Famed international adventurer Johan Ernst Nilson took a breather from his death-defying exploits to watch our upcoming documentary and comment on why he thinks fighting child sex trafficking is an important issue.
Click here to watch the interview
Famed international adventurer Johan Ernst Nilson took a breather from his death-defying exploits to watch our upcoming documentary and comment on why he thinks fighting child sex trafficking is an important issue.
Click here to watch the interview
Marina Colby, our Legislative Advisor, recently wrote a guest blog post for USAID. Click here to read the article
Three weeks after a budget crisis shutdown Minnesota’s government, the first order of business in the special session was passing into law a public safety bill that included protections for commercially sexually exploited children. Originally running as a stand-alone bill, the Minnesota “safe harbor” law was wrapped into the public safety bill months ago and was held up during the crisis. By signing this bill into law, Governor Dayton demonstrated that the sexual exploitation of children is a bipartisan concern that everyone wishes to address.
With the law now passed, Minnesota continues to prove it is a leader in protecting commercially sexually exploited children. The new law:
- Excludes sexually exploited children under 16 from the definition of delinquent child;
- Includes the definition of sexually exploited youth in Minnesota’s child protection code;
- Creates a mandatory first-time diversion for any 16 or 17 year old who has been exploited in prostitution (where the child meets the criteria);
- Allows prosecutors to continue diversion or to proceed with CHIPS petitions for children coming through the system an additional time;
- Increases penalties against offender “johns” from $250. The new penalty is a minimum of $500 and max of $750. 40% of fees will go to an account to serve child victims; and
- Directs the commissioner of public safety to work with stakeholders to create a victim-centered response to sexually exploited youth.
Minnesota is building upon some excellent, existing efforts in the state. Ramsey County has effective service programs and protocols. The state also boasts strong collaborations between non-profit and government agencies, including an active human trafficking task force. This strength is incredibly important when passing legislation that seeks to change our approach to sexually exploited children. Strong collaboration not only helps a state develop practical and effective policy; it also helps ensure the right relationships are in place to implement the law effectively.
Over a year ago, ECPAT-USA began a partnership with The Advocates for Human Rights and The Family Partnership. We all wanted to build upon existing good practice in the state by passing a law that protects sexually exploited children from criminal sanction. These two organizations lead a fantastic and thoughtful effort to develop strong policy. But passing a law takes a whole community. Breaking Free, Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center, the Statewide Human Trafficking Task Force, The Women’s Foundation of Minnesota, the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office, and many in the law enforcement community came together to do what’s right for kids. It also takes champions in the legislature to make things happen. Representatives Steve Smith, Tony Cornish, and Michael Paymar, and Senators Sandra Pappas, John Marty, and Ron Latz were instrumental in leading the bipartisan effort to pass this progressive new law.
ECPAT-USA is very proud to have partnered with such a fantastic group of advocates and civil servants. We hope other states will learn from and build upon their work.
Minnesota’s Governor Dayton signed into law today a public safety bill that includes protection
for children exploited in prostitution. Under the new law children under 16 who are exploited in
prostitution will no longer be treated as juvenile delinquents. This provision makes the new law
one of the most progressive so far for any state regarding sexually exploited youth.
The 2011 U.S. State Department Trafficking in Persons (TIP) reports was released in late June. The TIP report represents the U.S. government’s annual effort to measure and rank all the countries in the world according to each one’s success in fighting human trafficking. This is the second year in a row that the report included a tier ranking of the U.S. government’s own efforts in combating both sex and labor trafficking. Click here to read more.
For the past seven months, ECPAT-USA has been working with WITNESS to make a short documentary on new state laws and approaches to commercially sexually exploited children. Over the last few months, we’ve traveled the country and interviewed many experts from law enforcement, juvenile justice, advocate organizations and treatment programs. We also had the honor of interviewing a courageous survivor whose compelling and inspiring story will be the feature of our film. It has been a true honor to meet and work with these incredible individuals as well as WITNESS, our amazing partner.
