What is Child Sex Trafficking?
Child Sex Trafficking is the commercial sexual exploitation of American children within U.S. borders.
It is the “recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act” where the person is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident under the age of 18 years.
The age of the victim is the critical issue — there is no requirement to prove force, fraud, or coercion was used to secure the victim’s actions. In fact, the law recognizes the effect of psychological manipulation by the trafficker, as well as the effect of threat of harm which traffickers/pimps use to maintain control over their young victims.
Child sex trafficking includes but is not limited to the commercial sexual exploitation of children through prostitution, pornography, and/or stripping. Experts estimated at least 100,000 American juveniles are victimized through prostitution in America each year.
Child sex trafficking is child sex slavery, prostitution of children, commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC), and rape of a child.
The National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking: America’s Prostituted Children: SharedHope International 2009
How is it possible for trafficking (modern-day slavery) to exist in the United States, due to the abolition of slavery?
Slavery has existed in every society and in every generation. Due to slavery’s legal abolition in many societies and the United States in the 19th century, it has taken on a different form and moved underground. Modern-day slavery exists in the form of human trafficking. In the United States, human traffickers have disproportionately preyed on the most vulnerable of our society, women and children.
What is Araminta Freedom Initiative’s role amid the other anti-trafficking nonprofits?
Due to the vast complexity and many forms of human trafficking, it will take many organizations partnering together, with each playing a focused role to end the injustice of human trafficking.
Araminta focuses on the sex trafficking of minors within the United States. Currently, this is the least served, least recognized, and least funded victim population in the country.
Araminta’s mission is to mobilize entire communities through the use of volunteers to overcome trafficking. While Araminta will utilize professionals such as psychologists, social workers, and attorneys in the rehabilitation process, we believe that volunteers who are trained and equipped properly will bring the numbers necessary to end trafficking in our community and provide resources to partner agencies.
Following the example of our namesake, Harriet Tubman, we acknowledge that ordinary people can change the course of modern-day slavery.