Child prostitution is a long-standing issue around the entire globe; the World Congress has gone so far as to label it a "contemporary form of slavery" (World Congress against the Sexual Exploitation of Children, 1996). While many felt that it was being contained in some manner, with today’s emerging platforms, the issue of child prostitution is growing at an unprecedented rate. Prostitution through webcams and child sex tourism are recent phenomena, whose evolution has brought the diffusion of child prostitution into an independent culture.
The "Computer Age" of the 21st century has initiated a revolution in technology, with the focal point of it's growth being centered on global connectivity and the World Wide Web. Although many recognize this era as progressive, it has also fueled the rise of a new form of child sexual exploitation. Prostitution through webcam, or child webcam sex tourism, is an epidemic of minors being paid to perform sexual acts via webcams (Terre des Hommes, 2013). Terre des Hommes (2013), a children's rights' organization, created a fictitious "computer-generated" 10 year old Philippines girl named Sweetie in order to investigate this phenomenon further.
"Sweetie" was entered into a total of 19 chat rooms, in which she was propositioned to perform sexual acts by 20,172 adult men from 71 different countries, who had been informed of her age. Terre des Hommes' (2013) informal "sting" operation identified 1,000 online predators in just 10 weeks, and estimated there to be 750,000 predators online, at any given time (Terre des Hommes, 2013). No computer hacking or illegal methods were used to identify the perpetrators, which raises the question: why is child webcam sex tourism growing so rapidly if c...
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Gupta, G., & Crellin, O. (2013, December 12). Brazil's world cup raises fear of rampant child prostitution. TIME. Retrieved January 2, 2014, from http://world.time.com/2013/12/12/brazils-world-cup-raises-fear-of-rampant-child-prostitution/
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Today, “60 percent of children who use the Internet regularly come into contact with pornography” (Hanes 1). In Stephanie Hanes’ article, “Little Girls or Little Women? The Disney Princess Effect”, she provides undeniable evidence to suggest that the culture of today’s world causes sexualization of children, specifically of females, at an alarmingly young age. This sexualization has become increasingly invasive in the past decade, so much so that parents, educators, and even more recently politicians have decided to try to counteract some these negative effects. In this article, Stephanie Hanes uses strong research with logical arguments that support this
The book Renting Lacy: A Story of America’s Prostituted Children by Linda Smith addresses the topic of the underground world of child sex trafficking. Unfortunately, it is a topic that has been purposefully neglected in our society for many years. The author presents every chapter with a real story of a sexually exploited child. The stories are intense, powerful but especially touching which makes the reader feel frustrated, desperate, and vexed. After every chapter, Smith tries to include commentaries that presents a deeper understating about human trafficking. It seems that the purpose of her commentaries is to make the reader think deeper about the problem of sex trafficking and accumulate desires to act towards this issue as they continue
In today’s American society, almost everyone, even children as young as six, owns a cell phone with a camera. Although convenient, camera phones also open the door to massive problems concerning child pornography that stem from sexting, or sending nude or lascivious photos. According to a 2010 Federal Bureau of Investigation survey1 of 4,400 middle and high school students, “approximately eight percent of students reported that they had sent a sext of themselves to others while thirteen percent said they had received a sext.” The main problem with sexting, aside from being child pornography if it is a picture of minors, is the ease of dissemination of the sext to other contacts or even the Internet. The United States alone has seen several students commit suicide after a sext intended for one person’s eyes went viral or was sent to the entire high school.
Thomas, Emily (01/16/14) “International Child Sex Abuse Sting Operation IDs Hundreds Of Suspects” The Huffington Post. Accessed < http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/16/philippine-cybersex-den_n_4605033.html> on 14/03/14
The value of a woman as a mother, wife, sister, daughter or aunt has been replaced for sexual please. Greed and perversion disguised as men chose to debase America’s women and children for their own selfish gain. Child sexual exploitation is the most hidden form of child abuse in the U.S. and North America today. It is the nation’s least recognized epidemic. The overwhelming majority of children forced to sell their bodies on the street are girls. Young boys face hardship and abuse as well, but they often fend for themselves to survive. The girls, on the other hand, inevitably fall victim to pimps and organized trafficking networks. (Sher, pg. V)
According to Van Wormer & Bartollas (2014), sex trafficking, “encompasses the organized movement of people, usually women, between countries and within countries for sex work” (p. 289). Sex trafficking is also a very lucrative business, it is estimated to make $31. 6 billion annually. This amount is estimated from the 2.5 million people who a trafficked each year. The exact number of people who are victims of the sex industry cannot be predicted accurately for all over the world. In the United States alone there is about 14,500-17,500 people trafficked each year. Human trafficking it the third biggest organized crime after drug and arms trafficking (Hodge, 2014). Young men make up about 44% of people being trafficked, while women and girls
In order to understand how sex trafficking affects its victims, one must first know the severity of sex trafficking and what it is. The issue of sex trafficking affects 2.5 million people at any given time (Abas et al., 2013). The form of sex slavery affects many women and children across the world. Even though both males and females are sexually trafficked and exploited, there is a deep emphasis on the sexual exploitation of women and children. This is due to gender discrimination (Miller, 2006). This is because women and children are more vulnerable and appeal to the larger populations of brothels and the so-called “clients” since the majority are men. Ecclestone (2013) stated that children as young as age three are trafficked. Sex trafficking has changed over time; “Today, the business of human sex trafficking is much more organized and violent. These women and young girls are sold to traffickers, locked up in rooms or brothels for weeks or months, drugged, terrorized, and raped repeatedly” (Walker-Rodriguez & Hill, 2011). It is found that many of the victims of sex trafficking are abducted, recruited, transported and forced into involuntary “sex work”. These sexual acts include prostitution, exotic dancing, pornography, and sexual escort services (McClain & Garrity, 2011). What happens to these sex trafficking victims is extremely traumatizing.