Recently we screened a rough cut of the film to friends, staff, interns and others. They provided excellent feedback and recommendations on how to improve our work as we turn the corner toward a final cut. It was exciting to see how much progress has been made…but there is still much to do!
The film will focus on the fact that children exploited in prostitution are, generally, treated as juvenile offenders in most states. This happens despite their abuse, trauma and immaturity. Juvenile justice is not the appropriate tool to provide care for a crime victim. Our reliance on it only perpetrates an already abusive cycle, trapping the child in feelings of isolation and hopelessness. Even worse, the juvenile record the child receives can cause major obstacles for future employment, especially if the record includes prostitution arrests. It will take time but a shift in how we assist children must take place.
Luckily, there are glimmers of hope; our new film will discuss efforts to change how children are treated by the system. Experts will talk about what is needed, why reform is critical, and what’s new in state policy. States like Vermont, Illinois, Washington, Connecticut and New York have all passed laws that attempt to protect children from criminalization. More states will follow. We must be sure that the law and our practice reflect the fact that commercially sexually exploited children are victims of abuse.
We will keep you updated as the film progresses and let you know when it’s complete. ECPAT-USA and WITNESS hope it will be a useful tool in pressing for reform legislation and other efforts to treat these children as victims of a crime and provide them the services they need to restore their lives.
ECPAT-USA is in very positive discussions with Wyndham Hotels and we feel very confident that they will soon be a signatory to the Code of Conduct. We thank them for their responsiveness and look forward to working together on the application process. Here is a link to the current Wyndham statement.
How Many Commercially Sexually Exploited Children Are there in the U.S.?
There is a highly publicized debate going on over the accuracy of statistics quoted by Ashton Kutcher and the Demi and Ashton Foundation (DNA) over the number of sexually exploited children in the United States. While it might be easy to criticize celebrities for lack of substance, the DNA Foundation is in fact using the very same statistics that every advocate, government agency and policy maker uses–including ECPAT-USA.
We use those statistics knowing and admitting that they are dated estimates because everyone–policy makers, media and the public–push to know the number of victims. We use these statistics because these are the most recent and comprehensive numbers we have.
Despite the many appeals made by advocates over the years, there has been no funding for an expansive attempt to count the number of commercially sexually exploitation children (CSEC) in the US since the controversial 2001 University of Pennsylvania study. Partially funded by the US Department of Justice, it remains the most complete published study on the commercial sexual exploitation of children. The current controversy lies in the 100,000 – 300,000 children reported in the study to be at risk in the US for commercial sexual exploitation. The findings were then and continue to be criticized and questioned. But with no similar study to compare it to, it is difficult to draw a conclusion on the accuracy of the figures. In addition, the underground nature of the activities makes them especially hard to measure, leaving us with best estimates.
At present there is a new prevalence study underway by the Center for Court Innovation and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in several U.S. cities. These are the same respected research institutions that published a study of commercial sexual exploitation in New York City alone in 2008. The study counted almost 4,000 child victims in New York City, not counting foreign victims and possibly undercounting pimped girls. We look forward to the publication of this new study.
Funding is difficult to come by because commercially sexually exploited children are barely a blip on the radar screen of the policy world. CSEC victims are largely invisible, and therefore easy to ignore. The lack of funding for research to count and understand them is just one of the many manifestations of this oversight. But it is imperative that there be support for research, not just to count the number of CSEC victims, but to understand their needs and how to prevent the exploitation from happening in the first place.
No one wants new studies to challenge the old findings more than those of us who advocate for the protection of children from sexual exploitation. We eagerly await a new “number” if for no other reason than when we are regularly asked how many commercially sexually exploited children there are in the US we will have a better answer than “Well, there was this one study done ten years ago…“
In the meantime, ECPAT-USA applauds the DNA Foundation for being willing to speak up for the most vulnerable and abused children in America – the invisible, undercounted and under-studied children who should be at the center of the public’s attention.