According to the International Labor Organization, more than 1 million children are exploited every year in commercial sex transactions.
IndyStar columnist Tim swarens, with the support of a Professional Journalists Association, spent more than a year investigating a lucrative business where children were abused, awareness of the scourge by buyers or despite tougher laws and the international community.
Google, Lilly
Indiana Wesleyan University provides additional support for the project.
This is the first of 10 columns in the exploited series, which explores the cultural and economic forces that lead to commercial exploitation.
On the day she met Marcus Thompson, the girl later told the FBI that she was ready to jump off the bridge to end her life.
She was only 15 years old, pregnant and alone in the street.
In the injured child, Thompson saw a way to make money.
He promised that if she left the small town of Illinois with him, he would make her a model.
She grabbed hope and climbed up his truck.
But commitment is a lie.
Instead, in the summer of 2015, Thompson and his wife, Robin, forced the girl to be six years old in a nightmare --
A week's trek across the southern United States.
She was photographed in suggestive poses and sold online, and she was sold out of hotel rooms and truck stops to any man who had money and wanted to buy spring.
In this case, the judicial system will eventually work well in several ways.
The victims were rescued and treated.
Her traffickers were arrested, pleaded guilty and sent to prison.
But what about those who pay to rape the child?
What have they suffered?
No fees have ever been charged.
The same violations are the norm in thousands of human trafficking cases.
About 10 000 children are subjected to commercial exploitation in the United States every year.
On average, each victim is forced to have sex more than five times a day.
However, buyers who contribute to child sex transactions are rarely held accountable.
Most people go back to their families, jobs, and communities.
Until next time.
How to report the traffickers in the Thompson case, the victim, too young for the driver's license, told FBIshe to be beaten once for trying to escape, if she tries to escape again, she will be threatened to "throw the crocodile ".
According to federal authorities, Marcus Thompson raped the girl five times.
Still, when the buyer asks for anal sex, the child remains independent enough to say no.
But she paid a cruel price for her refusal.
The man who bought her complained to the man who sold her.
She was beaten again.
At a hospital in St.
Louis, when the girl is identified as a sex person, the abuse is finally over.
Victims of human trafficking
According to her description, the Thomas family was arrested.
Marcus Thompson is now serving life in prison.
Robin Thompson, who helped advertise and book hotel rooms online, was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
When Robin Thompson was sentencedS.
District Judge Michael Reagan said the couple's crime was one of the most serious crimes he had seen in the federal bench for 16 years.
In the victim impact letter Reagan read in the verdict, the girl wrote, "It's hard to wake up every day and remember who I 've had sex.
"In the last 16 months, I have witnessed the worst human behavior in reporting for this project, which took me through eight countries on five continents.
Me and 6-year-
The old human trafficking victim visited a shelter for the oldest survivor who was only 11 years old and met a person under 5 years oldyear-
In a dirty brothel in India, old boys living with their parents interviewed survivors of rape by hundreds of men.
However, the pain of a child from Illinois
Beaten for refusing
Especially bothering me.
It lingers in my mind because it exposes a cruel fact: in sex trading, buyers and sellers treat their tortured children as property.
Property can't say no.
"Despite 20 years of hard work, sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism has expanded globally, surpassing every attempt to respond at the international and national levels. . .
As a result, children are increasingly at risk of sexual exploitation. ”—
2016. global research on sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism.
* This project started with a question: who bought 15-year-
The old child who makes love?
The answer is: many ordinary people.
They may be your colleagues.
A worker, doctor, priest, or spouse.
"They're in all walks of life," a 17-year-
Old survivors from the Midwest were sold when she was 15, and she said more than 150 men bought her in a month.
"Some people may be honest people in the community.
Mainly people in their 40 s living in the suburbs came to get what they had lost.
The scale of human trafficking, calculated digitally, indicates that not a few men have sex with their children.
The A2016 study by the Court Innovation Center found that in this country, between 8,900 and 10,500 children aged 13 and 17 are commercially exploited each year.
Hundreds of children aged 12 and under also suffered commercial sexual abuse, a group not included in the study.
