Feds Bust Sex Trafficking Ring, Rescue 48 Kids

You can read my colleague Jen's thoughts on what happens to trafficked children after they turn 18 here.

This week, the FBI conducted a nation wide law enforcement sweep as part of the National Innocence Lost Initiative, resulting in 571 arrests and finding 48 children trafficked into prostitution.  The ages of the children ranged from 13 to 17.  To give you an idea of how young some of these girls were, most 13-year-olds are still in middle school or junior high, and some haven't even started menstruating yet.  Young. The sting stretched from Anchorage, Alaska to Miami, Florida and included most metro areas in between. 

The numbers in this report- 48 child trafficking victims and 571 people arrested for pimping them- are disturbing.  What's more disturbing, however, is the number they don't give: the number of men who bought sex with these kids. 

According to MSNBC, as well as a number of anti-trafficking organization estimates, these child victims were having sex with 10-15 men a night.  Take the average of that (12.5) and multiply it by 6 days a week (assuming they get one night off).  You get 75 sex acts a week or 3,900 sex acts a year being sold by a single child.  Multiply that by the 48 victims from this bust, you get the very disturbing number that American men buy 187,200 sex acts from children per year.  And that's assuming that the most recent bust found every single child trafficking victims in the U.S.

I have been an abolitionist for six years, and when I see 187,200, all I can ask myself is: How could this happen?  How could we have let it get this far out of control?  Is there anything we can do? 

The next time you think about buying commercial sex in the form of porn, a lap dance, an escort or anything else, don't do it.  Because if you  don't buy sex, that number will eventually 187,199... 187,198...187,197..........0.  And that's a beautiful number.