Sex Trafficking #3: The Perpetrators

She knew him only as “Fred.” When she went to fill her car up at the local gas station, she would walk inside and pay, occasionally saying thank you to the odd clerk. She had never gotten a bad vibe from him, ever. One night, as she was coming home late from a football game, she and her young daughter walked into the gas station for something to drink. Fred was behind the counter, casually flipping through a magazine. When they walked in, he quickly stood, and fidgeted on his feet. After they paid, when she turned her back, she heard the unmistakable click of a gun. Fred took her and her young daughter to a back room in the gas station, abused them, and after a quick phone conversation, four men came to the station. They loaded them into the back of a truck which contained other scared women and drove off.

While this is only a fictional account of an abduction situation, it is not too far – fetched from some of the stories which sex trafficking victims tell today.

We have now learned about the basics of sex trafficking and the emotional and psychological turmoil of the victims. But what about the sex traffickers themselves? The people behind the operation?

In the trafficking world, sex traffickers are called recruiters. Pimps are the men who handle the daily affairs of controlling the women. A recent U.S. study has indicated that 28% of women admit to their husbands or partners as being their pimps – a staggering, incredibly upsetting number. In my previous article, I mentioned Stockholm syndrome, a term used to describe the occasional feelings of gratitude from victims toward their captors. These “partner-pimps” produce the widest percentage of Stockholm Syndrome in sex trafficking victims – their loved ones are violently sexually, emotionally, and psychologically abusing them and selling them out to other men.

Around 40% of U.S. women and 60% of international women say that organized networks of people were controlling them and manipulating them within the sex trade. Some of these networks were disguised as bars, strip clubs, massage parlors, and even the mafia. Most of these networks usually contain around 1-10 people, with a maximum being around 100. The ethnicity of recruiters is even – half Caucasian and half African – American. Most recruiters are also involved in other kinds of crime, such as fraud, auto theft, robbery, illegal weaponry, and carjacking.

But recruiters and pimps have something going for them  – they are masters of deception. As in the story in the beginning of the article, they can be anyone – gas station clerks, restaurant owners, club bouncers, and real estate agents to name a few. They trick women into trusting them by disguising themselves as good, upright citizens. They have good jobs, families even, but they are also in charge of some of the most insidious operations known to man.

You might be wondering what happens to the recruiters or pimps if they are caught. Sex trafficking is a federally prosecutable crime. Under all current state laws, sex traffickers are sentenced to life in prison without parole if their victims were under the age of 14, or if the sex trafficking resulted in death, kidnapping, or sexual abuse (all ages). Because of the criminal nature of most recruiters and pimps, even if their sentence for sex trafficking was at a minimum of 20 years in prison, other sentences can be stacked on top of it, ensuring that they will never be able to hurt another woman or child again. Re-integration into society hardly plays a role for recruiters and pimps, because they are in most cases sentenced to life behind bars.

As I have already stated in my previous articles, the best way to help our government help victims and eradicate sex trafficking is by spreading the word. Making women more aware of the dangers of sex trafficking will help them by being conscious of their surroundings at all times, and make them less likely to walk into dangerous situations. Sex trafficking is real, and is happening around the world every moment.

Sources:

http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/sex_traff_us.pdf

http://www.freedomnetworkusa.org/trafficking_us/index.php

Jenny Combs

Team 2: Servant Scholars

Alabaster, Alabama

Grade 11

1. 

   Karina L says:

   October 24, 2010 at 10:13 pm

   Very comprehensive article! New story that just came out on CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/10/24/israel.women.trafficking/index.html?hpt=C2

   Someone at my uni posted this on a conference offending at how they were raising awareness about this issue. Do you think it’s offensive or gets the message across?

   reply
   • 

     Jenny Combs says:

     October 25, 2010 at 3:53 am

     I will say that way of raising awareness is “in your face.” But I think that too often people get “offended” when maybe they should be. We should all be offended that the government isn’t doing more and all these women and children are getting raped and beaten every day, even in our own cities, all around us. That’s offensive.

     reply
2. 

   Randy says:

   November 17, 2010 at 1:23 pm

   Nice article, it’s nice to see a young writer and having her articles read by students all around the world. Beautiful girl and you have your life going in the right direction. God Bless

   reply
   • 

     Jenny Combs says:

     November 17, 2010 at 3:15 pm

     Thank you very much for the kind comments! This really is an incredible experience.

     reply

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