1HTC will assist in streamlining and coordinating Anti Trafficking efforts in the South Florida Region

"The commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) in the South Florida Region exists on a large scale and in many forms."

"Stakeholders need to work with existing entities that will create a viable and functioning unit through 1HTC resource provision, technical assistance, education and networking."

Adriane Reesey,  http://www.gofundme.com/1HTC-org


TRAFFICKING MONITOR: Please visit and like 1HTC:   Thank you.

OHCHR: Combating child sex tourism

Source: OHCHR

( OHCHR ) - The commercial sexual exploitation of children in travel 

and tourism is a growing problem in destinations all over the world.

 According to UNICEF, an estimated two million children globally 

are affected by sexual exploitation each year.

To continue, go to:

http://www.ungift.org/knowledgehub/en/stories/April2013/ohchr-combating-child-sex-tourism.html

Children for sale on human trafficking market | Lubbock Online | Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

http://lubbockonline.com/crime-and-courts/crime/2013-03-26/children-are-sale-human-trafficking-market#.UVMtehek9zF

Source:  Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

Texas at forefront of fight against sexual exploitation of children, says director

 March 27, 2013 

 Back | Next 

Boatright

By Ray Westbrook

AVALANCHE-JOURNAL

There’s a certain commodities market for the bodies and souls of children in the United States, and it sometimes extends to men and women.

The beneath-the-surface crime operation was pictured vividly during a program Tuesday at the Texas Tech School of Law by the Texas Young Lawyers Association, the Lubbock Area Bar Association and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

According to David Boatright, executive director of the Texas Regional Office of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Texas has been at the forefront of a fight against the sexual exploitation of children.

“The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children stands ready to assist with resources and expertise and training for local communities,” he said.

“To combat human trafficking, it takes all hands on deck.”

He said, “Runaway children are a very high-risk population. At the National Center, we, every day of the week, 24 hours a day, track down and locate and recover missing children.”

The program drew an audience of lawyers, medical professionals and students.

C.D. Rhodes Jr., president of the Texas Young Lawyers Association, told the Avalanche-Journal shortly before the program began that a lot of the calls to a national human trafficking hotline come from Texas.

“It’s not just the big cities, not just Houston, Dallas and Austin — although those places are certainly hubs. We are finding they are in the smaller towns throughout Texas, and really all across the country.”

He said, “We have to be vigilant and help raise public awareness on this issue so that we can all be looking out for it and mindful of it.”

According to Ted Mitchell, president of the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center, the focus provided by Tuesday’s program is a relatively new approach to a problem that may have been around for a long time.

“I will tell you that part of standard histories now, when you take them with pregnant women, with certain populations in the pediatric setting, you do specifically ask, do you feel safe at home?

“So, there is an awareness that has been kind of seeping into the medical community about it.”

He noted the general attitude is that such things happen elsewhere.

Rhodes said a lack of love and attention in the home can contribute to a child becoming snared in the exploitation trap.

“Even children that come from some of the most affluent families get into fights and arguments with their families, and they may run away.”

Some estimates indicate one in three children who run away are snared by traffickers within 48 hours of leaving home.

He said, “There’s maybe a 25-year-old or 30-year-old hanging out at the middle school or high school, that starts to show them attention — attention they are not getting at home, telling them what they want to hear.

“And then it’s a trap — it all becomes psychological.”

He said, “We’re talking about girls as young as 11, 12 or 13. And once they’re wrapped up in those chains, we see those things continue into adulthood because they are scared. Their exploiters often beat them, they rape them, and they really do some horrific things to them.”

During the program, a video titled “Slavery Out of the Shadows” was shown. It featured an interview of a woman who had been taken into the slave market and addicted to heroin.

Identified only by the name of Debbie, she recalled with tears that she used to long to die and prayed for death to come.

Her story didn’t end in death, though.

Rhodes said she had found help through an outpatient clinic after gradually telling her story, and now lives in San Antonio.

At the last she was able to keep her children.

She was able to wake each day and no longer say, “God, please take me.”

To comment on this story:

ray.westbrook@lubbockonline.com

• 766-8711

glenys.young@lubbockonline.com

• 766-8747

Related articles

Related articles

• Schools Can Help Combat Sexual Exploitation, Trafficking of Children - Rules for Engagement - Education Week

Schools Can Help Combat Sexual Exploitation, Trafficking of Children - Rules for Engagement - Education Week

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rulesforengagement/2013/02/schools_can_help_combat_sexual_exploitation_trafficking_of_children.html

Source: Education Week
 
 By Gina Cairney on February 8, 2013 

By guest blogger Gina Cairney
Washington

The victims of human trafficking are often hidden in plain site, a fact that fuels a common misperception that this "lucrative industry" is a "foreign problem" that doesn't exist in the United States.
The truth, said Alice Hill, is that human trafficking is an everywhere problem, and is happening all across the United States.

Hill, a senior counselor to the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, spoke along with two other panelists yesterday at an event at the U.S. Department of Education to discuss the nature and extent of child trafficking within this country.

They also spoke about awareness raising, and offered preliminary guides on how schools can identify and help students at risk for being "picked up" by pimps and traffickers.

It is estimated that at least 100,000 children across the country are sexually exploited each year, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, but the real numbers may be significantly higher.

Hill estimated that, worldwide, there are close to 20.9 million victims, the largest number in recorded history. It's also estimated to be a $32 billion industry, coming in just behind illegal drugs.

School-aged children are often targeted because of their vulnerability and guillibility, according to Jenee Littrell, an assistant principal of Grossmont Union High School in San Diego, but the panelists made it clear that human trafficking does not discriminate.

Anyone can be a victim.

The average age of children taken by pimps and traffickers are 12 to 14 years old for girls, and 11 to 13
years old for boys, Hill said. The youngsters can be approached at school by friends or peers already in "The Life".

Traffickers also target minors at school-sponsored events, and on their way to and from school, Littrell said.
Littrell was inspired to combat the commercial sexual exploitation of children when her school district identified its first victim in 2009.

Listening to this young woman's experience, about how she ended up on the streets after changing schools and being bullied, ignited a passion within Littrell, she said.

"My school system, the thing we can control did not protect her and address her needs," Littrell told Education Week, "and further isolated her and pushed her away from us."

At that point, it was clear that if something wasn't done, the "stakes would be huge," she said.
San Diego is one of three "high prostitution areas" identified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The other two are Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Grossmont Union was one of the first school districts to notice a pervasive pattern of students falling victim to pimps, according to San Diego County News Center.

Identifying Victims
Working with the vice unit in San Diego, Grossmont Union's staff and county social service workers underwent comprehensive training to be better able to identify students who may be at risk of, or have been pulled into, prostitution.

Littrell identified three levels of involvement into "The Life".

The "party crew" is where potential recruits are groomed into the life. These children still attend school regularly, but are invited to a party that unbeknownst to them is really a sex party.

At these parties female minors are often drugged and coerced into performing sexual acts for paying clients, Littrell said.

The other two levels include increased truancy with an eventual dropping out of school when the victim fully joins the track.

Educators have a unique opportunity to identify students involved in such situations, Littrell said, and have the responsibility to report to authorities any suspected exploitation of students.

"When this is happening, it's a huge safety issue not only for our young victims, but for the other students," she said.

Whether school districts realize it or not, schools are on the front lines for preventing child trafficking and exploitation.

If educators develop partnerships with local law enforcement and social child services, like Grossmont Union did, they can be trained to notice indicators of CSEC, and intervene effectively, said Eve Birge, the Education Department's liaison on domestic human trafficking and gender-based violence.
President Obama announced several initiatives last September to help combat what his administration has called "modern-day slavery."

In his remarks, the president said the issue of human trafficking should be a concern to every person, community, business, and nation because it is a "debasement of our common humanity."

It tears away at the social fabric, and endangers public health.

The initiatives, aimed at eliminating human trafficking, include:

• Strengthening the U.S. Government's existing zero-tolerance policy on human trafficking in government contracting;
• Providing training and guidance to federal prosecutors, law enforcement officials, immigration judges, and other sectors to better detect incidences of human trafficking, and to treat victims as victims, not as criminals;
• Expanding services and legal assistance to trafficking victims; and,
• Developing the first-ever domestic human trafficking assessment to better track trends within the country.

But without understanding the needs of the victims first, Hill said it will be difficult to determine to what extent these policies will work.

"Victims sometimes don't initially want help," Hill said, "and there's concern that our policies may put them at greater risk."

The ultimate goal, according to Hill, is to rescue exploited children and to get them to believe in the value of who they are rather than the sale of their bodies.

"It's a very complex psychological issue, lots of factors are at play that we still need to better understand," she said. "Part of this ... is just unfolding, we're just discovering this."

PHOTO: Jenee Littrell, assistant principal of Grossmont Union High School in San Diego, Calif., speaks at a U.S. Department of Education event on the trafficking and sexual exploitation of children in the United States. (Gina Cairney/Education Week)

Follow Rules for Engagement on Twitter @Rulz4Engagement.

Profile on Sex Trafficking Victims and Obtaining Self-Sufficiency

Profile on Sex Trafficking Victims and Obtaining Self-Sufficiency:
Imagine a young girl who has run away from an abusive home and meets a man who promises to take care of her. He gives her food, shelter, and love. As this relationship develops, this man alters his role from caretaker and lover to pimp and controller. Suddenly, this young girl is transformed into a sexual object, a commercial item to be sold. The security the pimp provided earlier is now a debt to be paid off.
All too often, a pimp identifies a child in desperation and exploits her vulnerabilities. The young girl described above is a clear victim of the crime of sex trafficking, as she was induced to engage in prostitution to satisfy her pimp. However, according to several state laws, she was also a criminal, guilty of exchanging sex for money.
Estimates suggest that between 100,000 and 300,000 children are at risk of being induced into the commercial sex industry every year, and many of these children are prosecuted for, and convicted of, prostitution offenses. As a result, children who are victims of sex trafficking face cyclic vulnerabilities throughout their life. The criminal justice system is incapable of addressing the needs of sexually exploited and sex trafficked children if it inherently treats them as delinquent criminals.

Safe Harbor to Protect Sex Trafficked Children

Law enforcement often arrests both adults and children involved in the commercial sex industry, places them in lock-up, and initiates criminal prosecutions, thereby re-victimizing human trafficking victims. The good news is that this dynamic is starting to change. In more and more states, law enforcement is identifying these children as victims of a crime and giving them the opportunity to receive direct services.
This shift is occurring in states that have passed Safe harbor legislation, which recognizes that minors arrested for prostitution are actually victims of human trafficking that deserve services and support. Safe harbor laws shift the paradigm away from the criminal justice system and toward a child welfare response.

Vacating Convictions for Sex Trafficking Victims

However, the traditional treatment of prostitution as a nuisance and, by extension, of children in the commercial sex industry as delinquents has resulted in numerous prosecutions and convictions against human trafficking victims for engaging in prostitution offenses. These convictions can have unintended and devastating consequences in the future. For example, an adult or a juvenile with prior convictions is at risk of higher rates of unemployment because many employers refuse to hire convicted offenders. Beyond a simple criminal record, prostitution convictions carry a specific kind of stigmatization and invoke a sense shame against the children who were prosecuted for this crime.
Sex trafficking survivors, especially adult survivors who did not benefit from safe harbor laws, need additional protection. Vacating convictions legislation is a critical safeguard for survivors who have left their trafficking situations, but still have a criminal record. Such legislation permits victims of sex trafficking to ask a judge to clear his or her conviction for prostitution offenses because he or she was a victim of human trafficking at the time of the offense.
These provisions give survivors of sex trafficking the opportunity to clear their records and to obtain employment. Consequently, children who were induced to engage in prostitution no longer have that stigma attached to their names. They are free to pursue any career path and employment opportunities without the specter of a prostitution conviction hanging in the shadows.
Ultimately, a young, sexually exploited girl should not suffer further re-victimization after having been subjected to a heinous form of human trafficking. Safe harbor laws and vacating conviction legislation are crucial tools to helping survivors of human trafficking recover from their trauma and rebuild their lives.

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• Human Trafficking in Israel Takes Center Stage at Effie Awards With Huge Win
• Selling American Girls: The Truth About Domestic Minor Sex-Trafficking
• Report: Phones Become the 'Frontline' of Human Sex Trafficking - US News and World Report

Where are the victims? Where are the prosecutions? | ECPAT USA

http://ecpatusa.org/2012/09/where-are-the-victims-where-are-the-prosecutions/?goback=.gde_4165508_member_161090904| 

Source: ECPAT USA

September 5th, 2012

By: Ron Ratney

For the last several years, ECPAT-USA has been collecting news articles, press releases and, particularly, court documents that identify hotels that have been used as venues for the commercial sexual exploitation of children. By now, about 350 hotel properties have been found. This is by no means a complete enumeration of the hotels that have been used for child sex trafficking. Many of the source documents note that the pimps used one or more hotels but do not identify their names or locations. In some cases, the type of venue is not reported at all. Notable by their absence from the collection are hotels that were used by escort services or outcall dates in which the victim goes to the buyer’s location. Sixty of the hotels were unbranded and not members of any hotel chain. The rest were members of the common hotel chains with all the major chains being represented in the list.

The vast majority of the documents in ECPAT-USA’s collection were written by offices of the US Attorneys in connection with the prosecution of pimps who had been accused of child sex trafficking. The most useful documents were indictments and criminal complaints. Although the documents were initially collected as part of a project to identify specific hotels that were used for child sex trafficking, they also proved to be unique windows into the sadistic violence that pimps inflict on their victims using graphic descriptions that sometimes might not be acceptable in print and on-line media. In order to enforce their will on their victims, pimps tattooed, branded and carved their initials into their victims flesh. Rape, gang rape and violent beatings resulting in broken bones and lost teeth were used commonly. One pimp would attack his victim without provocation and without reason and in at least one case, a pimp caused his victim to abort the fetus that she was carrying. All of this, of course, is in addition to forcing their victims to sell their bodies ten to twenty times a day.

Although the documents in ECPAT-USA’s collection contain a lot of useful information, what is NOT in the collection may be at least as telling. As documents were being reviewed, it became clear that some offices of the US Attorney apparently had not been prosecuting pimps for child sex trafficking. The federal statute covering child sex trafficking is 18 USC 1591 (a). Using the PACER database maintained by the US court system, a search was conducted for all prosecutions of this statute that had been initiated from January 1, 2010 through April 2012. A total of 179 cases were found that had been prosecuted by 43 offices of the US Attorney. There are 94 offices of the US Attorney; 43 of those offices had not initiated any prosecutions of pimps under 18 USC 1591 (a); no data could be found for eight offices. (A list of offices of the US Attorney with the numbers of child sex trafficking cases shown here.) Apart from the offices with no prosecutions, several large districts had remarkably few cases: New York Southern (Manhattan) 3; California North (San Francisco) 1; Pennsylvania Eastern (Philadelphia) 1. Considering that it is estimated that there are about 100,000 children enslaved as prostitutes in the United States, the questions come to mind: “where are the prosecutions?”, “where are the victims?” Of course, it should be pointed out that local and state law enforcement agencies initiate their own prosecutions of pimps and there is no centralized database that would make it possible to count their cases. For instance, Operation Cross Country, a coordinated sweep by local, state and federal agencies that is conducted a few times a year, leads to the arrest of a large number of pimps and the rescue of a smaller number of child victims. Although, the sweeps are coordinated by the US Department of Justice, the resulting prosecutions are usually conducted at the state and local level. It is also important to recognize that the investigations and prosecutions of child sex traffickers are extremely difficult with extensive, detailed cooperation between law enforcement agencies at all levels needed to achieve convictions. Some cases have taken as much as five years from arrest through conviction. Each successful prosecution should be considered to be a triumph in which some of the most evil members of society are removed from circulation. On the other hand it would be a mistake to boast that these successes are making a significant dent in the incidence of child sex trafficking.