The researchers found that the average age of the victim was 15 years old, and the average child was 5 years old. 4 times a day.
I interviewed victims who were forced to have sex with more than 30 men within a week;
More than 100 in a month
In order to determine a conservative estimate of the demand, I will be the number of victims (8,900)
The court innovation research center is determined by the rate of daily exploitation of each child (5. 4)
And then on average only one day a week to "work "(52).
Results: adults buy children for sex at least 2.
In the United States 5 million times a year.
Number of victims identified in the United StatesS. is on the rise.
The National Human Trafficking Hotline increased by 35% per cent in its 2016 report.
Most cases involve sexual transactions, and many of the victims are children.
Brad Myers, CEO of the Polaris program, which operates the hotline, said the increase was mainly due to better identification of victims of trafficking and public awareness of the existence of the hotline.
However, Miles said, "the vast majority of victims have not yet been found.
"International data is even more amazing.
According to the United Nations International Labor Organization, the sex trade is a $99 billion deal. a-
Year of global industry
1 million of children make up more than 20 percent of these profits.
There is evidence that sexual transactions for children are growing.
Research and advocacy organization ECPAT International concluded in a similar global study that more children than ever are at risk of abuse.
Mark Capaldi, chief researcher at ECPAT, said in an interview at the organization's Bangkok headquarters that increased global revenue, cheaper air travel and improved internet access have driven demand growth.
In short, it is cheaper and easier for adults to exploit children than ever before.
Another reason for the increasing exploitation is that there is little risk to buyers.
"If you get caught, you're out of luck," said Bjorn Sellstrom, head of Interpol's crime unit against children, in Lyon, France.
"Traveling and child abuse in another country is completely risk-free. ”It’s a low-
Domestic abuse is also at risk of crime.
In 2015, Congress strengthened the federal opposition
The law on human trafficking provides prosecutors with more tools to find sex buyers.
As a result, prosecution has only increased slightly. A U. S.
In a written reply to the question, a Justice Department spokesperson said the main goal was to "concentrate limited resources on arresting human traffickers who pose the most pressing threat to victims ".
She provided examples of about 30 buyers, including the former Metro pitchman Jared Fogle convicted on federal charges in 2015 and 2016.
But she says state and local prosecutors are better equipped than the federal government to hold accountable those who pay to exploit children.
Like the federal government, state and local jurisdictions tend to use undercover agents disguised as exploited children to stop the buyer's sting.
Despite such actions, thousands of people
Most of the arrested men become sex buyers every year, defending lesser crimes.
Police and prosecutors rarely look for buyers after paying their children.
Even in the most disgusting crime.
On 2016, 12 people were rescued by police. year-
Imprisoned in an old Texas girl in a hotel room in a wealthy suburb of Nashville, Tennessee.
Authorities say the child was found to have bruises and scratches on his face and has been advertised on the back page.
It also sold for a month to prospective buyers in Knoxville, Memphis and Nashville. A 36-year-
Nashville old man tavari Williams has been charged with numerous crimes of trafficking, kidnapping and rape.
He's waiting for trial.
But like 15-year-
An old man in Illinois, none of whom paid for sexual abuse in a middle school
Older children have been charged. (
Spokeswoman for Davidson CountyTenn. )
The district attorney's office says the authorities are unable to identify any buyers who may face felony charges).
"That child will have to fight the stigma of what she's going through for the rest of her life," said Alex troud, director of policy and research at MIT, who asked for repeal --
Organizations dedicated to reducing commercial demand.
"At the same time, buyers will never be held accountable.
This is what we call a culture of impunity.
"The prosecutor noted that they faced several obstacles in their prosecution, including the need to pay thata buyerknew or should know that the fees he paid for exploitation were minor. Victims —
Trauma, fear, drugs and alcohol
There is often no strong testimony.
Prosecutors must also weigh whether further injuries to victims can be sustained in situations where defense cross-examination may be difficult.
It's tempting to put buyers who exploit children in a box --
They are all pedophile, a small percentage of the seriously ill population.
