Suspected child prostitutes should be prosecuted even if they are forced to sell themselves by those who hold them in servitude, say more than 60 percent of the Georgia law enforcement heads who responded to a recent state survey on sex trafficking.
In the first attempt to quantify the extent of human trafficking in the state, the GBI discovered an attitude that advocates found disturbing among the law enforcement agencies that responded to the survey — the belief that some minors in the sex trade are there willingly and that the prevalence of human trafficking in Georgia is exaggerated.
“One of the obstacles to identifying and investigating child sex trafficking is it is a common belief in law enforcement that victims engage in this conduct willingly,” said GBI Director Vernon Keenan. “Those of us who are involved in investigating child sex trafficking are constantly astounded that there is still a belief in law enforcement circles, and in the public, that a child would willingly engage in this.”
The 206 sheriff’s offices and police departments surveyed reported a total of 190 cases of human trafficking in 2012. Most counted cases rather than victims, so there could be many more in forced labor or forced into the sex trade.
According to a parallel report that was released Thursday by the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, a state agency, social service agencies reported they had seen more than 500 victims of human trafficking in 2012. But their numbers could include victims of what is often called “modern-day slavery,” who were counted more than once if multiple agencies attended to them.
“The transient and illicit in nature of the crime complicates investigations and many law enforcement agencies are unaware that trafficking may be occurring in their communities,” the report said.
Georgia State University researchers, who analyzed the responses, found many law enforcement officers simply don’t believe human trafficking is as prevalent in Georgia as has been reported in the media and by federal law enforcement and advocates.
“That sort of thing doesn’t happen here,” one wrote. “It’s a choice the person made,” another put on the survey. “It’s prostitution,” one agency wrote in its survey response.
“That is disturbing. Very disturbing,” said Kaffie McCullough, interim director of youthSpark, a group that advocates for children like those who are human trafficking victims. “I don’t know how anybody should be prosecuted for something they are not old enough, by law, to consent to. They just don’t know what to look for if they say it doesn’t exist.”
For the most part, human trafficking is a hidden industry and that has made it hard to document.
An investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that local and state efforts to fight child sex trafficking are based on figures that, while preached as gospel and enshrined in legislation, are guesses or distortions. Even the widespread belief that Atlanta is one of the nation’s child exploitation capitals stands on shaky ground.
In 2005, the FBI identified Atlanta as one of 14 cities with the highest incidence of children used in prostitution, but it did not have numbers to support that assertion.
And a study conducted by the Urban Institution for the U.S. Justice Department and released in March ranked Atlanta at the top of the sex-trade industry, with projected annual earnings approaching $300 million.
Former President Jimmy Carter wrote in a just-released book that 200 and 300 girls are added to Atlanta’s sex slave industry every month.
“We know how bad it is,” Keenan said. “We believe the extent of the crime is vastly undetected and under reported.”
According to the United States Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, which was incorporated into Georgia’s law in 2006, human trafficking is defined as children and adults forced by fraud or coercion into the commercial sex trade industry. Human trafficking also can involved force labor of any kind. It’s harder to prove human trafficking if the victim is an adult.
And the victims rarely come forward, Keenan said.
“Most of them are in a brainwashed situations,” he said. “They don’t trust the police. They don’t trust the victim advocacy groups. They don’t trust anyone.”
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