The fact that half the offices of the US Attorney are not prosecuting pimps who are exploiting children deserves detailed scrutiny. Available data suggests that child sex trafficking occurs all across the United States. There are more cases in large metropolitan areas but it appears that the incidence (the number of cases per 100,000 population) is similar in cities of all sizes.

Even an informal review of the documents in ECPAT-USA’s collection reveals some other things that are not there.

- Boys: None of the victims in any of the federal cases are boys. It is well known that there are teen-age boys working as prostitutes all across the country although there aren’t even any educated guesses as to their numbers. A study conducted several years ago byJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Center for Court Innovation estimated that a little less than half the children exploited on the streets of New York City were boys. They tend not to work with pimps and they are frequently not apprehended by the police so that they will not be included in the usual criminal justice statistics summaries.

- Outcomes for rescued victims: Documents, particularly news articles, frequently report that victims are returned to their parents or placed in rehabilitation programs, many of which are operated by non-governmental organizations. Very few such organization report publicly on the length of time their clients are in their care, what their programs include, and more importantly what happens to their clients after they have been discharged or leave of their own accord. Victims are usually recruited into the “life” while they are in middle school or high school. When they are finally rescued, they have lost the most important years of their lives. A few weeks of psychological counseling will not prepare them to be reintegrated into society. There are numerous reports that rescued victims return to prostitution, become homeless or institutionalized but there have been few stringently run studies (not advocacy studies) that track victims’ lives after slavery. There are probably better studies on the life outcomes of whales, polar bears, lions and other wild animals than of people who are among the most vulnerable in our society.

About the Author: Ron Ratney is retired and works as a volunteer conducting research in support of ECPAT-USA’s efforts. It turns out that none of his professional career had anything to do with child welfare. He ran across ECPAT-USA through a web site that connects prospective volunteers with NGOs that need help. He started his professional career after he obtained his doctorate in chemistry, first working as a research chemist and then teaching chemistry at the college level. After teaching for 11 years he switched careers and became an industrial hygienist (protecting workers from toxic substances by measuring and controlling exposures, primarily airborne, in the workplace.) He worked for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and was a member of a professional committee that provides recommendations for safe airborne exposures. He lives in Boston with a pet greyhound that was rescued from the race track. His wife died in 2000; he has three children who live in Las Vegas, Connecticut and Jerusalem.

Related articles

• American Anthropological Association: Broadening the Lens on Human Trafficking (trafficking-monitor.blogspot.com)
• Hawaii's Youngest Sex Trafficking Victims 'Get Out' When Rescued by First Responders (hawaiireporter.com)
• Sex trafficking in Minnesota: why one case matters (theadvocatespost.org)

The Code of Conduct | ECPAT USA

http://ecpatusa.org/what-we-do/the-code/
Source: ECPAT USA

The Tourism Child-Protection Code of Conduct is the only voluntary set of business principles travel and tour companies can implement to prevent child sex tourism and trafficking of children. The Code is a joint venture between the tourism private sector and ECPAT. Companies that endorse The Code are supported by ECPAT-USA to:

1. Establish an ethical policy regarding commercial sexual exploitation of children.
2. Train the personnel in the country of origin and travel destinations.
3. Introduce a clause in contracts with suppliers, stating a common repudiation of commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children.
4. Provide information to travelers by means of catalogues, brochures, in-flight films, ticket-slips, homepages, etc.
5. Provide information to local “key persons” who will be informally supportive of the Code, at the travel destinations.
6. Report annually to the Code of Conduct Steering Committee.

