Children of the Dark Moon
The Reality of Sexually Exploited and Trafficked Youth
By: Phyllis Hampton
President & Executive Director
Joyful Orange Productions, Inc.
Imagine being a young girl of 11 in a small Mexican village. Since you were three years old, you have faced the night knowing that your stepfather probably will molest you – and maybe not only once. He often returns multiple times. As that 11-year-old girl, the terror of expecting another night in agony and physical pain is overwhelming. Thoughts of ending your life follow every encounter you spend in the hellish isolation of betrayal and exploitation. You finally get the courage to talk with your 17-year-old cousin who lives two houses from you. He tells you that he might be able to help, but it will take time. Your hopes rise! Perhaps there is a way out of the nightly misery that defines your life.
Some time passes, and finally your older cousin offers to take you to the big city to a family that will pay you to clean, cook and watch after their small children. You jump at the chance, and in a few days, you are on your way. At last, you think, you will be free from your never-ending nightmare! You will be safe.
It doesn’t take long, however, to realize that you are not safe. When you arrive, instead of the work and freedom you expect, you are drugged, mass raped and physically beaten… and trafficked. Within a few days, you are piled in the back of a tightly tarped farm truck with 20 other young girls and taken across the border to California. (Only much later do you find out where you are taken.) You are given to another set of “handlers,” and again raped and physically assaulted to reinforce their power and control over you.
Within 24 hours, you find yourself at a “station,” which is a small tent that has been erected in a field being worked by migrant farm workers. Your handlers collect money while you stay on your back “servicing” perhaps 20 or more farm workers a day. You are hot, starving, nude and dirty. You get enough water and food to stay alive, and you plead for drugs to numb the pain.
This is one young girl’s story. In the world of sexual exploitation and trafficking, there are thousands more. The situations vary, but the destruction of the children’s fragile bodies and minds, and the desecration to their spirits are the same. If these youngsters live to adulthood, they likely have suffered serious physical internal, head, and skeletal injuries. They experience a significantly higher rate of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, tuberculosis and permanent damage to their reproductive systems. They are far more likely to have suicidal tendencies and suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, clinical depression, and personality and dissociative disorders. When their usefulness is used up, they usually are discarded to live in fear, poverty, degradation and humiliation.
“Human trafficking,” as defined by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV), is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons by means of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, or abuse of power of a position of vulnerability for the purpose of exploitation. 80% of international trafficking victims are female, with 50% under age 18. Also, per NCADV, trafficking primarily involves exploitation which comes in many forms including: forcing victims into prostitution; subjecting victims to slavery or involuntary servitude; compelling victims to commit sex acts for pornography, and deceiving victims into debt bondage. Approximately 80% of trafficking involves sexual exploitation, and 19% involves labor exploitation.
No area of civilization is unaffected by trafficking and sexual exploitation. The U.S. Department of State conservatively estimates that 600,000 – 800,000 women, men and children are trafficked across international borders each year. As for the United States – the yearly estimate is 40,000 – 50,000. It bears repeating that 50% are under age 18.
The U. S. also has a large number domestically trafficked youth. Domestic trafficking of children in our country largely involves domestic traffickers, or pimps, that coerce vulnerable runaway and homeless youth to enter the commercial sex industry by manipulative recruitment. These children are then used in street-based prostitution, brothels, escort services, outcall services, strip clubs, and pornography. In the U.S., the average age of entry into prostitution is 12-13 years old. Many of these youngsters fled homes where they were sexually or physically abused.
The devastation to youth victimized in domestic trafficking is no less than that of those trafficked internationally. Both are subjected to the same inhumane tactics used by their “handlers” to maintain complete and lasting control of their victims.
Helping children caught in both domestic and international trafficking is difficult for many reasons:
- Both international and domestic trafficking are closely associated with organized crime, and serious security risks are involved in providing shelter for victims. (It is estimated that $9.5 billion is generated through all trafficking activities.)
- Victims are extremely reluctant to seek help because they fear harm to themselves or their families. Those unsuccessful in escaping often suffer extreme physical and/or sexual violence, and sometimes death.
- Those trafficked usually fear law enforcement. In the case of international trafficking, it is common that the authorities have received large payoffs. For those trafficked into the U.S., going to the authorities may be far safer than in most countries, but many victims lack knowledge of our legal system and available services. They often fear deportation.
- Because traffickers usually move their victims every 15-30 days and limit their contact with the outside world, victims generally are unable to develop a network of social contacts or gather resources necessary to escape. Language barriers often further isolate victims.
- When victims of trafficking do come forward, there are few services in place to help them. In the U.S., there are reportedly only 44 spaces to specifically house and treat trafficked youth.
Eradicating cruelty to our youngsters must be humanity’s highest priority. Every child deserves our protection, especially from the unconscionable violations of sexual exploitation and trafficking.
Any solution begins with awareness of the problem, no matter how painful or distasteful the facts. In the United States, we don’t have the abject poverty that fuels trafficking in many other countries. However, we do have breakdowns in our family and community structures that dis-empower children. Conservative estimates are that two out of ten boys and girls in our country are sexually abused.
Recent studies show that 40% to 67% of domestically trafficked women and children reported being sexually abused in childhood. Childhood physical abuse and sexual exploitation create deep physical and psychological scars that affect the entire lifetime of any child. Sexual abuse and exploitation is the most effective way to break down a youngster’s inviolable nature, making him or her prey for exploitive predators.
The more we are aware of the problem, the more quickly we, both individually and collectively, will find solutions. To assist a youngster before more catastrophic circumstances can occur frequently is the greatest success.
If you believe a child is at risk in her or his family or community, reports about abuse in all States can be made by calling Childhelp (800-4-A-Child) or the local child protective service agencies. To report suspected trafficking, call 1-888-373-7888. This is a multilingual hotline sponsored by Polaris, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending world slavery and trafficking.
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