Sex Trafficking

Sex Trafficking Risk Factors among Youths and Children Name Institutional Affiliation Course Name & Number Professor Date Every year, millions of vulnerable children and youth are trafficked for sex worldwide. Sex trafficking refers to the recruitment, hiding, forcing, and coercing of an individual into engaging in sexual acts for profit for traffickers. The 150 billion dollars a year modern-day slavery exploits over twenty-five billion women, men, and children across the globe (Choi, 2015, pp. 66-67). According to ChildX organization, children make up 30% of all victims of trafficking worldwide. In the U.S., one in every six children or youth reported missing are victims of sex trafficking, constituting 20% of all children reported missing (Global trends in child trafficking and sexual exploitation of children, 2023). In addition to being young and not yet fully developed, children and youths are particularly targets of sex traffickers due to their experience with child abuse, online exposure, having intellectual or developmental disabilities, and history in the child welfare system. Child abuse is the primary risk factor for the sex trafficking of children and youths. On estimate, over 700000 children in the United States go through physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, whereby 65% of those trafficked reported experiencing physical abuse, with 50% enduring sexual abuse (Sprang & Cole, 2018, pp. 187-190). Enduring these forms of abuse for a long time results in short-term and long-lived adverse effects that push them to run away from their abusers in search of refuge. Consequently, they meet individuals who offer them false refuge and in turn force them into sex trafficking. Child abuse can also lead to sex trafficking in other ways. The abuse of a child in some cases escalates to sexual abuse by parents or family members. According to Sprang & Cole (2018, pp. 192-195), research on minors who were sex trafficked established that 60% of them were related to their traffickers. Similarly, the study established that 64.5% of the cases the mother was the trafficker, the father was the trafficker in 32.3% of the cases with other family members accounting for 3.2% of the incidents. Thus, the abuse minors experience at home correlates with them being sex trafficked. Online exposure is another risk factor for sex trafficking among youth and children. Internet use has revolutionized the recruitm...