Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Teen Sex Slavery in the U.S.



From ABC News:

January 20th, 2007- Teen prostitutes, not even old enough to drive, walk the streets of our cities selling their bodies every night. They call it "the life," but what they're forced into is sexual slavery.

"I got sold," says Sara, who asked that ABC hide her face and change her name for this story. "Like I was an animal."

Mistreated, lonely and living in a foster home in a rough neighborhood, Sara was lured into "the life" by a man who claimed to love her. She was only 13. "He told me things like no guy had ever told me," Sara says. "So I felt like a $100 million."

The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that between 100,000 and 3 million American kids under age 18 are involved in prostitution and they're often targeted by sexual predators.

"There are sexual predators out there specifically looking for vulnerable kids so that they can sell them," says Rachel Lloyd, founder of Girls Educational and Mentoring Services, in New York City, an advocacy group that provides services to sexually exploited girls from age 12 to 21.

The average age of a child when he or she is first sexually exploited is 11, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Even if the child is a somewhat willing participant, according to U.S. and international agreements, children can never consent to prostitution: it is always exploitation.

The cities with the highest incidence of child sexual exploitation, according to the FBI, are Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, St. Louis, Tampa, and Washington, D.C.

As many as 40 percent of all forced prostitutes are juveniles, according to the FBI. "There are girls that are literally kidnapped off the street [and] thrown into a car," Lloyd says. "There are pimps who pose as model agency scouts."

Read the full article

6 comments:

  1. 100,000 to 3 million is an enormous range. I wonder how they're arriving at their estimates.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous10:05 PM

    thats hooooorrrrrrriiiiiiblllleeeeeeeeeeee....

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous10:07 AM

    that is so eeeeeeeeeeeeevvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvviiiiiiiiiilllllll

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous9:03 PM

    im doing a school project on this and so many bad things have to girls and kids out there and its not just disenfranchised kids i read a story about this one girl was kidnapped off her driveway with her mom in the house and it was her best friend doing it

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous2:30 AM

    WE need to rally as a nation pray for our children our families and these people creating such harm to our children there is power in numbers so pray and pray and reach out in your towns in your states little help from everyone we as a nation can put an end to this injustice. search for local programs have a garage sale sale an old wedding dress donate to these causes this must end our children deserve there innocents lets help as a nation

    ReplyDelete
  6. A. Mendez4:37 AM

    I was once a part of this. I was just about 12 and starting to use hard drugs, when I was forced into selling my body by the people who supplied me with the drugs in order to pay for what they gave me. It has happened to so many others, it is very real and can happen in the most unsuspecting of neighborhoods. I dont know how long that ring had existed, I was freed after almost a year of it. It is important to remember, though, that sex slavery doesnt just happen in countries like China and Mexico, it can and DOES happen every single day in the U.S, and not every girl has the opportunities to get away from it like I did.

    ReplyDelete