Da’Jah Broyles

English 110

Amanda Hadlock

Argumentative Essay

The United States faces many problems, and some make headlines and others do not, the

media decides what is important and deserves attention. This is an issue because many serious

problems are swept under the rug and justice is never found. Sex trafficking in the United States

affects hundreds of thousands and is closer to home than one may realize. Many people turn a

blind eye to the topic because they are not directly affected. Awareness about sex trafficking

should be expressed to all in the United States and here in Springfield. More laws should be

made to help victims of sex trafficking and more work should be done to stop offenders.

A huge focus on the topic of sex trafficking and people’s main concern is the children.

Many minors are being used for sex trafficking and this is a huge reason some people care. But

the problem as a whole need to be addressed. The definition of sex trafficking is when a

commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion. These women, men, boys, and girls

are recruited, harbored, and obtained for the sex in exchange for something of value (Kotrla

2017). Domestic minor sex trafficking includes commercial sexual abuse of children through

buying, selling, or trading their sexual services. There are multiple forms of DMST which

include prostitution, pornography, stripping, and escort services.

Traditionally, one would think that sex traffickers take people from the streets. Late at

night a young girl is walking and then abducted, but traffickers can also be people you know.

This is why police have a hard time finding and arresting traffickers, it’s often people you

wouldn’t suspect or people who move very swiftly. After reading many different stories of
victims, I found it interesting that no one story was the same. One woman said she fell in love

with her traffickers and ran away with him to a different state, where she was “pimped out”

along with other girls her age. Another story, a woman in her thirties who had a drug addiction

and no money was manipulated into selling her body for drugs and eventually became an

oppressor. After being caught by police she was given jail time, she could not escape her

trafficker, so she made the best of a bad situation by helping. Cases like these are not what comes

to mind when an average American thinks of sex trafficking.

This is why awareness to the truth about sex trafficking needs to be known to everyone.

The demand for this horrible business will never diminish, but if more laws and action was taken

to diminish the supply. Sex traffickers keep extremely low profiles and are very hard to track, if

more efforts were made to focus on this epidemic then the rates of trafficking will diminish.

More oppressors will be going to jail, and more victims will step forward because they know the

law is on their side. The United States is in the top four countries with the highest commercial

sex trafficking market, along with Jamaica, the Netherlands, and Japan. All of these countries

maintain a cultural tolerance for this market and its continuance to thrive.

Human Trafficking laws started being enacted in 2000, these laws were designed to

prosecute traffickers, prevent human trafficking, and protect the survivors. These laws make the

victims out to be predominately illegal immigrants, which shows how the government had little

knowledge of the problem in many communities around the nation. The International Labor

Organization estimates that there are 4.8 million people trapped in forced sexual exploitation.

Statistics like these should worry people across the globe and statistics like these have affected

millions of families.
 Anyone who might disagree with sex trafficking in the United States and the truth of the

matter existing wouldn’t know about the sex trafficking hotline. From 2007 to 2017, the National

Human Trafficking Hotline, received reports of 34,700 sex trafficking cases in the United States.

This is only a small percentage of the many victims that exist in the United States, some people

are not as lucky and have yet to be granted their freedom. This hotline can be called by anyone

and the more aware we are of the problem the more suspicious and cautious people will be

toward their own neighbors. “Vulnerable populations are frequently targeted by traffickers,

including runaway and homeless youth, as well as victims of domestic violence, sexual assault,

war, or social discrimination.” Victims are typically never picked at random; traffickers are

observant of who they might be able to take advantage of.

In the United States laws on sex trafficking are very brief and include programs to help

victims after violence and also offers them restitution. In the state of Missouri, there are four

laws in relation to sex trafficking. “A person commits the offense of trafficking for the purposes

of sexual exploitation if he or she knowingly recruits, entices, harbors, transports, provides,

advertises the availability of or obtains by any means, including but not limited to through the

use of force, abduction, coercion, fraud, deception, blackmail, or causing or threatening to cause

financial harm, another person for the use or employment of such person in a commercial sex

act, sexual conduct, a sexual performance, or the production of explicit sexual material as

defined in section 572.010, without his or her consent, or benefits, financially or by receiving

anything of value, from participation in such activities” (Mynarich 2017). In the event of this

offense the punishment is 5-20 years and a fine up to $250,000 (Mynarich 2017).

In the state of Missouri, the punishment for sex trafficking children is much larger, but

the child must be under the age of twelve. Sex trafficking children in the first degree has a
maximum sentencing of life imprisonment without eligibility of parole (Mynarich 2017). Sexual

trafficking of children in the second-degree deals with children between the ages thirteen and

seventeen. This felony carries a sentencing of ten years to life and a maximum fine of $250,000

(Mynarich 2017). However, if any of these offenses are affected by force, abduction or coercion

the punishment is life imprisonment. But life imprisonment is used loosely in the state of

Missouri and typically means 25-30 years and registry as a sex offender except for first degree

child sex trafficking.

The victims affected by these traffickers are asked to speak up and tell their story which

is often very hard. If they do not, then their offender’s sentencing will not be the maximum. So

much goes into convicting traffickers since much of what they do is very secretive and a part of a

bigger networking system. In Springfield, Missouri a lot of efforts are being made to stop sex

trafficking locally.
 Works Cited

Lorenz, Katherine. “Sex Trafficking in the United States: Theory, Research, Policy, and

Practice.” Contemporary Justice Review, vol. 20, no. 3, Sept. 2017, pp. 293–295.

EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/10282580.2017.1292834

Benoit, Stephanie Towne. “Human Trafficking on I-44.” Taking a Long, Hard Look at

Springfield's Poverty Problem, 417Magazine, Jan.

2018,www.417mag.com/issues/january-2018/human-trafficking-on-i-44/.

“Current Federal Laws.” Polaris, 17 Oct. 2016, polarisproject.org/current-federal-laws.“Current

Federal Laws.” Polaris, 17 Oct. 2016, polarisproject.org/current-federal-laws.

Santana, Madison Tate. “Trafficked in Texas: Combatting the Sex-Trafficking Epidemic

Through

Prostitution Law and Sentencing Reform in the Lone Star State.” Vanderbilt Law Review,

vol. 71, no. 5, Oct. 2018, pp. 1739–1773. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com.proxy.missouristate.edu/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=a9h&AN=13270285&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Kotrla, Kimberly. “Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking in the United States.” Social Work, vol. 55,

no. 2, Apr.2010, pp. 181–187. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1093/sw/55.2.181.

“The Facts.” Polaris, 9 Nov. 2018, polarisproject.org/human-trafficking/facts.