Sex trafficking in the US

Introduction

In the US, there has been a growing concern of juvenile sex trafficking. The demand for sex with children is steady, and the profit to the sex traffickers is increasing. The law enforcement tends to have a challenge not only in prosecuting the traffickers and buyers of sex with children but on how to handle the boys and girls whose bodies exploited for profit. Under Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000, the laws that address trafficking, sex trafficking of children tend to be a federal crime. A person under 18 years old involved in the commercials ext activities is a victim of these crimes. In this paper, it provides a discussion of juvenile sex trafficking in the US and the juvenile justice system.

Juvenile sex trafficking

Juvenile sex trafficking tends to the most heinous abuse of children. While child sex trafficking often considered an international crime, experts estimate that there are 100-300,000 US born children who are at risk of being victims of domestic child sex trafficking (Fernandes-Alcantara et al. 2015). Juvenile sex trafficking tends to be a key public health issue in the US and all over the world. The exact number of child victims in the US is unknown since comprehensive research and the scientific data is lacking. Juvenile sex trafficking appears to be fueled by situational and environmental factors ranging from poverty or even the use of prostitution by the runaway children to provide for the subsistence needs to the recruitment of children by organized crime units for the prostitution. The vulnerable children and particularly those subjected to abuse are usually the prime targets. The kids tend to be raped many times that it is very easy to convince them that they can get paid for it. The homeless children and kids in the foster care system also serve as a resource of victims.

The National Human Trafficking Resource Center indicated that in 2013, it received information on 4,884 potential trafficking cases. Of the number, 69% were sex trafficking incidents and 31% involved potential minor victims (Fernandes-Alcantara et al. 2015). The traffickers normally manipulate and physically, emotionally, and mentally abuse victims so as to maintain control. The technological advancement such as the internet and cellular phones are facilitating the demand for child sex trafficking. When using such technologies, they tend to connect buyers of the commercial sex with the victims of sex trafficking while it is simultaneously distancing perpetrators from the criminal transaction.

Due to the lack of understanding and the hidden nature of the vulnerable population, most times, there is the criminalization of survivors, and they are put behind bars when they are just victims of crime. Trafficked juveniles may involve in sex activities such as prostitution, pimp-controlled, residential and underground brothels, escort services, massage parlors, pornography production, and strip clubs (Fernandes-Alcantara et al. 2015). The victims of juvenile sex trafficking tend to experience feelings of guilt, shame, lack of worthiness of rescue, low self-esteem, and also a sense of betrayal by the people that they trust.

In the criminal justice system, the law enforcement has the task of investigating and prosecuting both the supply side and also the demand side of sex trafficking. Today, how to categorize the juveniles involved in commercial sexual activities is becoming a perennial issue for policy makers and law enforcement. The key question is whether these juveniles should consider as perpetrators or victims. In the United States, the federal government and some states tend to conceptualize these juveniles differently, and the variability is contributing to the implementation of differing policies all throughout the country (Finklea 2014). While the federal government considers these juveniles as victims; thus, eligible for specialized services, there are some states that treat them as perpetrators engaged in prostitution and related crimes.

Juvenile justice system

The investigation and the prosecution of the child prostitution are mostly the state matters. Every state tends to outlaw the prostitution of children and sex trafficking of children. However, irrespective of their protected status at the federal level, the juvenile victims of sex trafficking are treated and labeled as criminals or juvenile delinquents at the local and the state level (Finklea 2014). In most cases, the children arrested and then put in juvenile detention facilities with juveniles who committed serious crimes rather than in environments where they can get the needed social and protective services (Simon et al. 2013). Additionally, because of going through the criminal justice system, they can then have permanent records as offenders. Researchers claim that labeling the juvenile sex trafficking victims as prostitutes or offenders and placing them in the juvenile justice system is a practice that can further harm the victimized youths.

Those children who fall, a victim of juvenile sex trafficking, usually move through the child welfare system and educational system unidentified and eventually land in the juvenile justice system for the juvenile prostitution or because of innocuous offenses like running away and other non-violent status offenses. Since 2010, the Florida Department for Children and Families investigated 1,266 cases of alleged child sex trafficking and in those cases, 717 were involved in the Department of Juvenile Justice (Finklea 2014). The failure of clear identification tends to translate into victims getting remanded to the justice system and returning to communities where they were first victimized even without appropriate supports and services. Thus, it tends to fuel a vicious cycle of justice involvement for most domestic child sex trafficking victims.

When considering the case of girls, in rare cases, a juvenile court judge tends to recognize the vulnerability of the girls and consider some safe alternatives to detection for victims. Thus, some juvenile court judges consider remanding girls to detention so as to keep them safe from exploitation instead of risking releasing them back to the society. The main problem with girls being remanded to the justice system is that they tend to maneuver a system designed for boys that fail to address the specific needs of girls or even consider the complex trauma that the girls endured (Lutnick, 2016). The juvenile court judges do not have appropriate trauma training, and they are not aware of the damaging impact of those policies such as physical restraints, strip searches, and the solitary confinement on the survivors of sexual violence.  It is necessary that those judges, the court appointed advocates, attorneys, and those who are working on cases involving juvenile sex trafficking should have the understanding and knowledge of children that include the family history, the dynamics of the juvenile system, and the prior court history.

There are times when the victims of juvenile sex trafficking can enter the juvenile justice system in situations where the law enforcement may not know that the juvenile is the trafficking victim and also in situations where the law enforcement is aware that the juvenile is the victim (Simon et al. 2013). For example, a law enforcement officer not trained in identifying juveniles as victims of the commercial sex exploitation can mistakenly charge the juvenile with a crime. Juveniles may hide their identities through using fake identification cards so as to protect the pimp, which reduces the likelihood of the identification of the child as a victim or the prosecution of a pimp. Contrary, a law enforcement officer that recognizes that a juvenile is a victim can charge the person with a crime so as to place them into one of the only available safe and secure environment, which is a detention facility in the juvenile justice system.

Conclusion

The sexual abuse and the exploitation of juveniles tend to rob the victims their childhood and irrevocably interfere with their psychological and emotional development. Ensuring that juvenile come of age without getting impacted by sexual exploitation and trauma is more that a criminal justice issue, but also a societal issue. There are barriers involved in preventing juvenile sex trafficking. Most states in the US have laws that criminalize trafficked juveniles resulting to the arrest, placement in juvenile detention center, and prostitution-related charges. It tends to be confusing to retain the statutes that permit charging and prosecuting juveniles for prostitution. In the juvenile justice system, there are judges who order the detention of trafficked children after the court hearing because they believe that it will keep the victim safe. The detention might guarantee the separation from the traffickers, but it fails to guarantee safety, and it rarely offers trauma-informed services. While focusing on resolving the juvenile sex trafficking in the country, it is essential to consider that the justice system used will help protect juveniles and also offer the support necessary to recover in the society. The states that consider the juvenile sex trafficking victims as perpetrators should change the policy and ensure that it establishes systems that will offer the victims will services that will help them.

Reference

Clayton, E Krugman, R & Simon, P (2013). Confronting commercial sexual exploitation and the sex trafficking of Minors The National Academies Press

Finklea, K (2014). Juvenile Victims of Domestic Sex Trafficking: The juvenile justice issues. Congressional Research Service

Kara S (2010). Sex trafficking: inside the business of the modern slavery. Columbia University Press

Kristin, F Siskin, A & Fernandes-Alcantara, A (2015). Sex trafficking of children in the United States. Congressional Research Service

Lutnick, A (2016). Domestic minor sex trafficking. Columbia University Press

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in legitimate paper writing services if you need a similar paper you can place your order for custom college essay services.