Executive Summary

I. Definitions/Overview

Commercial Sexual Exploitation (CSE) is the exchange of sex or sexual acts for anything of value including money, drugs, food, shelter, protection, and/or other basics of life. CSE can take various forms, including: prostitution, pornography, sex tourism, and other forms of transactional sex. CSE also potentially includes arranged marriages, where the person has not freely consented to marriage and is sexually abused.

CSE commodifies women and girls and supports a culture that views women as objects who are a ‘sum of body parts’ rather than a whole being. Although CSE mainly involves the abuse of women and girls, men and boys are also abused and exploited through prostitution and pornography. Because the majority of the victims are women and girls, the focus of this summary will be on women and girls who are sexually exploited.

Sex Trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purposes of a commercial sex act. People who are exploited in the commercial sex industry are viewed as victims of severe forms of trafficking in persons, in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act is under 18 years of age.

Therefore, anyone involved in forced commercial sex (which includes most prostitution) is trafficked regardless of whether they’re ever moved across a border.

How many people are commercially sexually exploited each year?

2 million children worldwide are prostituted in the commercial sex trade
14,500-17,500 foreign nationals are being trafficked into the US for the sex trade
100,000-300,000 American children are being prostituted in the US at any one time
300-500 youth are being prostituted in the Seattle/King County area at any one time

“The Life” is slang for being in prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation.

(Note: in the following sections, some of the statistics have wide ranges because the data was taken from six different studies that contained varying information. Regardless of the variations, you’ll get a sense of the gravity of the issue).

II. Statistics about the supply side – the victims

Women who end up being sexually exploited never wished for that as little girls. However, in many cases, there are factors that compel them (involuntarily) into “the life.” Some of those factors are:

Troubled home life or abandoned by family
Addiction to drugs (to numb the pain)
Sexual and/or racial harassment as a child
Single parent families (60%)
Living below the poverty line (40%)
Experienced childhood physical and/or sexual abuse (up to 90%)
Lack of alternative job choices
Homelessness (80%)
Running away from home (90% of runaways become part of the commercial sex industry)

Not all women/girls who enter the life have these kinds of risk factors, but many of them have several, which makes them more likely to become victims.

Most of the young women in the life start out by being duped into a relationship by a supposedly caring “boyfriend” who treats her well, buys her clothes/jewelry/food, and maybe even gets her out of a situation she doesn’t want to be in (troubled home life, boring school, mean step-parent, etc.). He continues to groom her until she thinks she is in love with him and is dependent on him in some way for her happiness or livelihood. At that point, the man asks her to strip at a club, have sex with a few people, and/or engage in creating pornography, and because she thinks she loves him, she does it. This is the beginning of a downward spiral during which her boyfriend, now pimp, continues to sexually exploit her as well as abuse her if she won’t comply with his demands.

The following is what often happens while girls are with their pimps:

Girls are forced to live with 2-6 other girls in his “stable”
Girls are forced to work 5-7 nights/week depending on the city they’re pimped in
Girls are given a quota each night and they can’t come “home” until they bring in that amount of money
Girls are threatened with violence, promises to send dirty pictures to their family back home, and/or that they or their family members will be killed if they refuse to work
Girls don’t get to keep any of the money they earn – therefore being victims of “paid rape” every night
Girls are frequently moved to other cities if the pimp is in trouble, done with them, or for a special event
About half of the girls are forced to create pornography

But that’s not the worst of it. Can you imagine being a 14 year old girl stuck in a hotel room for hours with endless men coming to have sex with you? You have no control over what is going to happen when the next guy comes in, and sometimes the situation turns bad. For example:

• 50-78% of women in prostitution have been raped
• 65-100% have been physically assaulted
• 44-83% have had a weapon used against them

As you can imagine, that kind of life causes intense trauma, which girls may try to numb with alcohol or drugs, but the pain doesn’t go away:

68% have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (the same rate as combat veterans) and almost all suffer from depression, anxiety disorders, dissociative disorders, eating disorders, etc. This rate increases if women are forced into both prostitution and pornography.
46-65% of the women in prostitution have attempted suicide
88-96% want out of the sex industry

So that gives you a small taste of what life might be like for the women and girls who are sexually exploited. These victims are worth fighting for, and they are why we’ve come together as an Alliance to provide life-lines of hope and restoration, and to end commercial sexual exploitation in our state.

