Over 18? Click to Enter

Sexually explicit material is protected under the US Constitution. It is also legal to meet up with a stranger met online as long as both of the participants are over 18. It’s also legal for websites to facilitate these meetings. It’s illegal for minors to use these websites but most websites do not have the proper regulations that ensure that minors are not subscribing to these websites. Now some of these websites are being used by human traffickers and their victims to find new “employees” and “clients” and nothing is really being done to stop them.

Most sites have a “click to enter if you’re over 18” and “I am under 18” option that they greet their users with. Other sites require a birthdate to be entered, but with simple math a 14 year old can turn into 21 year old with 1 click.

An Age Verification System (AVS or “Age Gate”) exists which is only used by a select few of these websites. The AVS requires users to enter a credit card number in order to verify their age. While the idea seems like it would work, a few cracks exist in the system that make websites and users weary of using it. Firstly, it’s easy for a child to take a credit card from their parents and secondly, some websites have been known to use this system to gain access to people’s personal information and then commit fraud or to send excessive advertisements to the users. Another system, eGuardian does not require credit cards, but the company passes the information received to their partners who then use the information to advertise unhealthy foods. Parents are then left to decide whether they want to protect their child from potential predators online, or whether they want to protect their child from childhood obesity which can also cause many problems for the child.

Not only are children being exploited through some of these sites, but these sites also serve as a way for pimps to recruit new girls and johns. Craigslist use to feature an adult in which people could post ads for “adult services”. The site was not supposed to support prostitution or human trafficking in any way but a woman who calls herself MC claimed otherwise:

"All day, other girls and I sat with our laptops, posting pictures and answering ads on Craigslist. I am 17 now, and my childhood memories aren't of my family, going to middle school, or dancing at the prom. They are of making my own arrangements on Craigslist to be sold for sex, and answering as many ads as possible for fear of beatings and ice water baths" 

Craigslist has shut down their adult section, but many other sites like craigslist exist. “Backpage.com” operates under the same principle and with one scroll through the site one will find many photographs and price lists. While none of the ads explicitly say that they are offering sexual intercourse for a price, ads like “I Will Make Your Eyes Roll Back And Your Toes Curl!! 80$ SpEcI@L”* almost undoubtedly infer prostitution.

It’s not only adult sites that put children at risk, but also social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. A report done by Rochester Institute of Technology indicates that 11% of 2nd and 3rd graders were asked to disclose private things about their body. The statistics only get higher as the child gets older. Some predators create fake accounts to lure their victims in and some will have their actual name posted and use child grooming to lure the child in.

It’s complicated to implement a policy that doesn’t infringe the freedoms of speech and expression but it was almost done in 1998. In 1998, the Child Online Protection Act was passed. The law was however too loosely worded and also too stressful on other internet users and was later dismissed. The bill was passed which means there is hope. Perhaps if a similar bill were to be developed which had less ambiguities and hassles for other internet users, children could be safer from internet predators.

Lead By Example

The United States wants to be the “power house” of the entire world and with that America must lead by example. That dream isn't completely unreal, but the United States needs to start fixing the problems on our own ground. Child prostitution is alive on the streets of America. It’s a problem that should be addressed immediately by our country, because it will only grow larger if it’s not address soon.

The government has attempted to acknowledge the problem, but things haven’t subsided, as they should. In 2000 the Trafficking Victim Protection Act was passed, but there are still people who find ways around the law. In 2010 there were previsions added to the Act to help American citizens and along with the 10^th anniversary of the Act the United States was finally ranked in the Trafficking in Person Report, or TIPS. This report was made to be guidelines for other countries on how to deal with human trafficking. The ironic part of it is America is the country issuing the report, but was not reported upon till 2010.

One change that would help a great deal of the victims of child prostitution would be to have more educated police officers who know what to do when placed in a situation where children have become victims of sex crimes. The government is very busy all the time dealing with anything and everything, so there have been a handful of organizations that have taken matters into their own hands. A few of them are, Children of the Night, GEMs, Courtney’s House, and many others. Lastly, many victims of child prostitution in the United States have found these organizations and completely turned around their life, one of those amazing people being Carissa Phelps.

There are so many people that could use America’s help who actually live in America, our country needs to take strides to helping those here before we go saving the entire world.

Click to watch video.

photography credit:

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Good Intentions

Westerners such as Zana Briski, a photojournalist, traveled to Calcutta, India to view the lives of prostitutes in the Red Light District. While there, she became friendly with the children of the prostitutes, and introduced them to photography as an outlet from the brothels they were raised in. The problem lies with the fact that Ms. Briski may have exploited the children for her own purposes. She had the children photograph their lives and documented it formally. Surely, the parents were under the assumption that when the documentary won a renowned award the children would share in the glory and wealth. Sadly, this was not the case. There is much controversy surrounding the documentary. I strongly encourage you to take a moment to watch a clip from the documentary that I have provided here. In this clip, children were transported to the schools where Ms. Briski had them enrolled. Also, it shows when one child is given the opportunity to showcase his photography. At the end of clip, it gives information on the students that Ms. Briski “helped” the most. From this we can grasp that families are better off without the intervention of Westerners.



As westerners with ideal lives and hardly any struggles, we have the resources as well as the desire to help others we think aren’t as fortunate. However, our desires can shadow our ability to be practical. Many people who are in bad situations don’t want help from outsiders, and those who are trying to help should know their limits. When considering this phenomenon, the topic of prostitution and a child’s involvement in the trade arises. Typically, arguments focusing on prostitution form a negative aura around it, thus depicting it as taboo. In the instances when children are involved, people are more prone to intervene. Sometimes, actions are taken to keep children away from such distasteful activity. If you stop for a moment and think about the lack of resources available to these people, you will come to realize that this is their only hope for survival. Yes, there are organizations willing to help and schools that can educate the people. However, by looking at the bigger picture we see that those are long term assets. Many of these families live day to day on their earnings and some they don’t see the money they make. By taking their children from them, people are taking sources of revenue also. For many, living in the brothels with their children provides a steady income, food to eat, a sense of security, as well as a roof over their heads. By traveling to these countries, or even trying to help from the comforts of our homes, we are dabbling in issues we have little or no knowledge about.

