DEBT BONDAGE
Sex trafficking also can occur within debt bondage, as women and girls are forced to continue in prostitution through the use of unlawful “debt” purportedly incurred through their transportation, recruitment, or even their crude “sale” – which exploiters insist they must pay off before they can be free.
CHILDREN AND THE COMMERCIAL SEX TRADE
International covenants and protocols obligate criminalization of the commercial sexual exploitation of children. The use of children in the commercial sex trade is prohibited under both the Palermo Protocol and U.S. law as well as by legislation in countries around the world. There can be no exceptions and no cultural or socioeconomic rationalizations preventing the rescue of children from sexual servitude.
TECHNIQUES OF CONTROL USED BY SEX TRAFFICKERS AND PIMPS
A sophisticated understanding of the realities on the ground is necessary to ensure that sex trafficking victims are not wrongly discounted as consenting adults.
HOW PREVALENT IS TRAFFICKING?
Reliable data collection on the prevalence of trafficking is problematic due to a number of reasons, including: