Child Sex Trafficking in the United States

According to a July 29 press release from the FBI, Operation Cross Country VII – a three day sting targeting child sex trafficking – concluded with 105 sexually exploited children recovered and 150 pimps and affiliates arrested. As stated in the report, the sting occurred across 76 cities and was partnered with local and state agencies along with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) as a part of the Bureau’s Innocence Lost National Initiative. This initiative was launched in 2003 to address the growing problem of domestic sex trafficking of children across the United States.

Assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, Ron Husko, stated that child prostitution remains a persistent threat across children in America according to the FBI Denver July 29 press release. 9 juveniles were recovered and 6 pimps were arrested in Colorado in this operation. This is where I wanted to find Colorado human trafficking statistics to gauge how significant this sting was in combating the problem in the state, but of course that data is not available because these children and other humans trafficked are largely invisible.  As the Gazette reported, between January 2012 and June 2013, the regional FBI faction and local law enforcement officers recovered 80 children believed to be victims of sexual exploitation in the same area of Operation Cross Country in the state.

One story of a victim recovered in this operation was showcased on the FBI news page, as her cooperation with the FBI facilitated the arrest of two pimps and the recovery of other victims. Though this may be obvious, this tipped me off to how important rescued humans themselves are in these human security initiatives to combat human trafficking. And indeed, according to the Gazette, local law enforcement “obtained an array of information relation to prostitution in our jurisdiction from the involved parties”. I feel that this is a significant issue relating to victim identification and problems that can arise if a person is identified as a victim or a complainant in prosecution. I can’t help but feel that many women are misidentified as complainants rather than victims in prostitution cases, but that is of course subjective because I do not yet have any information to back it up (I am looking into it for my final paper in which I’m focusing on human trafficking in the United States).  As the TIP Report points out, when adequate anti-trafficking laws are enforced, identification of a person as a victim provides them protection, rights, and access to services to recover from the trauma, but victims can easily lose access to justice with a miss-classification error of a migrant of criminal – and all too often do.

I believe human trafficking is arguably the greatest threat facing 21^st century human security and the complexity from trafficking networks themselves to unevenly applied anti-trafficking laws have seriously impeded movement toward the eradication of modern-day slavery.