“The buyer is just another guy in that long line.”
This was the opening quotation to the two-hour episode featuring Sex Trafficking on America’s Most Wanted.
This was spoken by a survivor of domestic minor sex trafficking in the United States.
That survivor was me.
Today, I advocate for stronger anti-trafficking laws and greater protection for survivors of all forms of human trafficking. And this is why I commend John Walsh and Lifetime for taking on this crucial topic in their most recent episode of America’s Most Wanted, which aired February 24th, 2012.
John begins the segment with cold, hard facts. He explains that the United Nations estimates that “27 million men, women, and children are victims sold into slavery for cheap labor, for domestic servitude, and for sex.”
John goes on to say that “while all forms of human trafficking are deplorable, sex trafficking, especially when it involves children, sickens (him) to no end.”
He describes a trip to Cambodia in which he and his undercover team haggled with human traffickers. Just when the traffickers thought they would be unsuccessful in “closing the deal,” John says they produced “a real young, naive girl (who) had to be fourteen, possibly younger.”
“It’s appalling,” John continues, “100,000 children in America are caught in the sex trade and what’s most chilling of all- the average age in which children enter the commercial sex industry in the U.S. is between 12 and 14 years old.” Continue reading
