Sex Trafficking in the United States: Theory, Research, Policy, and Practice

By Andrea J. Nichols

Sex Trafficking in the United States is a unique exploration of the underlying dynamics of sex trafficking, this comprehensive volume examines the common risk factors for those who become victims, and the barriers they face when they try to leave. It also looks at how and why sex traffickers enter the industry. A chapter on buyers presents what we know about their motivations, the prevalence of bought sex, and criminal justice policies that target them. More than a straightforward introduction, Sex Trafficking in the United States describes how the justice system, activists, and individuals can engage in advocating for victims of sex trafficking. It also offers recommendations for practice and policy and suggestions for cultural change.

Andrea J. Nichols approaches sex-trafficking-related theories, research, policies, and practice from neoliberal, abolitionist, feminist, criminological, and sociological perspectives. She confronts competing views of the relationship between pornography, prostitution, and sex trafficking, as well as the contribution of weak social institutions and safety nets to the spread of sex trafficking. She also explores the link between identity-based oppression, societal marginalization, and the risk of victimization. She clearly accounts for the role of race, ethnicity, immigrant status, LGBTQ identities, age, sex, and intellectual disability in heightening the risk of trafficking and how social services and the criminal justice and healthcare systems can best respond. This textbook is essential for understanding the mechanics of a pervasive industry and curbing its spread among at-risk populations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Release date: Sep 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9780231542364

Book preview

Part I

Contemporary Debates of Theory, Research, and Policy

[1]

Sex Trafficking

An Introduction

In 2012 Larry Stinson was found guilty of trafficking three women on the website Kansas City Escort. Police uncovered the case in a sting operation by searching through suspicious ads posted on the website. One of the trafficked women reported to law enforcement that she first met Stinson on Facebook and soon formed an intimate relationship with him. Within weeks of their newly formed relationship, Stinson said that he would provide her with food, clothing, and shelter if she worked for him selling sex. She indicated that soon after Stinson attempted to strike this bargain, she was forced to sell sex while Stinson kept her earnings, beat her when she tried to run away, and was physically abusive to her and the other young women under his control. She reported that he psychologically intimidated her as well by routinely displaying firearms, and stated that Stinson even beat one of the other women into unconsciousness. Upon further investigation it was found that Stinson had recruited multiple women into his prostitution ring through Facebook. Another woman had known Stinson in high school and came into contact with him on Facebook, where she disclosed that she was in serious financial straits. Stinson told her that he knew of a job opportunity where she could make a lot of money quickly. She agreed to meet with him and was soon exploited, as he confiscated the money he initially enticed her with. As the investigation of Stinson progressed, yet another woman was found to be under Stinson’s control. She was first involved in a romantic relationship with Stinson and then began selling sex for him. At first she split her earnings with him, but the business arrangement quickly turned coercive. She reported that she was forced to sell sex even when she complained of pain, and that he held a gun to her head when she tried to run away. She described being beaten, taken across state lines, and coerced into recruiting others on Facebook for Stinson’s prostitution ring. He said his goal was to have the entire front page of an escort section of a webpage with ‘his girls.’¹ Stinson pled guilty to a federal sex trafficking charge and was sentenced to 120 months in federal prison.

Cases like this are all too familiar to social service providers across the United States, including those who work with sex trafficking survivors, commercially sexually exploited youth, or sex workers seeking assistance. Such cases are also becoming more familiar to the public. In recent years sex trafficking has gained visibility in the United States through increased media coverage, political support, legislative accomplishments, expansion of social services for sex trafficking survivors, and the increased number of community antitrafficking activist organizations. Sex trafficking is not a new phenomenon, but the process of redefining sex trafficking through key legislation has helped bring this problem to heightened public and political attention.

Defining Sex Trafficking: Key Legislation

According to the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, commonly referred to as the Palermo Protocol, Article 3, paragraph (a), trafficking is defined as

the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.

(United Nations 2004, 42)

The Palermo Protocol was first developed in 2000, in part due to renewed interest in combating violence against women in the international arena and in part based on efforts to address organized crime. Sex trafficking, as a form of both organized crime and violence against women, is included within the UN definition of human trafficking. The definition maintains a wide scope in its use of general and neutral language, conceptualizing human trafficking as inclusive of male, female, adult, or child trafficking victims, among others. This definition also includes a variety of forms of trafficking as well, such as sex trafficking, labor trafficking, servitude, and organ trafficking. The United States and Argentina were largely responsible for drafting the protocol, which became voluntary international law in 2000 (Stolz 2005). Rather than a law or set of laws that all nations are required to adhere to, voluntary international law lays the foundation for nations to develop their own laws. Accordingly, following the debut of the Palermo Protocol, various nations then partnered as signatories, and many ratified this legislation and drafted their own national legislation.

Drawing from the Palermo Protocol, the United States developed federal legislation, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), the same year. According to the TVPA, a severe form of trafficking is currently defined as

a) A commercial sex act induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age; or

b) the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery. ²

The TVPA largely aimed to address both labor and sex trafficking in the United States. Section 8a primarily addresses sex trafficking, whereas section 8b is mainly used to address labor trafficking. Like the Palermo Protocol, the definition of trafficking is intentionally broad in outlining who could be considered a potential victim. Sex trafficked people in the United States can be noncitizens or U.S. citizens, adults or minors, women or men, boys or girls, or those of any gender identity. However, the bulk of the research suggests that the majority of sex trafficked people identified in the United States are women and girls, and are U.S. citizens (Farrell et al. 2012; Hepburn and Simon 2013; Martin et al. 2014; Raphael, Reichert, and Powers 2010; Reid 2011; Smith, Vardaman, and Snow 2009). While prostitution of minors and sexual exploitation of adults through coercive means has existed throughout history, the TVPA redefined them as sex trafficking. This new definition indicates that the United States views sexual commerce under these circumstances as crimes and takes them seriously. The TVPA is U.S. federal legislation, yet the definition that it provides is interpreted and implemented differently in various sites. Every state has now criminalized trafficking and created its own sex trafficking laws and policing protocols; however, the majority of sex trafficking cases are referred to federal prosecutors and are investigated and prosecuted on a federal level (Clawson, Dutch, and Cummings 2006; Clawson et al. 2008; Farrell et al. 2012). International, federal, and state antitrafficking legislation as well as prosecution, sentencing, and law enforcement are discussed in depth in chapter 9.

Defining Sex Trafficking: Common Misconceptions

Smuggling, Migration, and Sex Trafficking

Despite the fifteen-year-old legal definition provided in the TVPA, there remain some common misconceptions about the way sex trafficking is defined by researchers, law enforcement, social service providers, and the general public. First, one common misconception is that sex trafficking, smuggling, and migration for the purposes of sex work are synonymous. Sex trafficking is distinct from both smuggling and migration. Sex trafficking is by law viewed as a crime against an individual in which a commercial sex act is prompted through the use of force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the individual involved in the sex act is a minor. In terms of consent, there is either coerced consent or no consent to commercial sex acts or, if the survivor is a minor, the individual cannot legally consent to sex acts. Sex trafficked persons, under federal law, are labeled as victims.

In contrast, smuggling is legally viewed as a crime against the United States. Smuggling can be defined as the facilitated illegal entry of an individual from one country into another. Essentially, smuggling is an unauthorized border crossing. In terms of consent, there is no coercion in a smuggling case; the individual willingly consented to illegally enter the country with the assistance of the smuggler and so is not a victim in the eyes of the law. While smuggling is distinct from trafficking, it is important to note that a smuggling situation can develop into a sex trafficking situation. Accordingly, there is some overlap between smuggling and trafficking cases in such circumstances. For example, individuals may agree to be smuggled into another country because they are seeking a better life and expecting to gain employment in domestic work, nail salons, restaurants, bars, agricultural labor, or massage parlors but may then experience subsequent exploitation through forced or coerced commercial sex acts.

Migration is also distinct from smuggling and trafficking. Migration simply refers to movement from one region to another. Migration can be legal and voluntary, or illegal and voluntary (smuggling), or illegal and involuntary (such as in a trafficking situation). A majority of trafficking survivors in the United States who are originally from other nations first migrate to the United States legally with work visas, often with false promises of legitimate employment, and are exploited after their arrival (Hepburn and Simon 2013). For example, Alex Cowboy Campbell was convicted of trafficking four women from Belarus and Ukraine who legally entered the United States but did not yet have legal status as U.S. citizens.³ Campbell recruited the women to work in his spa in Mount Prospect, Illinois, and they were subsequently forced into Campbell’s sex trafficking ring. Campbell used bait and switch tactics—prosecutors contend that Campbell recruited the women with massage parlor jobs and offered them a place to live and assistance with the immigration process. Campbell then confiscated their passports, immigration papers, and other identification documents, regularly beat and raped them, forced them into the commercial sex industry, and kept most of their earnings. He was found to have victimized twenty other women under similar circumstances. Campbell is perhaps best known for being one of the few traffickers to receive a life sentence. According to the judge, this stringent sentence was delivered largely because Campbell branded the trafficked women with tattoos that marked their obedience to him.

Sex trafficked people originating from outside of the United States may more frequently come from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, and other neighboring middle-income and low-income nations as well as Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe (Heil 2012; Smith, Vardaman, and Snow 2009; U.S. Department of State 2014). They seek better job opportunities in wealthier nations, like the United States, as willing migrants or as those who are voluntarily smuggled into the country but may then find themselves involved in a sex trafficking situation. Or survivors may be trafficked first within another nation, and then retrafficked into the United States (Kara 2010). According to Interpol, victims are trafficked internationally into the United States by plane, boat, or unidentified means. Interpol reported evidence in the early 2000s that some survivors traveled first to South Africa, acquired false identification documents, and then entered into the United States through international airports. Interpol also reported that individuals have been trafficked into the United States by ships crossing the Pacific Ocean to the United States. Canadian authorities found cargo vessels trafficking victims from Southeast Asia who attempted to enter the United States by way of Vancouver, British Columbia (Richard 2000). There is recent evidence of Somali women and Vietnamese women and children who have been trafficked through the Canadian border into Minnesota.⁴ Primary countries of origin reported by the U.S. Department of State in 2010 were the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, India, Mexico, the Philippines, and Thailand, although this data does not differentiate between labor and sex trafficking. The U.S. Department of State (2014) reported that those who were internationally trafficked in 2013 most frequently came from Mexico, the Philippines, Thailand, India, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. The U.S. Department of State (2012) reported that people trafficked internationally are arriving from Central or South America and are entering the United States through the Mexican border.⁵ Yet the concept of sex trafficked people as only those from other countries trafficked into the United States is problematic because it ignores the fact that sex trafficked persons can also be, and more frequently are, U.S. citizens.⁶

Importantly, crossing national boundaries or state lines is a not necessary criterion for a situation to be labeled as sex trafficking. Research shows that U.S. citizens compose the majority of sex trafficked people in the United States (Farrell et al. 2012; Martin et al. 2014; Polaris Project 2014a; Smith, Vardaman, and Snow 2009; U.S. Department of State 2014).⁷ In reviewing prosecuted cases of sex trafficking across the districts with the highest prosecution rates, Amy Farrell and colleagues (2012) found 81% of sex trafficking survivors were U.S. citizens. Similarly, the Polaris Project found in an analysis of sex trafficking cases from 2007 to 2012 that traffickers were most frequently male U.S. citizens working as pimps with young adult and minor females, and 60% of sex trafficking cases involved U.S. citizens (Polaris Project 2013). Smuggling involves transportation, and trafficking involves exploitation based upon the use of force, fraud, coercion, or situations involving minors (Hepburn and Simon 2013). Sex trafficking is not only an issue of nationality, and movement is not required. Trafficking of U.S. citizens is referred to as domestic trafficking. In cases involving minors, the term domestic minor sex trafficking, or DMST, is commonly used.

Physical Restraint

A second common misconception of sex trafficking is that sex trafficking victims must experience physical restraint. While restricted physical movement may be present, it is not a necessary criterion. Most sex trafficked people do have freedom of physical movement. Their bondage to their trafficker most often involves psychological abuses, exploitation of vulnerability, and other elements of coercive control, as discussed in depth in chapter 5. The international and national discourse on sex trafficking often uses the terminology of modern-day slavery, and awareness campaigns will frequently include images of women and girls in chains. While the chains are largely intended to be symbolic, and while there are cases that do involve chains or other forms of physical restraint, these images invoke physical restraint as typical in sex trafficking cases (Heil and Nichols 2015; Hoyle, Bosworth, and Dempsey 2011). For example, the well-publicized case of Ariel Castro involved the kidnapping and routine rape of three young women who were held captive in Castro’s home in Ohio for more than a decade and were often physically restrained. This is a case that could be framed as sex trafficking because it meets the criteria of section 103b of the TVPA—the individuals were obtained for sexual services through the use of force and coercion and for the purpose of involuntary subjection to involuntary sexual servitude or sexual slavery. Yet the majority of sex trafficked individuals are not physically restrained (Heil and Nichols 2015; Hoyle, Bosworth, and Dempsey 2011). Even in the Castro case, the women were not under physical restraint at all times; rather, it was the fear of physical violence and elements of coercive control that kept these women captive for so long.

In more typical cases of sex trafficking in the United States, sex trafficked girls are psychologically attached to their traffickers through intimate relationships (Lloyd 2012; Heil and Nichols 2015; Martin et al. 2014; Polaris Project 2014a; Smith, Vardaman, and Snow 2009).⁸ In such cases, this emotional bond is the intended result of a pimp’s initial professions of love and affection. Pimps first pose as a boyfriend to gain the trust and love of usually younger girls and then talk the girls into selling sex for them. Jody Raphael and Brenda Myers-Powell (2010) found in their study of trafficked women and girls in Chicago that the majority were pimped by such boyfriends, and forced or coerced prostitution was one element of abuse among a variety of physical and psychological abuses. In addition, Joan A. Reid (2010) stated that trafficked girls maintain trauma bonds with their traffickers, and it is primarily this psychological bond that keeps girls attached to their pimps. In other cases psychological controls go beyond the coercive control typical in cases of co-occurring intimate partner violence and sex trafficking. In a case in Florida, a girl from Guatemala was kept captive not by locks and chains but by her cultural and religious belief that her trafficker owned her soul, as he possessed a necklace with a lock of her hair encapsulated in it (Heil 2012). Another common type of sex trafficking is survival sex, in which a minor is engaged in the commercial sex industry due to lack of choices and a need for survival—physical restraints are not present. Accordingly, while some survivors of sex trafficking do experience physical restraint, it is not typical nor is it a requirement for classification as sex trafficking.

Prostitution and Choice

A third misconception of sex trafficking is that if minors choose involvement in the commercial sex industry, they are consequently not considered sex trafficking victims. Under the United States TVPA, all minors involved in any form of commercial sex are considered victims, as an individual under the age of 18 cannot legally consent to sex acts. Anyone who purchases sex acts involving a minor is engaging in statutory rape and, in some jurisdictions, may also be viewed as a sex trafficker. Similarly, any individual who pimps a minor is legally considered a sex trafficker. Minors, according to the TVPA, are automatically considered victims of a crime whether they agreed to a commercial sex act or not. By definition, a commercial sex act includes things other than prostitution, including stripping, pornography, escort, and other sexual services that may not involve sexual intercourse (Heil and Nichols 2015; Hepburn and Simon 2013; Kotrla 2010). As discussed in detail in chapter 9, while the federal law appears to protect minors, in some states minors are still considered criminals for engaging in commercial sex due to state laws or the way sex trafficking laws may be misinterpreted or improperly enforced (Boxill and Richardson 2007; Farrell et al. 2012; Kalergis 2009; Lloyd 2012; Nichols and Heil, 2014).

In addition, adults can also be sex trafficked, yet adults engaged in commercial sex are often labeled as willing sex workers out of the perception that adults choose to sell sex (Heil 2012). While some adult women and men choose sex work as an occupation, others are sex trafficked (Dempsey 2011; Weitzer 2010). In any case, when an adult engages in a commercial sex act involving force, fraud, or coercion, the situation fits the legal definition of sex trafficking.

Sex Trafficking Prevalence

The prevalence of sex trafficking in the United States remains unclear and is the subject of heated debate. Research examining sex trafficking prevalence largely draws from cases reported to or uncovered by law enforcement, prosecuted cases, and reports from social service agencies (Banks and Kyckelhahn 2011; Clawson, Dutch, and Cummings 2006; Clawson et al. 2008; Farrell et al. 2012). In terms of reported cases, about 1,000 survivors a year are officially detected and recognized in the United States justice system. The Department of Justice reported that 2,515 suspected incidents of human trafficking were investigated between January 2008 and June 2010, of which 80% were identified as sex trafficking cases (Banks and Kyckelhahn 2011). Similarly, between 2007 and 2008 the Human Trafficking Reporting System indicated 1,020 cases of sex trafficking in the United States (Kyckelhahn et al. 2009). Likewise, in 2009 the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) showed 986 reported cases of trafficking, and about 60% of these were sex trafficking cases. In 2014 the NHTRC and BeFree Textline, both national hotlines monitored by the Polaris Project, reported 1,611 potential sex trafficking situations and 292 direct calls from survivors.

In terms of prosecuted cases, in 2000, a year following TVPA, only four cases of human trafficking were federally prosecuted. This was expected, as the legislation had just been introduced, and the new definition of sex trafficking resulted in a new charge. Such cases had previously been prosecuted under other charges, and the low number suggests prosecutors continued to charge sex trafficking as other crimes, such as rape, pimping, pandering, enticement of a minor into prostitution, child pornography, or, infrequently, under the Mann Act. However, over time federal prosecutors began using the sex trafficking charge under the TVPA. In 2005, 35 sex trafficking cases were federally prosecuted (Clawson et al. 2008). In 2010 there were 71 successfully prosecuted sex trafficking cases (Hepburn and Simon 2013). In 2011 the Department of Justice reported a total of 105 prosecuted sex trafficking cases. Farrell and colleagues (2012) maintained that in 2012 federal prosecutors prosecuted 162 defendants in sex trafficking cases. Most recently the U.S. Department of State (2014) reported initiating 161 trafficking cases with 222 defendants engaged in sex trafficking, securing 113 sex trafficking convictions. These figures represent federal prosecutions, but sex trafficking can also be prosecuted on a state level.

Importantly, in the recent past, states did not have to report state sex trafficking convictions to the federal government. State sex trafficking convictions were first reported in 2013 under stipulations of the 2008 TVPA reauthorization act, but the hard data is not yet available. Researchers report that state-level prosecutions are relatively low but rising (Farrell et al. 2012). Like federal prosecutors in the time immediately following the TVPA, state prosecutors continue to prosecute sex trafficking cases as other crimes that they are more familiar with prosecuting, such as rape, conspiracy to prostitute a minor, or enticement of a child into prostitution (Clawson et al. 2008; Farrell et al. 2012). Farrell and colleagues noted that in 2011 the number of convictions under state-trafficking laws was in the dozens, at least as reported to the federal government. By 2014 this number was in the hundreds, indicating increased development and use of state law (U.S. Department of State 2014).

In sum, with shifts in legislation and the way sex trafficking is defined, more cases are coming forward for prosecution (Hopper 2004).⁹ However, estimating sex trafficking prevalence based on prosecuted cases is problematic, and prosecution rates remain low for a variety of reasons. In particular, researchers note that many cases are not prosecuted or are prosecuted as other crimes. Prosecutors will prosecute a case under a charge that they feel they can win (Clawson et al. 2008; Farrell et al. 2012; Nichols and Heil 2014). If a federal prosecutor believes the case will be difficult to win, the case is then kicked back to the state level and will likely be prosecuted as another crime. Prosecutors are reluctant to take cases in which there is insufficient evidence or when the survivor does not want to testify (Farrell et al. 2012; Nichols and Heil 2014).

Further, sex trafficking is often unreported, misreported, or is simply not identified. A wide body of research reveals the many barriers and challenges to identifying and reporting sex trafficking cases (Goodey 2008; Heil 2012; Kara 2010; Kotrla 2010; Nichols and Heil 2014). Traffickers take great measures to assure nondetection through the use of hidden venues or venues within insular communities (Nichols and Heil 2014). They use interstate circuits and constant movement paired with psychological and physical abuse of their victims (Nichols and Heil 2014; Smith, Vardaman, and Snow 2009; Williamson and Prior 2009). Police may misidentify and misreport the crime as prostitution, a sex offense, domestic violence, or illegal immigration (Heil 2012; Hopper 2004; Nichols and Heil 2014; Raphael and Myers-Powell 2010). Survivors may not want to report their victimization. Sex trafficked people from other countries may fear deportation and law enforcement in a foreign country and may also fear their own arrest for undocumented immigration or involvement in a crime (Heil 2012; Hopper 2004). Domestically and internationally trafficked people may fear traffickers’ reprisals—they or their family members may be threatened with violence. Domestically trafficked women and girls, in particular, may not want to report their victimization because of trauma bonds and love for their trafficker (Lloyd 2012; Reid 2010). Moreover, domestically trafficked survivors may have a history of negative interactions with law enforcement or a record of prostitution. They may consequently fear arrest and charges of prostitution and so avoid contact with the justice system. In sum, due to underreporting, underprosecution, and underdetection of sex trafficking, its prevalence remains difficult to estimate (Farrell et al. 2012; Goodey 2008; Hepburn and Simon 2010; Hopper 2004; Kotrla 2010; Reid 2010).

As a result, researchers have attempted to estimate sex trafficking prevalence while considering barriers to identification, prosecution, and reporting. The U.S. Department of State estimated there were 15,000–18,000 sex trafficking victims in 2012. Yet the Central Intelligence Agency estimates 50,000 victims are trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation in the United States annually (Hepburn and Simon 2013). Average estimates from social service providers suggest 100,000–300,000 each year (Polaris Project 2014b).¹⁰ According to End Child Prostitution Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT), as many as 300,000 children may be at risk of sexual exploitation in the United States annually. Some government reports and advocacy organizations offer no explanation of how such estimates were conceived. In other instances researchers have drawn estimates from economic modeling, meta-analysis, regionally based estimates, or surveys of police, prosecutors, and victim service providers (Estes and Weiner 2001; Curtis et al. 2008; Farrell et al. 2010; Martin et al. 2014). The consensus among experts is that a valid estimate is impossible to attain due to the methodological challenges associated with identifying a hidden and vulnerable population, lack of accurate reporting, and lack of knowledge among survey respondents, such as police, in studies examining sex trafficking (Curtis et al. 2008; Nichols and Heil 2014).

One could form a conservative estimate by using data from social service provider organizations. In a study of Kansas City, reports from social services provider Veronica’s Voice identified 140 child sex trafficking survivors that the organization served between 2000 and 2009 (Wade 2008). This averages out to 15.5 DMST survivors a year. At an extremely conservative estimate of child sex trafficking, one could multiply 15.5 by the number of major U.S. cities (which would not include small cities or rural areas—large tracts of geographic territory). At the time of this writing, there were thirty-eight cities with populations over a quarter million. This averages out to 589 child sex trafficking victims a year in an admittedly unreliably low estimate, as it does not account for the likelihood of higher rates of sex trafficking in cities larger than Kansas City, nor does it include cities smaller than 250,000. This number also only includes child victims. Trafficking of adults is harder to estimate because their exposure to force, fraud, or coercion is often unknown, but minors’ victimization is inherent in the definition of the TVPA. Yet this number could easily be doubled, as identified adult survivors compose 55% of sex trafficking survivors (U.S. Department of State, 2013). Also note that this is just one organization in one city. For perspective, an organization in Nevada, WestCare Nevada, reported providing services to 400 child sex trafficking survivors in 2007 (Kennedy and Pucci 2007). Multiplying this number by the number of major cities yields an estimate of 15,200 child sex trafficking survivors, similar to the estimate currently claimed by the U.S. Department of State. Yet there are currently thirty cities with populations even larger than Las Vegas. Also, note this estimate only includes child survivors and is only based on identified cases reported to one organization in the city. Consequently, estimates of sex trafficking that account for adults, unreported cases, cases reported to other organizations, cities with populations under a quarter million, and potentially larger numbers of trafficking victims in larger cities would be inarguably, definitively higher. Such estimates indicate that the Department of State estimate of 15,000 a year is conservative. The prevalence of sex trafficking remains unclear, and any estimate should be regarded with caution. The growth rate is difficult to measure as well.

The growth rate of sex trafficking in the United States is unknown, with some researchers indicating that the growth rate is relatively flat in North America more generally (Kara 2010, 17), while others suggest it is a rapidly increasing crime. Those who argue that the growth rate is flat typically use the number of recently reported or prosecuted cases to draw such conclusions. Analyzing growth based on the number of reported or prosecuted cases is problematic because there are a number of factors that influence prosecution and reporting rates, as previously discussed. Still other researchers point to the increased number of hotline calls as an indicator of sex trafficking as a growing crime. The NHTRC reported a 259% increase in hotline calls between 2008 and 2012. Some of these calls are unrelated to reporting cases or accessing services, such as individuals requesting information about human trafficking. Yet social service providers also report growing demand for services (Polaris Project 2014b). These factors may be an artifact of growing awareness and better identification of sex trafficking or could indeed represent sex trafficking as an increasingly occurring crime.