With over 759 million registered domain names, the Internet has proved to be the definitive source of information (Hunter). Covering a full spectrum of subjects and services, it is an entity that we can not do without. However, despite all this usefulness, more than 14 percent of all websites are dedicated to pornography (Ward). To further worsen the matter, more than 13 percent of all searches made daily are
Sex trafficking is essentially systemic rape for profit. Force, fraud and coercion are used to control the victim’s behavior which may secure the appearance of consent to please the buyer (or john). Behind every transaction is violence or the threat of violence (Axtell par. 4). Just a decade ago, only a third of the countries studied by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime had legislation against human trafficking. (Darker Side, par.1) Women, children, and even men are taken from their homes, and off of the streets and are brought into a life that is almost impossible to get out of. This life is not one of choice, it is in most times by force. UNODC estimates that the total international human trafficking is a $32-billion-per-year business, and that 79% of this activity comprises sexual exploitation. As many as 2 million children a year are victims of commercial sexual exploitation, according the the U.S. State Department.-- Cynthia G. Wagner. (Darker Side, par. 4) The words prostitute, pimp, escort, and stripper tend to be way too common in the American everyday vocabulary. People use these words in a joking manner, but sex trafficking is far from a joke. Everyday, from all different countries, people are bought and sold either by force or false promises. Some are kidnapped and others come to America with dreams of a dream life and job. The buyers involved in the trade will do anything to purchase an innocent life just to sell for their own selfish profit. Many people wouldn’t think of a human body to be something you can buy in the back room of a business or even online. But those plus the streets are where people are sold most often. There are many reasons and causes for sex trafficking. The factors behind sex traffic...
Recently, a controversial American website, Backpage.com, which is the second largest classified advertising listing service on the Internet in the United States, comes to public attention because of a lawsuit that is filed on several brave girls. The girls allege that they were pimped on Backpage.com and the website sells underage boys and girls for sex. Being known as the “oldest profession in the world”, prostitution is defined as a criminal act in most of the U.S. with many legal problems, for instance, human trafficking, violence, sexual slavery and the use of children, also moral issues. Different from the U.S., prostitution practices a legitimate business in some countries, such as Brazil and Canada.
The Internet has created an unprecedented opportunity for individuals to have anonymous, cost-free, and unfiltered access to a fundamentally unlimited range of sexually explicit texts, pictures, and video (Cheney, 2000; Elmer- Dewitt, 1995; Freeman-Longo, 2000; Harmon & Boeringer, 1996; Mehta & Plaza, 1998; Rimm, 1995; Wysocki, 1998; as cited in Fisher & Barak, 2001). The rapidly increasing market of sexually explicit material on the internet challenges social science to study the range of experiences that are involved with such content (Fisher & Barak, 2001). Standard expectations of the interpersonal sexual encounter have also been expanded by the concept of online sex or, better known as cybersex. Dӧring (2009a) defines cybersex as “the mediated form of sexual encounter often characterized by alternate s...
Technology and things like social media have a great effect on sexual views, behavior and practice among generations. Recent advances in technology are influencing sexual behaviors because of things like computers, smartphones, sex technology (sex toys, pornography, etc.). The list is growing and so are the many possible uses of these technologies. In fact, one in every ten websites is a pornography website, (Krotoski, 2011). This alone gives individuals access to the erotic, fantasy world of sex. These advances in technology, and the availability of this information has made it easier than ever to enter the world of sex.
However, widespread corruption and greed make it possible for sex trafficking to rapidly and easily proliferate. Many national and international institutions have attempted to enact and enforce tough anti-trafficking legislations. However, due to bribery, many local governments and police forces have been known to participate in these sex trafficking rings. In this review of literature, the following three questions will be as a guide to help examine the social issues of sex trafficking around the
"Prostitution Laws around the World." Global News. The Canadian Press, 26 Mar. 2012. Web. 19 Dec. 2013.
The exploitation of prostitution is considered to be one of a serious global issue in most of the countries around the world. Also, the number of prostitution is increasing tremendously each year and seems to be more serious than the past centuries. However, yet very few to none of the countries have completely solved this problem. Saudi Arabia and Netherlands are two examples of the countries that prostitution is still considered to be a problem that the government of both countries cannot ignore. There are different solutions that Saudi Arabia and Netherlands have come up with to solve the problem.