Thankfully, in light of recent high-profile cases, the world is taking Child Sex Trafficking more seriously. Therefore, with this increased awareness, I’d like to share some data about what we know about how traffickers find their victims. This knowledge will, hopefully, help with education and prevention at all levels.

Previous research has identified several types of traffickers, based on how they recruit their victims. These have been categorized in differing ways.

Some studies divide the types of traffickers into those who use an aggressive/antisocial means to recruit victims versus a charismatic/manipulative means. Other researchers put traffickers into categories like:

• Romantic boyfriend
• Gang member
• Relatives
• Those who specifically prey on children with intellectual disabilities

Child Sex Trafficking: Types of Traffickers

Boyfriend/Girlfriend Recruitment

These traffickers present themselves as caring and compassionate friends.

They often offer to help the victim escape an abusive situation or home; they exploit these vulnerabilities of the victim. These traffickers might be someone posing as a boyfriend or the actual romantic partner of the victim.

Peer-to-Peer Recruitment

Some victims of sex trafficking are recruited by other victims of sex trafficking.

This may seem very counter intuitive. The research suggests that peer sex trafficking is often done unwillingly under actual or threatened abuse. Alternatively, this is sometimes seen as a survival strategy where a victim recruits another victim thinking, “Better them than me.”

Are you a professional looking to stay up-to-date with the latest information on, sex addiction, trauma, and mental health news and research? Or maybe you’re looking for continuing education courses?

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Gang/Criminal Recruitment

Many victims of sex trafficking are aggressively recruited by gang members.

Often these victims are young women who have a drug habit that is exploited or are convinced to enter prostitution to help the gang by being love bombed by the trafficker.

Family Trafficking

Both mothers and fathers have been known to traffic their children for various reasons.

Family trafficking can also involve other family members. Research has shown that mothers with drug addictions are most often seen in this category.

Child Sex Trafficking: Sub-Types of Perpetrator

A study published in 2023 in the scientific journal, Victims & Offenders, sought to further the research on child sex trafficking by describing recruitment strategies used by perpetrators.

The goal of this study is to inform prevention education and interventions.

The study reviewed 78 Child Protective Investigation case files in the state of Florida.

The study found 7 distinct subtypes of perpetrator of Child Sex Trafficking:

• Peer/Acquaintance
• Organized Crime
• Romantic Coercive Conman
• “Mate” crime predator
• Family Abuser
• Opportunistic Trafficker
• Cybertrafficker

Peer/Acquaintance Trafficker

Maybe a neighbor, classmate, friend, etc. Uses peer recruitment, often via social media to find youth in their geographic area. The child is then groomed by being offered drugs, gifts or basic needs such as food or shelter. Grooming also includes building a friendship and normalizing commercial sexual exploitation.

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Want to learn more about prevention? These articles explore primary prevention, minor attraction, stigma, and ways to improve outcomes before harm occurs.

• How to do Primary Prevention and More
• Help for Minor Attraction
• Pedophilia is Not a Behavior
• Do Minor Attracted Persons Make Your Skin Crawl?

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Organized Crime Child Sex Trafficking

Uses peer to peer recruitment. Finds youth in areas known for drugs and illegal activities. Child is groomed by being offered drugs and providing basic needs. Uses violence and intimidation when the child ends up paying for the “gifts” with sex.

Family Abuser

This person exploits their own young family members for either profit or to support a drug habit. The victim often lives with the abuser.

Romantic Coercive Conman

This trafficker is often seen as a boyfriend by the victim. They find victims by chatting online with girls on social media and dating apps. They will also go to places where girls frequent in person. The victims are groomed using romance and gift giving. They are also groomed with charm and often alcohol and drugs. The victim is then isolated from friends and family.

Mate Crime Predator

This trafficker preys upon the most vulnerable youth they can find. These are often youth with intellectual disabilities, mental health issues or physical disabilities. The victims are groomed with friendship. Traffickers often find these victims in places where you find run away children or using peer to peer recruitment via foster care or social media. Victims are groomed with basic needs or drugs and alcohol. This type of trafficker often also uses physically abusive tactics.

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If you’re unfamiliar with sextortion, check out Dr. Jen’s article How to Protect Your Child from Sextortion.

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Opportunistic Child Sex Trafficking

These traffickers often meet youth at places like truck stops or other places run away youth are to be found. They can then take advantage of the child’s specific vulnerability and groom them with offers of food, shelter, transportation and drugs or alcohol.

Cybertrafficker

This trafficker only interacts with victims online. The victims are found mostly on social media and dating apps. The trafficker befriends them and often promises money in exchange for sexual images and videos. They often then blackmail victims by threatening to disseminate the sexual images of the child.

Child Sex Trafficking Prevention

For prevention efforts to be successful, they need to be in place at all levels of the behavior.

By identifying the different tactics used by various types of traffickers, public education and youth education can happen to try to prevent trafficking from the inception, before a child becomes a victim.

Reference

Reid, J., Bilali, K., Fox, B. & Diaz, J. (2023). Toward a Typology of Child Sex Traffickers: Using Crime Script Analysis to Inform Prevention, Victims & Offenders., 18:3, 423-446. DOI: 10/1080/15564886.2022.2149648.

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Are you exploring your trauma? Do you feel your childhood experiences were detrimental to your current mental or physical health? Utilize this free, validated, self-report questionnaire to find out.

Take the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Questionnaire

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Are you a Licensed Professional Counselor seeking engaging, unique Continuing Education courses? Dr. Weeks offers accredited courses on her practice website on the effects of Pornography Abstinence and other unique topics!

Are you looking for more reputable, data-backed information on sexual addiction? The Mitigation Aide Research Archive is an excellent source for executive summaries of research studies.

The post Child Sex Trafficking: How do People Become Victims? first appeared on Dr. Jen's Recovery Readings.

When I teach my graduate Human Sexuality course, we begin each class with “Sex in the News.” Unfortunately, this typically means we’re talking about Sex Abuse in the News.

I was reading the Wall Street Journal this morning and was struck how much reporting there was on sexual abuse in a financial paper.

By starting today, I missed much of the coverage of the Maxwell trial which brings sexual trafficking into the spotlight. Today’s WSJ topics related to sexual abuse.

Gymnasts who were victims of sexual abuse settle for $380 million

I cannot imagine anyone who has not heard of the USA Gymnastics sexual abuse scandal. Or it’s perpetrator Dr. Nassar. 

The brave ladies who were victims of abuse have come forward. And several actually testified in front of Congress. 

Yesterday, after over three years of waiting, a settlement was reached for the victims. The settlement was delayed due to a bankruptcy filing by the USOPC.

In addition, there is also a provision that allows for survivors of the sexual abuse to have official roles in USA Gymnastics. Michigan State University had previously settled a claim for $500 million dollars in 2018 brought by victims of Dr. Nassar when he was working in his capacity as a sports medicine doctor at that university. 

There is still an ongoing FBI investigation into the mishandling of the allegations of abuse by the Deputy Attorney General in 2015 and 2016. 

Are you a professional looking to stay up-to-date with the latest information on, sex addiction, trauma, and mental health news and research? Or maybe you’re looking for continuing education courses?

Stay up-to-date with all of Dr. Jen’s work through her practice’s newsletter!

Sex Abuse in the News and the Canadian Military

Yesterday Canada’s Defense Minister Anita Anand issued a statement and an apology to the members of the Canadian military who were harmed by the lack of enforcement of sexual harassment and abuse claims in the military. The issue came to light earlier this year when allegations were made against several high-ranking military officials. Some of these allegations have led to criminal charges being filed.  

Do you believe you have an online pornography addiction? Take the free Cyber Pornography Addiction Test (CYPAT) and have the results to speak with your therapist.

Pope to Acknowledge Abuse in Canada

Since his election in 2013, Pope Francis has taken a different tact in handling the sexual abuse issues within the church. 

The latest effort will come next year when he meets with indigenous Canadians. He will acknowledge the sexual abuse suffered by the children who were at church run indigenous schools.  

While this is a move in the right direction, there are those who criticize the church’s efforts. The church only has laws in the US to remove a cleric after being found guilty of sexual abuse.

Have you found yourself in legal trouble due to your sexual behavior? Seek assistance before the court mandates it, with Sexual Addiction Treatment Services.

Do you feel your sexual behavior, or that of someone you love, is out of control? consult with a professional.

The post Sex Abuse in the News first appeared on Dr. Jen's Recovery Readings.

Working as a therapist who deals with problematic sexual behavior, I don’t often see common topics of conversation in my office on the front page of the newspaper.  When I sat down to have my morning coffee and read The Wall Street Journal, it happened.  Backpage was on the front page of the WSJ.  Not something I ever thought I would see.

So what is Backpage?  Backpage started out as part of the Village Voice newspapers and now is an online classified site.  Many people are more familiar with Craig’s List which is a similar service (Craig’s List no longer has an adult section).  Though Backpage.com does offer legitimate services on its classified site, in my field, it is most well known as a way to find an escort and pay for sex.

Backpage.com made it to the front page of The Wall Street Journal due to its association with escort services.  More importantly, through its association with the sex trafficking of minors.  Many of the minors who are recruited by sex traffickers (this is more common than you think) are advertised on sites like Backpage.com.  Someone who is looking to have sex with a minor, will know what key words to look for in these ads.  The traffickers can use these types of sites to travel throughout the country and easily advertise and find customers to have sex with the minors.

The main focus of the story in the WSJ was on the fight for freedom on the internet.  Several rescued victims of sex trafficking are suing Backpage.com for hosting these ads on their site.  Backpage states that they cooperate with law enforcement and try to help them catch traffickers.  They also do monitor some key words and take down ads that use those words.

While I appreciate the WSJ taking on this topic, I would have liked to see the article focus more on sex trafficking.  This topic is not talked about enough in the media.  Sex traffickers target vulnerable boys and girls (often run aways or children from conflicted homes) and sell them for sex.  Luckily, some of these children get rescued by police or other organizations that are trying to fight sex trafficking.

As a community member, I would ask that you don’t turn a blind eye to this problem.  Know your area resources that help these children and support the men and women who are fighting the problem of sex trafficking minors.  In my area, we have a great organization, VAST, who is working to combat the problem.

The post Back Page on the Front Page first appeared on Dr. Jen's Recovery Readings.

Friday evening I attended an event held by my friend and colleague, Anne Crothers of Healing Works. Each year she hosts an annual poetry event for sexual abuse awareness month. Victims and survivors of sexual abuse are invited to share poetry, stories and thoughts on their journey of healing. This year, the program benefited a non-profit organization in Allentown, PA called VAST – Valley Against Sexual Trafficking.

At this event, Linda Brownback, a member of the organization, shared a story of a young woman from our area who was trafficked. I will paraphrase the story here. Linda shared that there was a young teenage girl from the area who had a fight with her father over normal teenage things. She, as many teenagers do, got online and was engaging in social media and messaging. She met another girl in the digital world and they were chatting and sharing parental woes and feelings. During the chat, the other girl, from Philadelphia, told her that her boyfriend had a car and they could come pick her up. It would be better to talk in person than via text/chat. The boyfriend did come to pick up the young distressed girl. However, the boyfriend ended up being a pimp and the young girl had unknowingly entered the sex trafficking world. She was able to escape after two weeks being trafficked in Philadelphia.

Why do I share this story? I normally talk about teen sexting, chatting and pornography use from a different perspective. Because I work in addiction as well as with people whose addiction has broken the law, I have a skew when I talk about teen use of social media or digital sexuality. This story was an eye opening event for me. It opened me up to my own bias. It also made me realize that there are other risks out there for teens who are using digital media. These risks are talked about even less than the risks of sexting and the use of pornography.

The sex trafficking industry in the United States is something that no one talks about. It is talked about even less than pornography or sexting or any other type of sexuality. We tend to think that sex trafficking is the type of horrible crime that happens in other countries, not ours. The truth is that sex trafficking in the United States is very real and happens every single day. As technology advances, so do the means that traffickers have of gaining access to new victims. We need to add sex trafficking and the risk of traffickers being online to gain access to victims to the list of very important though uncomfortable things that parents MUST talk about to their children.

I was very excited to learn about VAST and hope to work with them in the future.

For more about how to talk to your child about sexting, cybersex and digital sexuality go to www.thenewageofsexeducation.com or pre-order my book at https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-new-age-of-sex-education/x/9442630

The post Sex Traffickers use Social Media to find victims first appeared on Dr. Jen's Recovery Readings.