  |
The Women's Freedom Network
Newsletter January/February & March/April 2002, Volume 9, Nos. 1 & 2 WOMEN'S FREEDOM NETWORK NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
Exploitation of Children and Youth by Professor Richard Estes |
I have just completed a project with my colleague at the University of Pennsylvania that deals with the commercial exploitation of children in three countries of the North American Free Trade Agreement area, namely, the United States, Mexico, and Canada.
In terms of the background of the study, most recognize that prostitution, as a social issue in the U.S., is not a new problem. Nor is the issue of pornography or trafficking. They have just come to the fore in recent years and are receiving much more attention than they ever have in the past. These are phenomena that have been with us virtually since the founding of the United States as a republic back in the eighteenth century.
What is clear from the historical record is that sex for money is as American as apple pie. Much of the indentured servitude that took place at the turn of the century, particularly the indentured servitude that involved girls --especially when girls could no longer work in households for whatever reason -- forced those girls into brothels. For example, we found in Philadelphia and in New York records of literally thousands of children who were taken from brothels and put into protective care when they had been forced out of the homes to which they had been imported, primarily for domestic work, but subsequently turned over to the brothels. Historically, it was quite uncommon for boys to be engaged in commercial sexual services, but it still occurred. Men, just outside the traditional confines of the brothel, victimized many boys.
| "What is clear from
the historical record, is that sex for money is as American as apple pie." |
It was directly as a result of this sexual exploitation of children that the child welfare movement received much of its attention during the 1920's and 1930's. It sprung from the desire to remove children from this form of commercial sexual exploitation. The earliest movements, including the Jewish Federation Movement in creating shelters for children, and certainly in the Catholic and Lutheran movements, were to remove children from brothels and put them into various kinds of group living situations, at first institutions and then foster care. Shifting from historical background to my current study, we had a number of goals for this project. First, to determine the nature, extent, and underlying causes of the commercial sexual exploitation of children in each of the region's countries and for the region itself. Second, to identify the extent and the modes of operation of any networks of adult criminals that may be engaged in the commercial sexual exploitation of children. Third, to make a difference in the lives of children.
Our project method involved reviews of published and unpublished literatures, and focus group meetings in specifically targeted cities. Also, we interviewed child victims who were in the care of protective agencies, and adult customers of child sex. These adults were not necessarily pedophiles but really opportunistic exploiters because they would have sex with anyone who was available. We conducted statistical surveys and reached all of the federal agencies, nearly all of the state agencies, and many of the human service agencies directly involved with children and children who were being sexually exploited. We also interviewed most of the lead criminal justice agencies at the local level dealing with children. We had interviews with key policy makers at the state and federal level over the whole 3-year period of the project. We did an extensive analysis of the laws of the three nations represented in the study. Finally, we had informal discussions with law enforcement, human services, and child advocacy agencies.
All together, we targeted 28 cities for special study. Seventeen of these were in the U.S., four in Canada, and seven in Mexico. We completed the research in the United States and Mexico, but have yet to finish a national survey in Canada. Most of the cities are resort communities, tourist centers, or major convention cities. In all of these cities you will find alternative presses that advertise and readily make available a full spectrum of sexual services to people who are away from their primary city of residence.
Our first goal was to determine the nature, extent and underlying causes of commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC). The major forms of child sexual exploitation we encountered are the following. Forty-seven percent of all the child sexual abuse cases that occur in the U.S. are undertaken by adults who are friends of the family, neighbors, or people within the child's network of community relationships. Forty-nine percent of confirmed family members including fathers, brothers, uncles, grandfathers, or older siblings commit child sexual abuse cases. Strangers commit roughly 4% of child molestation cases. Thus, most public service announcements are geared toward the wrong perpetrator. They warn parents and children to be wary of strangers don't let the child get into the car with a stranger, don't accept the piece of candy from the stranger. We should continue to send that message. However, the danger from a statistical point of view, in terms of confirmed cases of sexual abuse, is that 96% of all confirmed cases are by family members and persons known either to the family and/or the child.
| "However, the danger from a statistical point of view, in terms of confirmed cases of sexual abuse, is that 96% of all confirmed cases are by family members and persons known either to the family and/or the child." |
Another major form of child sexual exploitation is pornography. One cannot separate pornography and prostitution. Our experience is that children are very often recruited into prostitution through pornography, which is used to de-sensitize them, from either acting in videos, to gradually taking off their clothes, to gradually allowing themselves to be touched in ways that they should not be touched. The touching then moves to actual sexual behavior that is sometimes photographed or videotaped. From there, it is only one short step into commercial sexual services, including prostitution.
I would like to side-step here for a moment and discuss how children are recruited into prostitution. Their own peers recruit most children into commercial sexual services. This is particularly true for girls who recruit other girls, though we have seen it lots of times for boys. Parents and family members also are very active in the promotion of CSEC, particularly in situations characterized by severe family dysfunction and drug abuse. We have found many situations where mothers put daughters in public housing projects to raise money to support the mother's drug habit. We have seen older siblings, males, who put their sisters on the streets to provide sexual services to enrich either the family economy or the economy of the older sibling. Local pimps, as well as national and international crime organizations, also engage in recruitment. There is a huge amount of money being made in the sexual exploitation of children.
Returning to the nature of CSEC, we found that for boys, a major form of child sexual exploitation is gay sex. Ninety-five percent of the sexual services provided by boys are to men. By definition, it is same-sex sexual services, despite the fact that only a minority of the boys who are involved in CSEC identify themselves as gay or homosexual. Some say they are bisexual, or transgender, but most identify themselves as heterosexual. For these boys the provision of gay sex really represents a particular problem, but it is the way that they can make money.
For girls, nude dancing, stripping, and modeling are very common. Again, it is very often the beginning of prostitution. Pimp-controlled prostitution is the most common practice, particularly among the younger girls. Boys engage in more entrepreneurial pornography and prostitution. Boys, by the time they are age 16 stop defining themselves as prostitutes and instead consider themselves "hustlers." Very often, they will have a client list of their own that they keep in books or on little slips of paper in their wallet with telephone numbers. They carry beepers and have mobile telephones. They are very much working their own business. Yet,
| "For girls, nude dancing, stripping, and modeling are very common. Again, it is very often the beginning of prostitution." |
We have not found many children who are actually kidnapped, held in servitude, and go through the prostitution piece totally on an involuntary basis. There are some of the trafficked children who are brought over in servitude and perform a wide variety of functions, including sexual functions. Servitude and indenturing among the U.S. population of children involved in CSEC is relatively rare, although it does happen. There are some notorious cases that we worked on in Florida within the Haitian and Dominican communities. Children were sent over by poor families from Haiti to be with relatives who were better off in the U.S., only to become domestics in those households and eventually sexual objects for the older male members of the households. It is not at all unusual. There are some really dreadful cases that have emerged in South Florida, Philadelphia and Chicago with respect to this population.
We have also identified various categories of children at risk. The first group of children is what we refer to as sexually exploited children not living in their own homes. These are by and large runaways, throwaways, and homeless youth. Sixty percent of all the children involved in CSEC are children that fall into this category, particularly the runaways and throwaway populations. We also found substantial numbers of sexually exploited children living in their own homes. In the U.S., a large number of children are performing CSEC while living with often single parents. Many of these children are white, middle-class children, and they engage in CSEC not because of survival needs, but in order to do what we call designer sex. They want fancier clothes, more expensive jewelry, and more options that a larger wallet will buy them.
Other at-risk populations include female gang members, transgender youth, and foreign children between the ages of 10 and 17 who are brought into the U.S. legally. They are not smuggled, trafficked or brought in under false pretenses. They are brought in as members of extended families. Sometimes they are sponsored by businesses. A fair number of these children over time become victimized either through sexual exploitation or commercial sexual exploitation. However,
| "We have estimated that the number of children in the U.S. involved with commercial sexual services is about a quarter of a million children annually." |
We have estimated that the number of children in the U.S. involved with commercial sexual services is about a quarter of a million children annually. We cannot pinpoint with great precision exactly where each child is. But all of our data and all of our research through these 17 cities and through our statistical surveys lend credence to that number. We revise the number all the time based on new information as it is made available to us. But there is no question that there are at least 200,000 to 300,000 children who on an annual basis are involved in the service. Many in the advocacy community believe this number is much too low, but we have not been able to document it to be higher.
Lastly, as a part of our first goal, we wanted to look at the underlying causes or factors of CSEC. The first set of findings had to do with the contextual situations that contribute to CSEC. The first contextual factors are pri-marily socio-economic in nature. Children, who live in poor environments, dilapidated housing, or socially and economically depressed environments are at a higher risk of being sexually exploited. The U.S. considers itself to be very progressive with respect to its attitudes toward children and youth. We found just the opposite. Children continue to be regarded as little more than property, and although a lot of effort has been made to protect children and to provide guarantees for meeting their basic needs, a gap remains in that social safety net.
Another contextual factor is social anomie. Anomie is a lack of connectedness on the part of young people with the larger society. Many young people who are homeless, throwaways, or involved in sexual exploitative behavior really spoke to this issue in a very powerful way. They do not feel like they are a part of a larger social fabric. They are disconnected from their own family environments,
| "One of the largest problems that children repeatedly shared with us is the disbelief on the part of adults in positions of authority to accept what the children were saying about their own abuse. Children found that teachers, parents, clergymen, physicians and social workers disbelieved their stories..." |
Another contextual factor is child victims of crime and violence, and societal responses to these crimes. We found that a disproportionate number of the children we encountered had been victims, not just of sexual abuse, but also of other crimes of violence. One of the largest problems that children repeatedly shared with us is the disbelief on the part of adults in positions of authority to accept what the children were saying about their own abuse. Children found that teachers, parents, clergymen, physicians and social workers disbelieved their stories of abuse even though the child had taken every measure possible to try and get some protection and some safe haven from the abuse.
Other contextual factors include the presence of a pre-existing adult prostitution market, groups advocating child sexual relationships, sexual behavior of unattached and transient males, and community knowledge and attitudes toward HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. For example, many adults believe that if they have sex with children the risk of contracting a STD, including HIV, is much lower than with adults.
If you put together a variety of these contextual factors you will see that the risk of child sexual exploitation in a given community increases tremendously. The more of these factors you find in a given community the higher the level of child sexual exploitation.
Next are the social/behavioral factors that help to explain CSEC. These are well covered in the extant literature, particularly around sexual abuse. These factors involve dysfunction, parental drug dependency, and a history of physical and sexual abuse. Forty percent of the girls we encountered and thirty percent of the boys had histories of sexual abuse in their homes before they took to the streets.
There are also many individual or internal factors that contribute to the sexual exploitation of children. Poor self-esteem, external locus of control, and chronic depression are very widespread among these children. In fact, the level of diagnosable mental illnesses among many of these children is profound. The way they deal with having to serve multiple adults a day through sexual services is through drugs.
Another social/behavioral factor we found that contributes to CSEC is severely restricted future orientation. Most of the children we encountered
| "At least 85% of the money generated from these children goes to adults--to pimps, traffickers and to this extraordinary network of adults who surround pimps and traffickers such as hotels, restaurants, and the entertainment industries." |
These are the typical types of commercial sexual exploitation that we have uncovered and can confirm within our own research. Although molestation by acquaintances and family members are not commercial in nature we include them in the exploitation of children.
Our second goal was to identify the extent and the modes of operation of any networks of adult criminals that may be engaged in CSEC. The persons who benefit from this are not children. At least 85% of the money generated from these children goes to adults--to pimps, traffickers and to this extraordinary network of adults who surround pimps and traffickers such as hotels, restaurants, and the entertainment industries.
Our third goal was to make a difference in the lives of the children. A public policy response to each of these groups has to be differentiated because there is no one-size-fits-all solution in dealing with the very complex needs of these distinct populations. Unfortunately, CSEC has very little prominence in terms of the public policy arena, with the sole exception of pornography, particularly Internet crimes involving pornography, which fortunately is receiving a lot of attention. But in terms of juvenile prostitution, we are hard-pressed to find substantial numbers of cases that are being dealt with at either the local or federal levels.
We have a variety of recommendations that have resulted from this research. We are advancing these recommendations very aggressively with people at the local, state and federal level, and even at the international level. Clearly, the first effort has to be to protect the children. We must do everything possible to protect children from adults primarily, but also from older juveniles who prey on them for sexual purposes. The second recommendation is to target the adult perpetrators of these crimes, that is the CSEC crimes against children. The number of arrests and the number of prosecutions of pimps and traffickers who are involved with children is pitifully low given the large number of these adults. There are very few men who are arrested for actually engaging in this activity with children and even fewer who are prosecuted, imprisoned, or otherwise put under whatever the necessary and appropriate controls would be. This is not a study that says we need new legislation, particularly in the criminal area. If we would enforce the existing laws, and if we would make more uniform the penalties associated with the successful prosecution of people arrested for the violation of these laws, this would go a long way toward providing the dis-incentives that are needed.
We have also suggested the need for a national child sexual exploitation intelligence center. This center is very comparable to what currently exists in the area of drug intelligence gathering and dissemination. One of the largest problems that we have encountered is the absence of true intelligence concerning the magnitude of this problem and the shifting base of the problem. Local law enforcement feels that all they can do is deal with the individual trees, they can never deal with the forrest. They do not even know what it looks like. The reason for this is the absence of intelligence at the national level, and we think that this type of center would go a long way toward meeting that need.