E01: Selling Girls in America – Assessment and Recruitment

Here’s the first episode of the Podcast: Selling Girls in America, which I host with Guardian Group. To learn more about this horrible crime and how to protect yourself and your loved ones, visit their website at www.guardiangroup.org.

To listen to the podcast, go here or subscribe at your favorite podcast platform.

Assessment and Recruitment

Assessment and recruitment is the first phase in the cycle of sex trafficking. Below you will find the statistic referenced throughout the episode.

– Average age of entry into the sex trade is 15 years old, with 1 in 6 being younger than 12. It is believed to be younger for males [source].

– One in seven runaways will likely become a victim of sex trafficking [source].

– Sex trafficking has been reported in all 50 states with 83% of victims being US citizens [source].

– Twenty-five percent of victims report when sold online they saw an average of 10 buyers per day [source]. The number slowly decreases from there. This is 10 rapes per day.

Definitions:

– Force: a method a traffickers uses to maintain control over a victim, often includes violence.

– Fraud: occurs when the pimp/trafficker promises things that they never intend to follow through with in order to maintain control over their victim.

– Coercion: persuading an individual to do something by using some kind of threat, pressure or shame.

– Bottom (or Bottom Bitch): the girl that the pimp/trafficker trusts the most, she is often given the task of recruiting, collecting money and training other girls.

– Stable: the group of girls a pimp/trafficker is “running” at a time, the average is 3-5 girls at a time.

For more statistics and definitions please check out Guardian Group’s 2019 Human Trafficking in America Report here.

When looking for red flags FIRE is a good acronym to remember: