CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING
By Vincent Lyn
Sex trafficking is the commercial sexual exploitation of children.
2 million.
2 million children are victims of child sex trafficking each year across the globe. The number is staggering, and hard to believe. Yet, the numbers are true and society as a whole seems to look the other way. (UNICEF)
When I began my humanitarian work more than six years ago, I could not fully comprehend the magnitude of human trafficking and the depth of evil that encapsulated it. I devoured countless hours of research, reading articles and scouring the internet for information. I would eventually take a trip to Cambodia, considered to be one of the worst places in the world for child sex trafficking. Children as young as 5 or 6, repeating the words yum-yum like a mantra. In the vernacular of Cambodia, yum-yum means oral sex.
Svay Pak a village north of Phnom Penh renowned as a destination for child prostitution with most clients coming from China, Japan, Europe, Australia, and the United States of America. A lawless village where “tiny, elementary-age girls” were prostituted to the public in broad daylight. One or more girls shared individual 6-by-8-foot (1.8 m × 2.4 m) cubicles where they served Western child sex tourists.
In 2002, child prostitution was bustling in Svay Pak, driven by child sex tourism from the Western world after child prostitution in Thailand was cracked-down upon. The Daily Telegraph supposed that any sex tourists in Svay Pak were there for the children, for if “a man wants an older girl then there are plenty on offer in the brothels and bars of Phnom Penh.” The majority of the children were overseas Vietnamese, sold into prostitution by destitute families. Between the ages of 6 and 13, girls’ virginity was sold for “hundreds of dollars”; prostituted repeatedly, the price diminished until reaching a low of U.S $4.50. At the turn of the 21st century, clients of child prostitution in Svay Pak expressed little fear of authorities because the police were compensated by the brothels; foreigners were only arrested if “a bribe is missed, or an example needs to be made of someone”. In 2003, Svay Pak saw up to 50 clients per night for child prostitution.
How could the rest of the world sit silent? How could Cambodia’s government turn a blind eye? Indeed I looked into the face of evil when I witnessed grown men selling vulnerable children to pedophiles and rapists. Greed had revealed its ugly head in the foulest form. For a mere couple of dollars, less money than a cup of coffee, tourists can access a dark world. In plain sight, in buildings on the main street, girls are scantily dressed and paraded behind a glass wall, nicknamed the fishbowl. They have numbers strung around their necks and are reduced to a mere commodity to satisfy the insatiable lusts of both foreign and national men. They are caged prey without any options.
The greater tragedy of Cambodia’s sex trade is that mothers are willingly selling their daughters to brothels to feed the rest of their family. It’s an agonizing sacrifice for the mother, for she loves her daughter, but is bound to her poverty, and cannot see any other viable option. One mother sold her daughter for $300 to a brothel, and in return, the daughter was indebted to the brothel for a year to pay off that “investment.”
Brokers intentionally exploit the poverty level of these families. These pimps visit the villages and negotiate a deal for the daughter’s virginity, which is easy since the family is living on less than a $1 a day. The girls are then taken to brothels where they are drugged, threatened and raped. Many will contract STDs because the majority of customers do not wear condoms. If the daughter does make it back to the village, she is shamed, unwanted and labeled a prostitute.
Svay Pak gained worldwide attention and for a decade Human Rights Agencies and international media including Dateline NBC, Washington Post, ABC News and CNN published many articles and traveled there to to expose the wickedness that prevailed. After much pressure in the face of international embarrassment the government put in place a Cambodian SWAT anti-trafficking unit and went into action to arrest traffickers and clients. Much was done and brothel store fronts were closed down eventually replaced with restaurants, shops and even a children’s community center. Pimps no longer swarmed every foreign man who came into town, and children were not to be seen prostituting themselves from street-side windows, the child-sex industry remained; volunteers with International Missions were still rescuing girls from the now-underground trade. The village traffickers simply adapted to the governments efforts and continued the sale of children from 6–16 and it went underground.
ABC News traveled to Svay Pak in 2017 and found much the same situation as was two years prior: though the number of children in sex work has dropped to 1–2% from 35% of those so working, Western men still solicited preteens for sex and the local SWAT continued to raid underage brothels. Much has been done, but with the continued supply and demand it seems there will always be a supply of children who will be trafficked and prostituted.
Before you assume that this only happens in poverty stricken third world countries. Let us talk about one of the the wealthiest nations in the world, the United States of America.
300,000
300,000 children in the United States are prostituted each year, victims of child sex trafficking. The number is frightening, to say the least.
Child trafficking victims, whether for labor, sex or organ trafficking, come from all backgrounds, include both boys and girls. They span a wide age range from 1 to 18 years old. Sex trafficking victims up to roughly 25 years old most often started as young as 14. Children are trafficked out of, or into the United States from all regions of the world and represent a variety of different races, ethnic groups and religions. They may be brought to the U.S. legally or smuggled in.
Trafficked children can be lured to the U.S. through the promise of school or work and promised the opportunity to send money back to their families. Children are also vulnerable to kidnappers, pimps, and professional brokers. Some children are even sold to traffickers by their families, who may or may not have an understanding of what will happen to the child. U.S. born children are also trafficked within the U.S., coming from any racial group, socio-economic background, and come from or trafficked within both city and rural areas.
Human trafficking is second to drugs, outpacing guns as the world’s fastest growing criminal enterprise. Human trafficking at the current rate will surpass drugs in the next few years. Drugs you use once and they are gone. Victims of child trafficking can be used and abused over and over.
In 2018, over half (51.6%) of the criminal human trafficking cases active in the U.S were sex trafficking cases involving only children. Reports indicate that a large number of child sex trafficking survivors in the U.S were at one time in the foster care system. Advocates report a growing trend of traffickers using online social media platforms to recruit and advertise targets of human trafficking. The average age a teen enters the sex trade in the U.S is 12 to 14 years old. Many victims are runaway girls who were sexually abused as children.
Many of you might ask who the hell buys a 15 year old girl for sex?
The answer: Many otherwise ordinary men. They could be your co-worker, doctor, pastor or spouse.
“They’re in all walks of life,” a 17-year-old survivor from the Midwest, trafficked when she was 15, said about the more than 150 men who purchased her in a month. “Some could be upstanding people in the community. It was mostly people in their 40s, living in the suburbs, who were coming to get the stuff they were missing.”
While any child can be targeted by a trafficker, research, data and survivor lived experience and expertise have revealed traffickers and buyers often target youth who lack strong support networks, have experienced violence in the past, are experiencing homelessness, or are marginalized by society. Traffickers are masters of manipulation and prey upon vulnerabilities using psychological pressure and intimidation to control and sexually exploit the child for their benefit.
We say to ourselves how on earth can the world stay silent about such heinous despicable crimes being perpetrated against children? Who is going to sound the call to stop this from happening? Surely there must be ways to confront and combat such evil. We must hear the cries of the children and respond…
Vincent Lyn
CEO/Founder at We Can Save Children
Director of Creative Development
Economic & Social Council at United Nations
Middle East Correspondent at Wall Street News Agency
Rescue & Recovery Specialist at International Confederation of Police & Security Experts