*Signatories are required by the Code of Conduct Steering Committee to pay annual fees based on their revenues for the year.

United States Based Signatories:

   

*Hilton Worldwide will begin implementation in Washington D.C. and Seattle, Washington.

Why is the Code important in the United States?:
In the United States, 200,000 American children are at risk for exploitation a year. Our youth are strategically targeted and manipulated by pimps who use hotel rooms as venues to abuse children, knowing that systems are not in place to protect the victims. With the use of online classified ads, child trafficking is moving off the streets and behind the closed doors of local hotel rooms.
The children are transported from city to city via U.S. owned airlines and buses by traffickers. Air travel is also a primary means of transportation for child sex tourists– individuals who travel overseas to sexually exploit local children. The Code helps these travel and tour companies create programs and policies to identify victims and traffickers so that they can effectively react.

Promote the Code: List Of Actions You Can Take

Implement the Code: Companies that want to get involved contact ECPAT-USA’s Private Sector Project Coordinator, Michelle Guelbart at michelle@ecpatusa.org

Intricacies of The Code: Code of Conduct website

13 Products Most Likely To Made By Child Or Forced Labor (PHOTOS)

The Huffington Post   |  Ryan McCarthy First Posted: 12-18-10 10:23 AM   |   Updated: 12-18-10 10:37 AM 

Some of our most basic purchases are produced by children. Though hard data is scant, it's estimated that there are 115 million children worldwide in forced labor.

There are some 128 goods among the products that most commonly use child labor, according to newly updated data from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). The broad definition of exploitive labor by underage workers used by the DOL includes "slavery or practices similar to slavery, the sale or trafficking of children, debt bondage or serfdom; the forcible recruitment of children for use in armed conflict; the commercial sexual exploitation of children; the involvement of children in drug trafficking; and work that is likely to harm children's health, safety, or morals."

The vast majority of the explotiive labor done by children is in agriculture (60 percent), followed by services (26 percent), and industry (7 percent), according to the DOL. But some industries are definitely worse than others.

We sifted through the latest report from the DOL's "List Of Goods Produced By Child Labor or Forced Labor" to find some of the most common products that are manufactured or harvested using these deplorable practices. We ranked each product by the number of countries that use child or forced labor to produce each good. While this is not a scientific ranking, these products represent some of the industries and goods and that the government has identified as having the highest rates of child labor.

[TRAFFICKING MONITOR:Click on URL to view the 13 industries and products]
 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/18/child-labor-products_n_798601.html#s210960 

<< Previous 

Source: The Huffington Post

Related articles

• More Countries Use Child Labor, U.S. Says (foxbusiness.com)
• A dozen nations added to child, forced labor list (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
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timesofmalta.com - Group claims Malta 'destination' for child trafficking

Image via Wikipedia

Source: Times of Malta.com

Thursday, 16th September 2010 - 12:02CET

An international group against child prostitution and child pornography has claimed that Malta is a destination for women and children trafficked or sexual purposes.

In an unsigned report, ECPAT, the End Child Prostitution And Trafficking group said no reliable data was available on the extent of trafficking of children in sexual exploitation in Malta.

Similarly, Malta did not record a large number of children sexually exploited through prostitution. Most cases of sexual exploitation of children were related to the possession of child pornography.

"Malta is primarily a destination country for women and children trafficked for sexual purposes from Eastern European countries such as Ukraine, Russia and Romania," the organisation said.

"Young women recruited for prostitution from Eastern European countries are essentially ‘purchased’ by Maltese men, according to law enforcement agencies. Sometimes pimps intent on exploiting them for commercial sex act as intermediaries. These women can then often be ‘sold’ to other pimps or individuals who then continue the cycle; it is typical for trafficking victims to be ‘sold’ every three months under these practices.

"In many cases, these victims enter Malta legally on a tourist visa. In the case of victims of trafficking from Ukraine, various research points out that the majority of the victims are female and that trafficking occurs mainly for sexual exploitation."