In sum, it is difficult to estimate both the number of sex trafficking survivors and the relative growth of the problem. However, multiple studies show that social service providers, police, and prosecutors report the number of sex trafficked people in need of services, particularly safe shelter, exceeds the number of available services (Clawson et al. 2008; Farrell et al. 2012). As Linda Smith, Samantha Healy Vardaman, and Melissa A. Snow (2009, 11) state, based on a study of DMST in ten U.S. cities, the numbers demonstrate with certainty that domestic minor sex trafficking is occurring and in sufficiently sizable numbers to merit the public’s and the community leadership’s prioritization in fighting the crime of domestic minor sex trafficking. The importance of establishing prevalence is largely based upon whether the number of victims/survivors justifies available funding streams. The prevalence of intimate partner violence was unknown at the beginnings of the 1970s battered women’s movement because it was also a hidden problem relegated to the private sphere (Nichols 2014a). Similar to sex trafficking, the demand for services exceeded the availability. Because of the high demand for services, increased funding streams expanded the availability of services, moving from a handful of shelters in the 1970s to more than 800 in the 1980s (Nichols 2014a). Ostensibly, if it is known that the demand for services far exceeds the availability of services, this should serve as a baseline justification for funding and expanding services available to sex trafficked and commercially sexually exploited people (Heil and Nichols 2015).

Supply, Demand, and Profitability

Some researchers contend that market forces guide sex trafficking prevalence (Hughes 2007; Kara 2010; Smith, Vardaman, and Snow 2009) and that the roots of sex trafficking can be understood in economic terms of supply, demand, and profitability (Kara 2010; Kotrla 2010; Smith, Vardaman, and Snow 2009). Traffickers are motivated by profits, and consumers are motivated by demand for prostitution. Many researchers argue that sex trafficking would not exist without demand (Ekberg 2004; Hughes 2007; Kara 2010; Kotrla 2010; Smith, Vardaman, and Snow 2009; Martin et al. 2014). About 10–20% of men in the United States have purchased sex in their lifetime, indicating a demand for prostitution (Shively et al. 2012). Traffickers work to recruit or otherwise coerce survivors into the trade (supply) and then profit by the exchange. The United Nations estimates sex trafficking to be a $15 billion a year business globally. One researcher maintains that sex trafficking yields a 70% net profit on average (Kara 2010). Compared to illegal drugs and arms trafficking, sex trafficking is considered more profitable: sex trafficking produces continuous profits (sex trafficked people can repeatedly sell sex, or be sold and resold, both to clients and other traffickers), whereas arms and drugs are sold and profited from in a single transaction. Additionally, there is less risk involved. A federal prosecutor who took part in an interview-based research study stated, One of the pimps said he got out of drugs and into prostitution because you could make more money and wouldn’t get as much time in jail (Busch-Armendariz, Nsonwu, and Heffron 2009, 8). Researchers report that serious barriers to identification and prosecution produce a system with relatively little risk for traffickers, despite relatively stringent punishments (Farrell et al. 2012; Heil and Nichols 2014; Hepburn and Simon 2013). Sex traffickers can receive life sentences in particularly heinous cases, and a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years can be received for trafficking a minor, 15 years if the child is under the age of 14 (Hepburn and Simon 2013). Yet traffickers take great measures to avoid detection (see chapter 7). For example, to ensure that a transaction cannot be traced to them directly, traffickers coerce survivors into reserving hotel rooms in the survivor’s name and on her credit card, and survivors often post their own online ads or ads for the other girls (Farrell et al. 2012; Heil and Nichols 2014). In addition, as discussed previously, such cases are also often reported, charged, and prosecuted as other crimes with a lower sentence.

Trafficking does not entail a regular or predicted salary; a trafficker’s annual income depends on the number of survivors engaged in the trafficking enterprise, what their quota is—if they have a quota, and even the operation’s location within the United States. The Polaris Project (2014a), a Washington, D.C.–based nonprofit working with survivors of human trafficking conducted an analysis of quotas based on direct client accounts and reported a range of $500–$1,500 per night. One teenage girl was forced to meet quotas of $500/night, seven days a week, and forced to give the money to her trafficker each night. This particular pimp also controlled three other women. Based on these numbers, Polaris Project estimates that "the pimp made $632,000