Hari, Johann, “It’s everywhere: just don’t talk about it,” New Statesman, 7 March 2005, available at http://www.newstatesman.com/Ideas/200503070022

37. Hamill, Jasper, “Internet porn ‘encourages teenagers to have sex early,’” Sunday Herald, posted April 27, 2008, http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2228388.0.internet_
porn_encourages_teenagers_to_have_sex_early.php

38. Vachss, Andrew, “Let’s Fight This Terrible Crime Against Our Children,” Parade Magazine, February 19, 2006.

39. Schuetz, Lisa, “Sex Cases Using Children Growing; The Internet Has Made Exploitation Of Children For Pornography Easier, Authorities Say,” Wisconsin State Journal, Sunday, December 4, 2005, p. A1.

40. Reuters World Report, “U.S. court OKs computer searches for child porn,” March 09, 2006.

41. Delancey Street Foundation, San Francisco, Sarah McNaught, “Working for the man,” The Boston
Phoenix, 23-30 October 1997, cited in CAATW Factbook.

42. Hughes and Raymond, p 72.

43. Dignity House, “Developing Individual Growth & New Independence Through Yourself,” cited in CAATW Factbook.

44. Knickerbocker, Brad, “Prostitution’s Pernicious Reach Grows in the US,” Christian Science Monitor, 23 October 1996, cited in CAATW Factbook.

45. http://ecpatusa.org/travel_tourism.asp

46. Tourism Authority of Thailand, Profile of International Tourism Arrivals Online Database, http://www2.tat.or.th/stat/web/static_download.php?Rpt=ita

47. Business Week magazine, Associated Press, cited in CAATW Factbook.

48. U.S. DOJ, 2006 Report on Activities to Combat Human Trafficking, p. 17.

49. US Department of State, 2008 Trafficking in Persons Report, Washington DC: June 2008.

50. U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, direct email.

51. Berton, Justin, “John school takes a bite out of prostitution.” San Francisco Chronicle, posted April 14, 2008, http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/14/MNGE102OK5.DTL

52. U.S. Department of State, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, 2005 Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2005, http://www.state.gov/g/tip/

53. U.S. Department of State, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, 2005 Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2005, http://www.state.gov/g/tip/

54. Kaplan, Esther, “Pledges and Punishment,” AlterNet, Independent Media Institute, March 15, 2006, http://www.alternet.org/story/33284/