Child Sex Trafficking Growing in the U.S

'I Got My Childhood Taken From Me'

ABC News

M.S. was 12 years old when she first fell in love. It was his "swagger" that attracted her, she recalled, laughing.

The pre-teen, who lost her mother at a very young age and only saw her father on holidays, said she desperately craved a father figure. All she ever wanted was to be loved, she said, and she thought she found that in the man who patrolled up and down her street wooing her.

"I just fell into his arms," said M.S., who didn't want her full name revealed because she is a minor.

One day, the man invited M.S. to go on a drive with him. She did, and she never returned home.

For four years, M.S. was forced into child prostitution with four different pimps. She was taken from city to city, forced to have sex with random men against her will. She rarely got to keep any of the $1,500 she made every day. Instead, she was abused mentally and physically by both her pimps and other girls who he housed.

"I got my childhood taken from me," M.S., now 17, told ABC News. "I used to think this is what I'm supposed to do, and I just did it. ... It was normal to us."

M.S. was scared to run away, afraid that her pimps would turn their threats into hurting her family into reality. Even when, two years after being sold into sex, M.S. found out that her grandmother and sister had put out fliers looking for her and had even put her name on the missing persons list, she didn't contact them.

"I was scared of them judging me," she recalled.

M.S. is one of thousands of American girls who are part of sex trafficking chains in the United States. It is a problem many associate with developing countries, but is one that is increasingly plaguing the United States.

"I think many Americans are more willing to accept that there are girls enslaved in Cambodia or Delhi, and really can't imagine that it's happening right here," actress Demi Moore said at a briefing on Capitol Hill Tuesday. "As a society, we owe it to them to ensure this doesn't happen to anyone else."

Moore and her husband, Ashton Kutcher, recently created The Demi and Ashton Foundation to raise awareness about the issue of sex slavery worldwide.

The Department of Justice estimates that more than 250,000 American youth are at risk of becoming victims of commercial sexual exploitation. The average age of entry for female prostitutes in the United States is between 12 and 14 years, and children and youth older than 12 are prime targets for sexual exploitation by organized crime units, according to a 2001 report.

In addition to domestic girls who are exploited, about 14,500 to 17,500 girls from other countries are smuggled into the United States for this purpose, according to the State Department.

"We know so little about our daughters who are bought for sex," said Malika Saada Saar, president of The Rebecca Project for Human Rights, which organized the briefing Tuesday to bring attention to the issue of domestic sex trafficking.

There is a "cyber slave market that is being built up by Craigslist and other Web sites," Saada Saar said, and most of the time, the pimps who buy and sell these girls are never arrested or jailed.

Many of the children sold into the sex trade come from broken families or the foster care system. Often times, as in the case of M.S. and Asia, they are looking for an escape and for the one thing they say they didn't find at home, love.

"This is a new and emerging phenomenon. Ten years ago, there were not the same disturbing stories of traffickers seeking out and preying on girl runaways within 48 hours after they have left home," Saada Saar wrote in the Huffington Post.

"Why is this happening? There is the Internet, which has created an easy and accessible venue for the commercial sexual exploitation of children. As a result, young girls are the new commodities that traffickers and gangs are selling. And, there isn't a culture of crime and punishment for selling girls as there is for selling illegal drugs," she wrote.

Asia, who was lured into the trade at the age of 18, says it was eerie how well her pimp knew what she was looking for.

"It's like he knew I was vulnerable, and he was looking for people like me," she told ABC News. "He told me constantly he would take care of me, it wasn't going to be like this. ... It was like false promises but he made it sound so good. That's what he does, he was an expert at it."

I hope that woman gets the 25 year sentence and that it means 25 years rather than serve a few years and be out on parole.

Oh my god! It's horrible enough they were grooming a child for prostitution, but her own daughter?!?! What is wrong with people? That woman should get life in prison, not 25 years. Her own life was screwed up enough and now she's messed up her little daughter's life too. Hopefully the girl can be helped and she can live a normal life but can she really live a normal life after all of that? How sad.

Metro Mom Gets 15 Years for Pimping Daughter in Bondage Sex Ring

May 5, 2010

KANSAS CITY, MO - A Blue Springs woman is heading to prison for her shocking role in a sex trafficking ring in which she and another man "trained" her pre-teen daughter to perform sadomasochistic sex acts for money.

The 46-year-old woman, whose name is not being released to protect the identity of her daughter, pleaded guilty to federal commercial sex trafficking charges last September. She was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison without parole, plus she was ordered to pay $200,000 in restitution to the victim for medical services relating to current and future physical, psychiatric, or psychological care.

Prosecutors say that co-defendant Todd Barkau, 37, with the help of the victim's mother, got control of the then 12-year-old girl in 2000. With her mother's consent, Barkau sexually groomed and trained the child to become a BDSM (bondage-domination-sadism-masochism) sexual dominatrix. He did so by engaging in BDSM activities with the child himself, forcing her to engage in sexual activities with other men while he watched and using BDSM pornography over the Internet to teach her dominatrix skills and techniques.

When the child was 14 years old, Barkau, who lived in the home with the mother and daughter created a business out of the home where he advertised the child over the Internet as a 19-to-20-year-old BDSM dominatrix named "Mistress Alisha."

According to prosecutors, the victim's mother suggested the name "Alisha" for the child because it was her own former stripper name.

For two years, Barkau sold the child, as "Mistress Alisha," to sexually dominate men during online web sessions and in-person BDSM activities. This included, among other things, bondage, beatings, burning, and genital mutilation. The customers paid for the sexual services both via PayPal and with "tributes," or items in lieu of cash payment such as a DVD player, a cappuccino machine and other electronics.

Barkau, who also pleaded guilty for his role in the case, remains in federal custody awaiting sentencing. Under the terms of a plea agreement, prosecutors are recommending that Barkau receive a sentence of 25 years.

http://www.fox4kc.com/news/wdaf-story-mom-bdsm-sex-ring-prison-050510,0,6695149.story

A childhood of torment is recalled by victim of sex trafficking

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/05/05/1927211_a-childhood-of-torment-is-recalled.html?storylink=omni_popular#ixzz0nNTaFu3e