Youth At Greater Risk For Being Sex Trafficked If Homeless, LGBTQ, Minority
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Sexual crimes are prevalent domestically and globally, and sex trafficking — people brokering other humans for sex — is no exception. Data suggest about 4.5 million people are currently trafficked, 945,000 of whom are children. Across the U.S., over 40% of cases investigated between 2008 and 2010 involved minors.
The problem is widespread, but research has identified several common risk factors for domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST): age, ethnicity, sexuality and housing status. These risk factors are briefly elucidated here, and guide our recommendations for future research, practice and policy. Trafficking is defined as “recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act.” Further, a commercial sex act is “induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age,” so age is a critical aspect of DMST.
In fact, DMST victims are often young.