Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking: The Disconnect Between Research Findings and Legislation

Background: The Trafficking Victims Protection Act defines any United States citizen or lawful permanent resident under the age of 18 who is involved in commercial sex acts as a domestic minor victim of sex trafficking (DMVST). Following its passage and subsequent reauthorizations, the U.S. has witnessed a proliferation of anti-trafficking legislation at the local level. This presentation will describe the complex factors associated with young people’s involvement in commercial sex and the social connections that channel their actions and decisions. Those findings will then be used to assess whether a recent piece of legislation, Proposition 35, the Californians Against Sexual Exploitation (CASE) Act, adequately responds to the needs of this population.

Methods: Over an 18 month period, case managers from three programs that work with DMVST provided case history narratives about their clients. Case managers purposively selected 5 young people per each site visit to profile. At subsequent site visits updates were collected about individuals for whom a narrative already existed. Qualitative analysis was guided by life course and grounded theory.

Results: Fourty-five unique case history narratives were collected (15 from each program). Factors that influenced initiation of commercial sex included fulfilling emotional needs, neglect, a continuation of familial abuse, experiencing overt force, sensation seeking, sexual and gender affirmation, and homelessness. The majority of the young people had a third party involved in their experiences. Not all of these relationships were abusive and it was rare for youth to refer to these people as pimps or traffickers. The CASE Act increases the penalties and fines associated with child sex trafficking. It mandates sex offender registry for people convicted of sex trafficking, and requires police officers to receive a two-hour training about human trafficking.

Conclusions: The CASE Act leaves unchanged California’s prostitution criminal codes. At the federal level these young people are considered victims, but at the local level they are still arrested and treated like criminals. The Act does not address the root factors that contribute to young people’s involvement in commercial sex. Instead it guided by the philosophy that if punishments are severe enough, people will stop engaging in the prohibited behavior. Such rational approaches to deviance have limited validity and have been shown ineffective when used to address other social issues. The Act focuses on prosecutorial efforts, leaving the human rights and needs of survivors unaddressed and deprioritized. Furthermore young people face being convicted as co-conspirators of their trafficking, which brings lifetime sex offender registry. Such convictions severely limits the social support available for them and increases their vulnerability to future trafficking experiences. Trainings are only as good as their content. In its current form, the mandated training only focuses on how to interact with cisgender women who are being exploited by a third party. This leaves law enforcement officials ill-prepared to appropriately respond the diversity of young people involved in commercial sex. Ultimately, the CASE Act does not address the social and structural factors that create, reinforce, and reproduce risk among young people involved in commercial sex.