Victim or Criminal?

Every day, across the globe, children are forced to work without pay as prostitutes. The psychological toll this industry has on these children is detrimental to the child’s sanity. Some children feel attached to their pimps; others find it hard to stay away from prostitution and move forward with their lives. Others reach the point of committing violent crimes.


Sara Kruzan was convicted of killing her pimp, G.G., at the age of sixteen. G.G., who met Sara when she was eleven, used a common tactic of pimps called “grooming;” he gained her trust by acting as a father figure – something Sara never had. By the age of thirteen, G.G. raped and forced her to sleep with other men for profit, while pocketing the money for himself. After three years of prostitution, Sara reached her limit and killed her pimp. When her case was taken to court, the judge tried her as an adult, rather than a juvenile. The end result was life in prison without parole.


Victims of human trafficking and similar situations who commit crimes should not be sentenced to jail time; rather, they should be psychologically evaluated and sent to an appropriate rehabilitation center. In The Psychological Trauma of Modern Day Slavery: Sex Trafficking and its Impact on the Field of Psychology in Thailand, it says “[h]uman trafficking has a tremendous psychological impact on its victims as a result of the manipulation, abuse, and cultural shock experienced when forced to work a less than desirable job…” The psychological damage that takes place is enough to drive some victims to violence, as in Sara’s case. It is evident that Sara has almost rehabilitated herself through her time in jail. She speaks of how she has changed for the better, and that she is now capable of making healthy life choices. It is arguable that had Sara been granted the opportunity to receive psychological help, she probably would have grown from the entire process. Trafficking victims (even those who commit crimes) require and deserve psychological help. Bottom line, a child as young as Sara should have been treated as a victim, not a criminal.

Running Away Into Slavery

Two hundred years ago in this country, the only way for slaves to escape was to run away from the men who would seek to exploit them. Today, most of the girls who are enslaved as prostitutes in the United States are not shipped here from overseas by international sex merchants, but are “home-grown runaway kids” according to Nicholas Kristof in a July 14th article of The New York Times. He claims that of the 100-600 thousand children engaged in prostitution in the United States, many are girls in their early teens who are attempting to escape from a particularly stressful or volatile family situation, such as a mother’s boyfriend making unwanted advances. These rebellious girls, often as young as 13, do not trust police and as they aimlessly wander the streets without any direction other than away from home, are approached by the only type of people on the look-out for such a girl, pimps. These pimps buy the girls dinner, give them shelter in the form of a motel room, tell them they love them, often being their first of many unwanted sexual partners. Then they force the girls at the point of a knife or gun to have sex with multiple men a night, for free because the “boyfriend”, as these pimps refer to themselves, collects all the proceeds. Customers are met either on the street or, increasingly, on the internet and are often unaware that it is against the girls’ wills, but then again would a grown man having sex with a 13 year old prostitute care? Probably not, perhaps along with the Federal Government because as Kristof agrees, sex slavery and human trafficking does receive nearly the amount of attention it should compared with other major crimes due to the fact that the victims, prostitutes, don’t make good “poster children” and are even considered criminals in the eyes of the state. This is wrong because of the three involved parties in these transactions, being the broker (pimp), the product (prostitute) and the consumer ("john"), only two should be punished, the first and the last. The person caught in the middle should be rehabilitated and receive benefits for going through such a terrible experience as Sweden has made efforts to do. We should follow Sweden’s model, adopted in 1999 as well as policies that benefit our system specifically such as improving the domestic situations in the homes that lead to these girls running away,  but especially providing resources for runaway girls to turn use instead of pimps.

Love Gone Wrong

In the United States, the average age of a girl entering into the commercial sex industry is thirteen years old. Many come from places of domestic violence, little money, foster care, and broken homes. Deciding they don't want that type of life, they leave home and find themselves being offered “family” in the form of a pimp. Most of these girls don’t even know what a pimp is, but they see the opportunity to obtain love and comfort – something they have been denied in the past – and they jump for it.

This type of false love is known as Stockholm Syndrome. In this situation, the victim is isolated and stripped completely of their independence, leading them to rely solely on their captor. Regressing back to a state of infancy can occur, where the victim latches on to the nearest influential adult for survival. Many prostitutes start out as children, so the attachment they form to their pimps is understandable when the pimps present themselves as the child’s “daddy.” Once formed, these bonds are hard to break.

So what can be done to keep girls from returning to a life of prostitution? Re-thinking the definition of freedom is a good place to start. Many assume that because a person is free physically, they must also be free mentally, but the truth is that these girls fight a daily struggle to stay within the new lives they are creating for themselves. Taking into consideration the trauma of circumstances this severe, it’s hardly fair to label them as weak if they fall back into prostitution. Lack of money, lack of options, and love for their pimps all play a role in this scenario. Instead of giving the cold shoulder to these victims, rehabilitation programs should be set up in order to monitor the progress of creating happy and healthy lives. GEMS is a great example of how this can be achieved. The GEMS staff offers support to victims of commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking. By using workshops to raise awareness of the issue and providing each girl with tools they need for a better life, GEMS reaches two hundred young women each year. This may only touch the tip of the iceberg, but it is progress. Rehabilitation is crucial if we want to see any type of advancement.