Sex trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing or soliciting of a person for the purposes of a commercial sex act, in which the commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act is 17 or younger.
Victims can be any age and are trafficked by anyone, including family members, extended relatives, friends, spouses and partners, as well as acquaintances and strangers.
Attorney General’s office estimates that there are approximately 79,000 victims of youth and minor sex trafficking in the state of Texas at any given time.
There is no one particular look to a trafficker. Traffickers are people who are willing to treat other people like objects or commodities that they can buy, sell, or exploit for their own benefit. They can be people of all races and gender; family members, employers, gang and cartel members, strip club owners, intimate partners, online acquaintances.
Some of the more common methods of recruitment of children include…
- a promise of love and acceptance
- money
- a place to live
- peer influence
- basic need for food and water being met
- taking advantage of desperate situation
- manipulation and deception
- exploiting an existing position of power
