Imagine watching a young girl seductively strutting the streets of downtown Long Beach. Her ruby red stilettos are half a size too big, making her sway and wobble with every step. She finger-waves and smirks at the men driving by. A man in the shadows watches the girl. He approaches her. The pair evidently know each other, but he is clearly not her father. They get in a heated argument. You feel you should intervene but talk yourself out of it; it’s not your place. You send wishes and prayers that the girl will be okay.
In 2014, the state of California reported almost a thousand cases of sex trafficking, according to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center. Approximately 65 percent of these cases started with a stranger’s phone call reporting suspicious illegal sexual activity. These strangers didn’t just wish that the exploited girls would be okay — they did something, or said something. They did not just look away.
“This isn’t just a criminal issue, it’s a cultural issue,” said Guido Hajenius, Los Angeles regional hub coordinator for iEmpathize, a leading company fighting to eradicate child sex trafficking. “Because this is a cultural problem, there needs to be a cultural solution, and it involves everyone to see it as their responsibility. You have a role.”
Sex trafficking is often thought of as a third-world problem, but exploitation is in our backyard. There are roughly one million sexually exploited victims in America, including 300,000 minors, according to Sowers Education Group, a collection of people who give presentations all over California about sex trafficking.
Human trafficking is the second largest criminal enterprise, behind drugs, and the fastest growing, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
An extensive international border, major harbors and airports and an accelerating population create a powerful market for sexual business here in California. According to the California Alliance to Combat Trafficking and Slavery Task Force, the state is a top destination for human traffickers.
So how do children living in Long Beach, Los Angeles and other major California cities become victims?
Typically traffickers, or pimps, target vulnerable youth and lure them into sex trafficking by using physical and psychological manipulation, often resorting to violence, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Children within the child welfare system are particularly vulnerable to traffickers, who target and take advantage of the emotional and physical needs of the children. In 2012, one in every six runaways were likely to become sex trafficking victims, and 68 percent of those runaways were in the care of social services or foster care at the time, according to the NCMEC.
The most common method used to recruit victims is through “Romeo pimping,” where a pimp uses psychological manipulation as the primary means of control, according to iEmpathize. The pimps come into the lives of the vulnerable children through social media and in-person places like school and the mall. Exploiters get to know a youth’s vulnerabilities in order to become the person that the child desires to have in their life. Once the pimp gains the victim’s trust, the exploitation begins.
Another way children become victims of sexual exploitation is through a family member pushing the child to financially support the family through sex work, usually to feed an addiction or to repay a debt, according to iEmpathize.
So how do we save the victims?
Empathy. Significant human rights violations thrive in environments where apathy, and even sympathy, prevail. When a society adopts empathy and actively responds, issues like human trafficking can be eradicated.
“Empathy is a solution to exploitation, specifically on a cultural level,” Hajenius said. “The more people who become empathetic, the more people will engage and want to help. We try to shift culture from sympathy, having heart, to empathy, working towards an active solution.”
Make sex trafficking prevention a part of your everyday life. Talk to youth and make them aware of the dangers of sex trafficking and challenge myths and misconceptions that glamorize commercial sex. Talk about online safety and make them aware of a pimp’s recruitment process. Volunteer your time and become a mentor at a youth service organization. Or host a home event or film screening to spread knowledge.
More proactively, if you see something, say something. With any suspicion of sex trafficking, call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center’s 24/7 hotline: 1-888-373-7888. The operator will help you assess what you are seeing and will enter the information into a database used by the FBI. You can choose to make your call anonymous.
“The more we shift the mindset from a sympathetic culture to an empathetic culture, the better we are able to combat this issue of modern day slavery,” Hajenius said.