But researchers and survivors say this is not the case.
ECPAT International researchers found that most people who spend money on exploiting children are opportunistic.
They don't intend to have sex with their children specifically, but they don't walk away when faced with temptation.
The survivors I interviewed had similar experiences.
One of them was exploited when she was 15, and she said only two men turned around and left the motel when they saw how young she was.
Even the two did not inform the police about the continuing child abuse.
More than 100 other men who paid for sex with her stayed.
"They just don't care" about her age, she said.
In a room full of sex buyers, register in court
I ordered a project in Seattle and I asked: "Have you ever thought about the life story of the girl and woman you purchased?
These people don't seem to know how to answer.
And then once beforea-
Buyer Zhou, arrested for trying to buy sex from police pretending to be under 15year-
The old girl said, "I don't want to know how sausages are made.
A piece of meat.
Goods to be consumed. Not a child. Not a life.
Later in this series, we will further explore the factors driving men to buy sexual relations with children.
But now let's take some time to find inspiration.
We will find it in a sewing room in Mumbai, India, where a group of outstanding women are waiting to meet us.
Priya, her HIV-ravaged body, on the day that Seena Simon, director of Care and Development at thecinnati, was alive --
She was found on the streets of red light district, Grant Road, Mumbai.
Priya was sold at the age of 13, worked in a brothel for 15 years, and was later driven out because of illness.
"She told me that 15 to 20 men used her one night.
This is her life, "said Simon, who has worked with trafficking victims in Mumbai for the past 15 years.
"She has no power or energy to do the job.
So she didn't make any money for the brothel owner and they didn't want her either.
Simon was told by the doctor that Priya could not survive and he found that he was still --
The young woman slept in a bed at the hospice where she died.
Not dead except Priya.
There are 7 ways to help combat human trafficking, and white blood cell counts are starting to improve.
She began to eat to regain her weight and energy.
Three months later, Priya left the hospice. care home.
Around that time, Simon had been talking to Ryan Berg, an American from Cincinnati, who worked for a non-governmental organization with a business in India, work on the need to provide shelter working environment for trafficking survivors.
"Employment is the gap," Simon said . ".
"We send them to work once they have some sort of skill training, but they can't cope with the pressure.
Completion deadline, completion target
They can't do it.
Internal conflicts have occurred, and many of them have failed.
Some people I know are back in the red light district.
From this need, from the shared enthusiasm of Berg and Simon to help victims of human trafficking, a business plan was born. In the U. S.
Berg founded the Aruna project in Cincinnati.
Phase 5 k non-profit organizations operate in multiple states.
Registration fees and other income for these events are used to cover the salaries of survivors of human trafficking in Mumbai.
In Mumbai, Simon manages production and advises survivors who are hired to make sneakers and headscarves and distribute them to participants in the Aruna program competition in the United StatesS.
There are also high-end bags online.
In 2015, Aruna hired Priya, the first survivor.
The company's wages and benefits are higher than market interest rates, Simon said.
It also provides collective shelter for survivors who are not yet ready to live alone.
The fight against human trafficking has inspired the incredible enthusiasm of many people, but it has sometimes been misled.
Some non-profit organizations working to combat human trafficking are not working well.
When I first heard about the methods of the Aruna project, I was skeptical.
Does running 5 k in the US really have any impact on women living in India?
But then I went to the production workshop in Mumbai and I saw the smiles of these women.
I am always humble as a person to meet the survivors.
In the sewing room, Mykal McEldowney, visual editor for IndyStar and I were surrounded by 22 survivors, including Priya, who suffered unspeakable fear.
These women answered our questions through translation and raised their own questions to us.
They laughed, giggled, and proudly showed off the bags and other products they produced.
They also told us about their dreams for the future.
One wants to be a fashion designer and the other wants to be a tailor.
A young woman named Ruby wants to be a singer, no more than 5 feet tall.
When we asked her if she would sing for us, she smiled and chose a song of worship, a hymn of gratitude.
When her clear and powerful voice filled the room, she sang not the pain of the past, but the hope for the future.