This paper focuses on finding out the age range of underage girls who are being recruited into prostitution and sex trafficking in New York City (NYC) and the prevalence of underage girls being arrested. This paper focuses on how underage girls are easily getting recruited into prostitution and sex-trafficking by pimps who offer them nice material things but they are not aware of the circumstances that come along to do that.
According to Smalley (2003), the girls in prostitution and sex trafficking are identified as young. The trade is violent, and they come from a middle class homes. For example, Stacy’s shows how teenage girls are influenced to enter prostitution to be able to buy the things they want. Stacy starts to talk to men who are older than her. Therefore, she goes into stripping at hotel rooms, exposed her body on social media, make ads to men to make money. Also, underage girls that are involved in prostitution and sex-trafficking usually come from unstable homes. For example, Stacy believes that the only way out of her unstable home is to choose a life of prostitution.
According to Fonrouge, Cohen and Gonen, (2018) a girl named Alexis were 14 years old. She was a freshman in high school. She met a pimp while give away her cat. The pimp invited her to a party to see a celebrity named Meek Mill. She agreed to go to the party with him. The pimp then insisted Alexis to dress sexy because he needs sexy pictures to join the VIP list. Later on, the pimp gave her a glass of wine and then took her to the motel that is located in Yonkers. There were men who were waiting for her to rape her because they were paid too.
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Alexis explains how she got into sex-trafficking because her mother was having trouble to pay her rent and food. Therefore, she wanted to help her mother to take care of the bills. Alexis now has a full time job at Bronx Counseling Center and has a daughter who is 2 years old. According to the National Institute of Justice, up to 90 percent of children was involved in sex-trafficking are victims of sexual abuse and 50 percent of children were in the child welfare system. This shows a huge percentage of children were sexually abused and subjected in the system.
A girl named Shanfia Bennett is 17 years old. She is in high school as a junior. She met a pimp on social media. The pimp made a promise to her to give her money if she joins prostitution. She was living in an unstable home with her mother. Later on, her mother left her and she became homeless. She had no choice to join into prostitution. However, the pimp wasn’t committed to his promises. He failed to provide food and housing and did not want her to have any contact with anyone and abused her. For example Bennett states, “I’m getting beat, but I have a place to stay. I’m not always eating, but I have underwear.” This shows how underage girls are vulnerable because they grew up in an unstable home and they are being controlled by pimps. However, she was arrested.
According to Talamo (2016), a girl named Dee Dee was 4 years old. Her father let his friends sleep with her. Dee Dee’s father would encourage her to accept and hang out with older men. Therefore, this led her to be involved in sex-trafficking. Later on, Dee Dee’s mother noticed one of the men who were socializing with her daughter. She reported to the police. However, the abuse continued ever since Dee Dee turned 18 years old. For example Dee Dee states, “What I learned at an early age was that even if you tell, even if your mom does the right things, it doesn’t stop,” This shows Dee Dee knew it wasn’t over even if her mother had stepped up.
Epstein is another example of encouraging underage girls to prostitution and sex-trafficking. Epstein (a pimp) is finding that living in a dream world is dangerous even if you pay for it. Epstein is a wealthy man who had a big house recruiting underage girls. For example, Weiss (2007) stated, “The police net went wider, to malls and community colleges, and olive garden restaurants and trailer parks, and the story was always the same. Skinny, beautiful, young girls were approached by other girls, who said they could make 200 dollars by massaging a wealthy man, naked” (p.3). This is just another unfortunate case of the rich and powerful abusing their influence. Therefore, what we know about this issue is that pimps go shopping to malls in order to target underage girls. These pimps go around to manipulate young girls to join their prostitution ring.
Law enforcement has investigated this issue of the prostitution rate which had increased underage prostitution nationwide. Also the FBI goes into further investigation with this issue differently. They collaborate with The National Center of Missing and Exploited Children. (NCMEC). Therefore, the law enforcement officials are tracking down underage prostitution the best way they can.
Research shows, in 1994, 24 juveniles were arrested by the police for prostitution. By 2002, that number had risen to 125. And in 2003, was another record -setting year. As of July 2003, police had already arrested 90 underage girls (Stalley, 2003p.2) Most of the girls who end up in prostitution feel like this is the only way to escape this painful life. Unfortunately, they getting arrested which becomes their only way to salvation sometimes even being away from their pimps.
Some people in power are taking advantage of the underage prostitution ring. For example, Senator Menendez was accused for leaving the country for the purpose of engaging in a commercial sex act with a minor. The underage girls are not reporting the prostitution because they are being paid to cover up the prostitution by people with power. (Corasaniti, 2018, p.4). This shows how all kind of men who wants to make money has power to control underage girls to cover up the truth about the prostitution ring. Therefore, they continued to recruit underage prostitution.
The recent research that was conducted by the FBI is tracking down the pimps that are located in different cities like Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York, Chicago, Miami, Minneapolis, FBI are concern of the underage girl’s future and for them to live a much safer life. Dallas because the FBI wants to stop the prostitution ring from occurring from different parts of the world in U.S. Also, the Therefore, this will help improve underage females who are affected by prostitution and to arrest pimps that are located all around the U.S. the FBI uses a new program called The Lost National Initiative as a tool to track down the pimps who are located in states and cities. For example, Smalley states, “The FBI recently launched the innocence Lost National Initiative, a program to help states and cities go after pimps who prey on teenage girls”. This shows the FBI use sources to track down pimps that are involved in the prostitution ring with underage girls.
In order to expand my knowledge of prostitution and sex trafficking arrest, I would conduct a study with underage girls who experience sexual exploitation and create a survey on different case studies. Therefore, many underage girls are involved in prostitution and listening to their life stories. Therefore, this will help me to come up with different kind of questions to ask the underage girls and to find out what happened to them being involved in the prostitution ring. Lastly, reading different case studies will help me to gain an insight on how many underage girls are involved in prostitution and to collect data information. This can help the law enforcement to be able to find out where in the U.S is this occurring. Therefore, this can help the Law enforcement to control the underage prostitution from increasing.
The using best method to use of the underage prostitution and sex trafficking study is qualitative method. This will help me to interview the law enforcement. For example, Police officers and FBI so I will be able to have a better understanding what goes on with underage girls, And their involvement in prostitution and sex-trafficking. Also, it’s important to know the average of underage girls are arrested by looking at recent police reports. However, police reports are not always accurate because some police officers sometime choose to not make a report because they don’t want the attention to be brought towards the police department as a negative way. Therefore, the arrest report are sometimes useful.
In conclusion, underage girls under the age of 18 years old choose to engage in sexual activities for money and are being forced to perform in sex-trafficking by pimps. However, there are some underage girls like, Stacy. Dee Dee, Shanfia and Alexis who escaped and made positive path for themselves because they didn’t want to continue being mistreated by pimps. Therefore, they choose to work a full time job and take care of their kids and move on with their lives. They took a stand and hopefully others can escape this evil cycle of poverty and prostitution.
