Who Willingly Purchases People?
Author: Kimberly Fortson
Human trafficking! The words strike fear and anger in many who read them. It is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labor, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others.
Sex trafficking is arguably what human trafficking is most known for. The actual number of victims is hard to know, but the National Human Trafficking Hotline reported that it received 48,326 individual trafficking-related contacts in 2019. The International Labor Organization in 2012 stated that there could be as many as 21 million people who are trafficked around the world (Bach, Diane & Litam, 2017). With the magnitude of this problem, it may seem as though there is no way to handle and help everyone who may need it, but we must try. Since the trade is undertaken internationally, the international community must work together to help victims, catch traffickers, and help slow the systems in place that allow people to be vulnerable to trafficking (Gallagher & Holmes, 2008; Wetizer, 2007).
It is essential to clarify the difference between consensual sex work and human trafficking. Sex work is when a person who is of age decides to work selling sexual acts or time (escorting), while sex trafficking is when a person is forced or coerced into selling sexual acts to benefit the person or people selling them. Not all sex workers are sexually trafficked (Weitzer, 2007).
Human trafficking is a business with supply and demand: The supply is the victims, and the demand is the customers. So, who are the customers who willingly and knowingly purchase people who are forced into the sex trade, and how do they handle the psychological weight of buying another human being for sexual slavery, especially children? For those who purchase juveniles for sexual relations, they have many of the same characteristics as situational (availability), preferential (sexually attracted to children), and opportunistic (will be sexually active with anyone) child molesters (Bach et al., 2017). The horrible truth is customers can be anyone. They may be married or unmarried, of any race, male or female, and of any socioeconomic status (Swarens, 2018). One in seven people admits to having purchased sex at some point in their lives. Most people who buy sex are employed, white, married, middle-class men (Weber, 2017).
Many individuals who sexually abuse children engage in cognitive distortion habits, such as telling themselves that if victims are smiling or they are giving victims presents, they consent to the sex acts (Bach et al., 2017). We want to argue that most people who (knowingly) purchase sex-trafficked individuals also engage in these practices to lessen the guilt of purchasing a sex slave.
Human sex trafficking is a heinous crime that violates humans of their rights, and it must be combatted. Law enforcement needs to continue to receive training in finding victims, treating them with respect, and penalizing those who buy sex from trafficked victims and those who sell victims (Gallager & Holmes, 2008). Human trafficking will never completely go away, but we should try to curb and control it as much as we can.
References:
Bach, J. E., & Litam, S. D. A. (2017). “Kind regards”: An examination of one buyer's attempt to purchase a trafficked child for sex. Journal of sexual aggression, 23(2), 222-233.
Gallagher, A., & Holmes, P. (2008). Developing an effective criminal justice response to human trafficking: Lessons from the front line. International criminal justice review, 18(3), 318 343.
Hotline Statistics. (n.d.). In National Human Trafficking Hotline. Retrieved December 28, 2020.
Ashleigh Diserio Consulting works with individuals and organizations, assisting them in gleaning insight into a person’s life, motivation, and past and future behavior, so certain areas of behavior can be understood with a high degree of accuracy. We provide services in the areas of criminal and intelligence investigations, management support, threat assessment, insider threat support, and education and training.