III. Statistics about the demand side – the perpetrators

Now we turn to the demand side – the men. When we think of a man who would buy sex and victimize a young girl, we might conjure up an image of a seedy guy who is lonely and desperate. Although that profile may fit some buyers, all of the studies show there is no specific profile for men who purchase sex. In fact, one law enforcement officer called it the hardest crime for which to target perpetrators, because they run the gamut.

The following statistics about men who have solicited women for commercial sex are from six separate studies done around the world:

Average age: 38
Age range: 18-77 years
Chicago study: 62% made more than $40,000
Chicago study: 79% had attended some college or obtained a college/graduate degree
50+% White | 25+% African American | 10% Latino | 5% Asian | 5% mixed or other
84-89% heterosexual | 7-12% bi-sexual | <5% homosexual
48-70% are married or have a steady partner/girlfriend
Of those who are married or have a steady partner, the vast majority say their relationships are sexually satisfying
50% of men have families
37-44% bought sex for the first time before age 21
74-86% bought sex by the time they were 25

As you can see, these men don’t fit the stereotype of a lonely, sexually dissatisfied man, and their decision to buy sex is not due to lack of a sex partner.

So how do these, regular, everyday men end up deciding to purchase commercial sex? In the same studies cited above, men were asked how they got into purchasing sex. Here are some of their replies:

54-58% bought sex for the first time by themselves
36-43% did so with a group of friends
17% did so with a relative
18% of Chicago men bought sex for the first time to mark an occasion such as a birthday or bachelor party. (Men often have their first experience with a girl/woman in prostitution as a “rite of passage” on their 16th or 18th birthdays, and are ridiculed if they don’t want to participate.)

Here are a few more facts to help round out how men end up purchasing sex:

27-76% of transactions for commercial sex start on the internet (the wide variation is based on what year the study was done; more recent studies had higher percentages)
84-88% solicited women indoors (hotels, bars, strip clubs, escort agencies, private parties, lap dance clubs, massage parlors, brothels)
57-63% solicited women outdoors (streets, car)
Men who use women in prostitution are at least twice as likely to use pornography than men who don’t solicit women in prostitution
70% of all American men, aged 18-34, view online porn at least once a month
50+% of Christian men in the US view porn on a regular basis
35% of boys aged 13-14 report viewing Internet porn “too many times to count”
The average American boy has seen porn by the age of 11 or 12
Almost half of the men in the Chicago study said they purchase sex in order to obtain sex acts they either felt uncomfortable asking their partner to do or which their partner refused to perform. (Where did they get the ideas for these sex acts? Pornography.)

And if that wasn’t hard enough, here are some of the thoughts men have about prostitution and sexual exploitation:

80% of men stated they felt most men preferred young girls and 42% of them specifically seek out young prostituted girls
52% thought it would be fine if their son visited a brothel, yet 94% said they wouldn’t want their daughter to end up in prostitution
22-43% of men said that once they pay for it, they’re entitled to do whatever they want to the women they buy (which makes prostitution VERY dangerous for women)
10-13% of men said they would rape a woman if they could be assured they would not be caught (19% of men had raped a woman)

IV. Current efforts happening in Washington state

There are many good organizations fighting this scourge in our state, including:

Real Escape from the Sex Trade (REST) – builds pathways of freedom, safety and hope for victims of sex trafficking and people involved in the sex trade in Seattle and beyond.
Operation for Prostitution Survivors (OPS) – addresses the harm of prostitution, and creates opportunities for adult women in Seattle to seek supportive services and heal from gender-based violence.
Businesses Ending Slavery & Trafficking (BEST) – aligns and equips leaders to use the power of business to prevent human trafficking.
Rescue:Freedom – empowers the rescue and restoration of those suffering in sexual slavery through local efforts as well as a robust network of after-care facilities overseas.
Washington Engage – works through community coalitions to prevent human trafficking.
Seattle Against Slavery – fosters collaboration in the fight against human trafficking through education, advocacy, and mobilization.
Shared Hope International – strives to prevent the conditions that foster sex trafficking, restore victims of sex slavery, and bring justice to vulnerable women and children in Washington state and around the world.
New Horizons – partners with Seattle’s street youth – many of whom are being sexually exploited – on their journey toward a sustainable future.
Washington Anti-trafficking Response Network (WARN) – a coalition of non-governmental organizations that provide direct services to victims of human trafficking in Washington state.
Washington Advisory Committee on Trafficking (WashACT) – a multidisciplinary task force that works to insure that victims of trafficking receive all resources available to them; and that human traffickers are identified, investigated and prosecuted to the utmost extent of the law.
Youthcare – provides housing and services to victims of human trafficking.
API Chaya – does community organizing and education regarding prevention of sexual and domestic violence, exploitation, and human trafficking.
Northwest Family Life | Penny’s Place – provides housing to women coming out of the life.
Stolen Youth – raises awareness and money to fund services and research that supports the rescue and recovery of sexually exploited youth.
Center for Children and Youth Justice – created the state-wide protocol for responding to commercially sexually exploited children.
King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office – prosecutes buyers and promotes sting operations by law enforcement to curb the demand for commercial sex.

