07/15/2008 1:00 pm
POV
Sex Trafficking of Children in America? Tragic but True
It may be hard to believe, but all over this country, young girls, American girls, are being bought and sold for sex. I do not mean women who work willingly as prostitutes. I am talking about underage girls, as young as 12 years old, who are forced to provide sex to strangers or risk losing their lives. The FBI estimates that, at this very moment, 100,000 minors in this country are being forced to trade sex for money. Some advocacy groups estimate the number may be three times that.
Over the years I have reported on the enslavement of women in various places around the world, from the children sold in the sex markets in India to the women from the former Soviet Union sold to brothels around the world. Though such bondage is not legal in other countries, it is openly practiced. The police turn their backs and their eyes as girls as young as nine are bought for sex in the markets of Mumbai, and teenagers looking for a better life after the fall of the former Soviet Union have their passports held until they can "pay back" their purchase price in capital cities around the world. But, I confess, it is not a story I thought I would be telling from Toledo, OH.
While the notion of sexual slavery inside the United States comes as a shock to many, for the past three years a team of us at ABC have been following the story of two cousins, kidnapped off the sidewalk in Toledo. Wednesday evening, July 16th at 10 PM, I hope you will watch the result of our work on Primetime Crime "Kidnapped Cousins": A Story of Domestic Sex Trafficking in the U.S." (ABC at 10 PM EST).
The hour provides a rare, and we hope important look inside the underground and disturbing world of domestic trafficking of children. Our story looks at two middle-American teenage cousins – ages 14 and 15 – on their way to buy milkshakes a few blocks from home, who end up kidnapped right off of a main street in Toledo. Soon, they are imprisoned in a house only a few miles away from their parents and forced into a dark and dangerous world in which they are forced to engage in sex with strangers for money which is paid – entirely – to their pimp. From the terrifying abduction and the harsh training that follows, to their indoctrination and forced prostitution, the two victims speak candidly with us.
We go undercover with police who show us how they try to break up these loose networks of pimps and prostitutes who often end up working at truck stops along the nation’s highways. In fact, predators use America’s crisscrossing interstate highways to move these girls like cargo around the country, where they are quickly absorbed into this shadowy world, making escape even more difficult.
A word about the scope of this problem: The FBI has been so concerned about the rise of domestic trafficking of children that for the past five years they have funded a program called the "Innocence Lost Initiative," which has led to the conviction of 308 individuals on a combination of state and federal charges and led to the recovery of 433 child victims. The most recent raid was earlier this summer in which the FBI made simultaneous raids in 16 states, and rescued 21 underage girls. Nonetheless, sex trafficking seems to be an epidemic hiding in plain sight. But the head of the Innocence Lost task force, FBI special agent Mike Beaver, told me, make no mistake about it. Children in America are being forced into sexual slavery every day in this country. "There are children throughout the United States that are being sold as prostitutes," says Special Agent Beaver. "It’s not uncommon to see 12- and 13-year-olds out. What we’ve learned is if you have adult prostitution in an area, there’s probably child prostitution occurring as well. So it’s more of a black market, it’s more underground, but it’s there."
For more about the story go to http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=5374277 as well as the Primetime website at http://www.abcnews.com/primetime.
I hope you’ll take a look at the hour and let me know your thoughts.
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I just wanted to say hi, and commend you on your caring self.