The report made no reference to recent legislation to counter child pornography and prostitution.

timesofmalta.com - Group claims Malta 'destination' for child trafficking

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Abolition: On the Front Lines in South Africa With Darla Bardine | End Human Trafficking | Change.org

by Sarah Parker July 22, 2010 11:00 AM (PT) Topics: Child Trafficking, Sex Trafficking, Slave Labor

Thousands of men and women fight human trafficking on the front lines every day, coming face to face with traffickers, their victims, and countless people who just need a little education to become abolitionists themselves. “Abolition: On the Front Lines” is the place to learn about these unsung heroes in their own words and be inspired to join the fight!

Abolitionist: Darla Bardine
Field Location: South Africa
Team: Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa (FTTSA)
Position: Volunteer Expert in Advocacy and Communications
Target: Decrease child sexual exploitation in travel and tourism by implementing “The Code”

Why did you join the anti-trafficking fight?

Darla Bardine: I worked at the Rebecca Project for Human Rights for a little over three years after graduate school and before law school. In Georgia, at a policy advocacy training for women, I learned of a women held captive on the property of a drug house where she was sexually abused and raped over the course of weeks, and the perpetrators faced no punishment.

How did you end up on the front lines in South Africa?

DB: At law school I took a trafficking in persons class and read several articles about how mega-events (i.e. Olympics, World Cup, Super Bowl, etc.) increase the number of trafficked persons and incidents of slavery and exploitation. I wanted to help with the efforts and several stellar contacts helped me get my current position at FTTSA.

What kind of work do you do?

DB: I am the legal human rights expert responsible for creating an advocacy strategy surrounding The Child Protection Code of Conduct (The Code) in South Africa... The Code is an instrument of self-regulation and corporate social responsibility, which provides increased protection to children from sexual exploitation in travel and tourism. This commitment requires adherence to six criteria that have been found to effectively prevent and combat commercial sexual exploitation of children. (Read them here.)

Tell us a front-lines story we can share with others to encourage abolition.

Solving Youth Trafficking: Educating "Johns" Curbs Demand (Series Part 4) | Oakland Local

Published on Thursday, May 06, 2010
Last updated on 02:29PM, Thursday, May 6, 2010

Kelly Tyne runs the Johns' School in SF. "Criminalizing the supply side of prostitution is ineffective." Photo by Alison Yin.

by Sarah Terry-Cobo

This is Part 4 of an eight-part, four-day Oakland Local investigative series on youth sex trafficking.

"I admit it: I'm a john."

The image of a john, "someone looking to pay for sex," often evokes the idea of a man in a car, trolling a street at night in a gritty neighborhood. But what most people don't realize is that johns are often just another face in the crowd.

One evening in early February, after a San Francisco panel on human trafficking in the Koret auditorium of the city's main library, an unnamed man confessed his story, disclosing his past to people who likely were strangers...

PREVIOUSLY in this series | NEXT in this series
Complete series index | Take action!

As dozens of people filtered out of the auditorium, the man, who had shaggy salt-and-pepper hair and a bright yellow scarf, lingered at the back of the crowd.

"I admit it, I'm a john," he blurted out to the event organizer and MC.

He described his troubled childhood, living in group homes and being molested as a teenager. The molestation distorted his perspective on sexual relations, he said. Concerned this man might be looking for children to sleep with, the organizer found an FBI agent at the event and introduced him to the man in the yellow scarf.

SAGE School for Johns: Understanding the Demand

In San Francisco, the SAGE Project, or "Standing Against Global Exploitation," provides services to people trying to free themselves from commercial exploitation. It works with survivors of childhood sexual exploitation, and many employees identify as survivors of some type of exploitation. The group runs the First Offenders Prostitution Program, colloquially known as "the Johns' School," to help reduce exploitation.

"SAGE feels that if you make an effort to reduce demand, the need, or supply, will go down. Thereby sparing some individuals from being sucked into the matrix of hell that a life of prostitution looks like," said Kelly Tyne, director of men's services.

Tyne said SAGE employees acknowledge that criminalizing people who are involved in prostitution is counterproductive because it:

* Fails to promote public health
* Perpetuates exploitation
* Validates racism and socio-economic oppression

In particular, criminalization doesn't address what SAGE believes is at the root of the problem. Instead, the group focuses on reaching people who perpetrate the demand: johns, pimps and traffickers.

When Tyne talks about prostitution, he calls it exploitation. Sex is a commodity, and SAGE approaches the solution to sexual exploitation in economic terms. Simply put, if fewer people, "mostly men," purchase sex from exploited people, then fewer people, "mostly women," will sell sex.

Johns learn how they're part of the problem

The SAGE program allows first-time offenders who meet certain requirements to attend a daylong course at San Francisco's Hall of Justice and have their record wiped clean. Those arrested for soliciting sex from a minor are not eligible -- and upon conviction they are listed on the California sex offender registry.

Since SAGE launched the Johns' School in 1995, at least 12,000 individuals have attended the course. Attendees come from all walks of life -- there is no "typical profile" of a john, said Tyne. However, most attendees are men who tried to purchase sex from women.

A 2007 federally funded study showed that 95% of Johns' School graduates were not rearrested for prostitution in California.

"Yes. 95% of the individuals who attend the Johns' School are not rearrested in California for violating state prostitution laws." Tyne paused and emphasized, "It's a big deal."

Many SAGE employees are survivors of sexual exploitation, so they have a personal connection to the harm it inflicts, on individuals as well as communities.

Reducing demand: Not a typical solution

Elsewhere, much of the effort toward preventing the commercial sexual exploitation of children is a response to the crime.

Law enforcement agencies and several social service nonprofits offer basic services to victims, create tougher punishments for traffickers, and work toward regional collaboration among cities and counties. SAGE is the only local organization that directs its efforts to find what drives the demand for commercial sexually exploited people.

"The Johns' School is not about stopping prostitution in San Francisco. It's not," Tyne said with a shrug. "It's about reducing the demand for commercially sexually exploited individuals."

The role of SAGE, as Tyne puts it, is an educational focus on the demand: "Helping johns understand their role in terms of global systems of prostitution and exploitation, and putting money into services for directly affected prostituted individuals."

Many people begin the course feeling they were entrapped, Tyne says. But by the end of the day, they understand how their purchase of pornography is linked to child pornography rings flourishing on the other side of the globe.

Simply put, he said, individuals with power exploit those without it. Many of the clients SAGE works with do not "choose" a life of prostitution -- they are forced or coerced due to a lack of choices.

Representatives from SAGE say education is key to helping demonstrate that prostitution is not a victimless crime.

NEXT in this series: Part 5: Alameda County DA's Office: Crusade to Rescue Youth, Prosecute Pimps...

COMPLETE SERIES INDEX: Youth Trafficking in Oakland

This story was produced under a fellowship sponsored by the
G.W. Williams Center for Independent Journalism, a project of Tides
Center.

We also would like to thank Robert Rosenthal and California Watch for their support -- as well as our reporters Barbara Grady and Sarah Terry-Cobo, and photographer Alison Yin -- for their amazing work.

Support more independent quality reporting like this! Please donate to Oakland Local on Spot.us. We are seeking additional support for continued coverage.

About Sarah Terry-Cobo
Sarah Terry-Cobo's picture
Sarah is a freelance reporter and a 2009 graduate of the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and Latin American Studies programs. She specializes in science and environmental policy issues, but also has a keen interest in immigration and Latin American affairs. Her work has previously appeared in The Oakland Tribune, Forbes.com and GreenBiz.com. She is currently reporting and blogging for Carbon Watch, a joint venture of the Center for Investigative Reporting and Frontline/World. She researched and wrote the stories in Oakland Local's youth trafficking series with the support of a fellowship from the G.W. Williams Center for Independent Journalism.
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Solving Youth Trafficking: Educating "Johns" Curbs Demand (Series Part 4) | Oakland Local

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