These organizations and others are doing great work, yet the crime persists and there are girls being sexually exploited right now due to gaps in services available and lack of a comprehensive strategy for fighting CSE. To fill the gaps as part of a comprehensive, effective strategy is what SAFEWA is about.

V. What is SAFE and why would I get involved?

SAFE was created to fight commercial sexual exploitation by living into its name:

STRATEGIC – We want to tackle this problem from a variety of angles because we know that it won’t be solved by working in a silo. However, we don’t want to be haphazard in our approach, so we’ve discerned three essential elements that are needed to fight CSE; more on that below.

ALLIANCE – We know that bringing businesses and organizations together to fight sexual exploitation will be stronger than each sector trying to fight this crime on their own. Coming together allows us to embrace a broader strategy, to leverage all of our resources, and to incentivize collaboration among organizations in the field – all of which will help us end CSE sooner than we could on our own.

FIGHT – We want to link arms with other like-minded people and businesses that want to step into this fight. The darkness that surrounds this issue is strong and crafty, and it will take a fight to overcome it, so we want those who are up for the fight to join the Alliance.

EXPLOITATION – We know that if it was your daughter, younger sister, or niece who was being exploited, we’d be willing to do anything to get her out of the life and restored to a healthy, safe, thriving place. Yet, even if the girls being exploited right now are not related to you, they’re someone’s daughter and they’re worth fighting for. No one deserves to be exploited.

SAFE’s strategy has three essential elements: Prevention, Intervention and Restoration.

We know there are gaps in each of these areas in our state, yet we also know of new solutions coming to market that can help fill those gaps. We want to invest in those solutions, in a phased, strategic way, so as to try to solve the most immediate needs first.

For example, one of the solutions communities often try is a home where girls are able to recover from the horrors of what they experienced in the life. We think restoration facilities are great, however if there are no intervention efforts to get girls out of the life, then the restoration facilities remain empty. As such, there must be strong intervention efforts in order to support effective restoration efforts.

The reason for you and your business or organization to get involved in SAFE is because you have a desire to end exploitation in our state – especially of young girls and women – and you want to do that in a coordinated, impactful way alongside others who care and want to enter the fight.

We’re pretty sure you’d also like to get the most bang for your buck, you’d love a tax deduction for your investment in SAFE, you want to be kept up to date as to what is happening, but you don’t want this effort to take over your life. SAFE is a great vehicle for all of that because you will be able to get a charitable receipt for any monetary investment you make, you’ll be invited to a gathering once per year to update you as a stakeholder, and you’ll get quarterly email updates to keep you abreast of how our investments are making a difference in the fight against CSE. In addition, SAFE already has an advisory team that will expand as we grow so you can be assured that knowledgeable people are “minding the store”, investing your charitable dollars wisely to fight CSE, and keeping up to date on the progress the Alliance is making in the fight.

VI. How you can enter the fight against CSE

The first step is to look in the mirror and ask yourself these hard questions:

Have I done anything to further the sexual exploitation of women (i.e., turned a blind eye when my pals were going to the strip club, pitched in to order a call girl or dancer for a friend’s birthday, picked up the latest copy of Playboy, didn’t stop exploring when my computer search turned up pornographic images, etc.)?
Do I believe I am a more valuable human being than the women and girls being exploited?
If the girl caught in prostitution were my sister or daughter, would I feel differently about fighting for her? (…she is someone’s sister or daughter.)
Am I willing to risk some of the relationships in my life by not being a by-stander anymore when people are engaging in sexual exploitation?

If you’ve resolved those issues, then spend some time looking through the rest of this site about what SAFE is doing to fight sexual exploitation right here in our state, and then join the fight. You’ll be glad you did.