Sex Trafficking
and the Role of Facilitator
What is human trafficking?
Under U.S.
law, human trafficking includes the unlawful practice of selling, soliciting,
or advertising
the sexual services of minors or of adults who have been coerced into commercial
sex. The term “coerced” can be through physical or psychological means.
It is generally agreed that human trafficking generates billions of dollars
globally each year in illegal proceeds. In the United States, over eight in ten
suspected incidents of human trafficking involve sex trafficking.
Online ads
and constant transport of victims: high profits and low risk of detection. What drives the
proliferation of sex trafficking, often referred to as a form of modern day slavery? According to the National Center for Missing
and Exploited Children (NCMEC), the last five years have seen an 846% increase
in reports of suspected child sex trafficking, “directly correlated to the
increased use of the Internet to sell children for sex.”3 Online advertising has transformed
the commercial sex trade and in the process has contributed to the explosion of
domestic sex trafficking.
Sex traffickers can pocket profits of between $5,000 and
$32,833 per week according to an Urban Institute report.
Sex trafficking business model includes the role of
facilitator
Sex
trafficking is like any other business and includes a seller, customer, and
product. The commercial sex trade, however, involves an additional role, which
I will refer to as the “facilitator”. In the context of human trafficking, a
facilitator is sometimes defined in other ways. For this article, however,
“facilitator” will mean persons and/or places that allow sex trafficking
to occur, either knowingly or unknowingly, directly or indirectly. Facilitators
can be hotels, online marketplaces, friends or family, shopping malls, strip
clubs, truck stops, airports, or the workplace. Sometimes a facilitator is
completely unaware of illicit activity and other times complicit. Common
facilitators include: online classifieds and adult services web sites, hotels,
and shopping malls where illicit massage businesses operate (sometimes a front
for sex trafficking).
Online marketplace for adult services
The market
leader in online adult services classifieds is Backpage.com. According to
Advanced Interactive Media Group, Backpage.com net more than 80% of all revenue
from online commercial sex advertising in the United States. You might be
wondering why authorities cannot merely shut down web sites that are suspected of
advertising sex trafficking victims. (Age is asked but not verified.) It’s
complicated. Recurring arguments
revolve around the First Amendment Freedom of Speech and the anonymity of the Internet. To further complicate the matter,
many adult services sites are hosted offshore, which is especially problematic
for the U.S.
Facilitators face risks of litigation and brand damage
Cynthia
Cordes, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney who prosecuted human trafficking
cases, discusses the private sector risks of inadvertently supporting the
actions of traffickers. “As a federal prosecutor, I saw traffickers target
businesses as unknowing participants in the crimes [of human trafficking];
these businesses often had an array of legal ramifications [as a result of] our
prosecutions. This was especially true of businesses within the hospitality,
food, agricultural and manufacturing industries.”
California’s
Red Light Abatement Act allows a building or place to be fined and shut down if
found to facilitate prostitution or human trafficking (Penal Code § 11225 –
11235). In 2012 under the Act, two motels in Oakland, CA were sued by the city
and ordered shut down for a year following decades of prostitution and child
sex trafficking.9 The
Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) provides ways to prosecute entities
and individuals,
whether they played a direct role or not. Although most victims do not pursue
civil litigation once they are free of their traffickers, sex trafficking
presents an ongoing business risk. Businesses could see more instances of civil
litigation in the future.
National Human Trafficking Hotline
If you or
someone you know is in immediate danger, please call 911.
If you
believe you have information about a potential trafficking situation, call the
National Human Trafficking Resource Center toll-free hotline at 1-888-373-7888. Call Specialists are available
24/7 to take reports of potential human trafficking. All reports are
confidential and you may remain anonymous. Interpreters are available. To submit
a tip online, go to https://traffickingresourcecenter.org/report-trafficking
About the author
By Linda Lange, Director, Cyber Safety Talk– specializing in
consulting, open source research, & training. Linda is involved as a human trafficking
community advocate on her local D.A.’s Human Trafficking Task Force. She was
invited to testify before the Human Exploitation & Trafficking Institute
(H.E.A.T.) in February 2016, where she presented “Online Sex Trafficking in Our
Communities.” She holds an M.S. in Organization Development and was awarded a
scholarship in 2013 to study Cyber Security Law & Policy through Syracuse
University College of Law, Institute for National Security &
Counterterrorism. She holds certificates in Internet Crime & Identity
Theft, Information Systems Security, and Human Trafficking. Contact: linda@cybersafetytalk.com
References:
1 See
18 U.S.C. § 1591(a); 27 U.S.C. § 7102(10).
2 U.S.
Dep’t of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Characteristics of Suspected
Human Trafficking Incidents, 2008-
2010, at 1 (Apr.
2011), http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/cshti0810.pdf.
3 Testimony
of Yiota G. Souras, Senior Vice President & General Counsel, National
Center for Missing & Exploited
Children, before
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, at 2 (Nov. 19, 2015).
4 Urban
Institute, Estimating the Size and Structure of the Underground Commercial Sex
Economy in Eight Major US
Cities, at
234 (March 2014),
http://www.urban.org/uploadedpdf/413047-underground-commercialsexeconomy.pdf.
5 Polaris,
“Illicit Massage Businesses”, available at
http://polarisproject.org/initiatives/illicit-massage-businesses
6 Advanced
Interactive Media Group, Prostitution-ad revenue up 9.8 percent from year
ago (Mar. 22, 2013),
7 Stephen
Koff, “As Rob Portman and Senate prepare to bring contempt-of-Congress
charge, Backpage.com says ‘Bring it on’” available at http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2016/03/as_rob_portman_and_senate_prep.html
8 Cynthia
Cordes, “Human Trafficking: Corporate Responsibility for Modern Day Slavery”,
available at
http://www.tmtindustryinsider.com/2014/05/cynthia-cordes-authors-human-trafficking-article-for-the-st-louislawyer/
9 Kristin
J. Bender, Oakland Tribune, “Judge shutters two prostitution-plagued
East Oakland motels”, 5/31/12,
available
at
http://www.insidebayarea.com/top-stories/ci_20754910/judge-orders-two-east-oakland-motelsclose-pay
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