Fourteen-year-old girls should be eating frozen yogurt with their friends, dancing to One Direction songs, and doodling hearts with their crushes’ initials in their social studies notebooks. They should not be forced into having sex with strangers, or with anyone, for that matter. Yet this is the reality for far too many children, some of whom enter into sex trafficking at ages as young as 11 to 14 years old.[1] At that age, children are legally mandated to attend school, where the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates they spend nearly 35 hours per week. Because children this age generally spend more time in school than anywhere else, schools are in the best position to educate students about sex trafficking, to protect children from exploitation, and to identify children who have already been victimized. By implementing comprehensive policies that address suspected sex trafficking, schools can fight against trafficking in two ways: first, by educating students on the realities and dangers of commercial sexual exploitation; and second, by training school personnel to recognize potential and current trafficking victims.
A school’s primary function is to educate; however, public schools generally lack comprehensive sex education. While some states permit age-appropriate sex education beginning in kindergarten, most states’ curricula do not include sex education until high school, when students are already at significant risk of being victimized. According to the Guttmacher Institute, fewer than 25 states mandate sex education and only 13 states require medical accuracy in sex education. Furthermore, only 20 states require their sex education programs to include information about avoiding coerced sex.
Clearly, the public education system is failing America’s children. Without providing our children a basic understanding of consent and coercive situations, how can we expect to protect them against the physical, emotional, and psychological controls that traffickers use? If, through abstinence-only education, we tie girls’ self-worth to their virginity, how can we expect them to come forward and seek help after they have been trafficked and raped? Instead of abstinence-only education, schools should implement programs that disseminate medically accurate information and teach students to recognize the recruiting tactics used by traffickers.
Although many victims of trafficking eventually stop attending school or attend only sporadically, school officials are in the best position to identify potential victims of trafficking. The U.S. Department of Education created a list of risk factors and indicators to help educators recognize the warning signs of sexual exploitation. This list can be used to identify children who may be more susceptible to traffickers. These factors include low self-esteem, a history of childhood sexual abuse, mental illness or learning disabilities, and family dysfunction. The indicators help officials to recognize which children may be victims of exploitation.
Educators should look for the following warning signs: multiple unexplained absences, a significantly older and/or controlling “boyfriend” or “girlfriend,” and a sudden change in attire, behavior, relationships, or possessions. By educating school officials to recognize these risk factors and indicators, and implementing comprehensive policies to handle suspected trafficking, schools can be the first line of defense against sex trafficking.
Commercial sexual exploitation can occur in every city, every community, and every school. Pretending otherwise paves the way for traffickers to continue preying on vulnerable children. Instead of continuing to ignore this epidemic, schools should be mandated to provide comprehensive, medically accurate sex education focusing on forming healthy relationships and the importance of consent. In addition, all school employees need to be trained to recognize the factors which put students at risk and to identify suspected victims. Through the widespread implementation of these measures and collaborative community efforts, we can protect children from the trauma of commercial sexual exploitation.
[1] The U.S. Dept. of Human Services, citing the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, reports that the “average age a girl enters the commercial sex trade is 12-14 years old. For boys, it’s even younger – just 11-13 years old.” Yet, “the study of the age of entry into prostitution has proven to be a complicated task and current findings have limited applicability due to the sample from which they are drawn, i.e., if the sample is of young adults, the average age of entry will be younger; if the sample is of older women, there is the opportunity to enter at an older age. Thus, interpretation of the findings on age of entry into prostitution should consider these limitations.” Dominique E. Roe-Sepowitz, “Juvenile Entry Into Prostitution: The Role of Emotional Abuse,” 18 Violence Against Women 562, 566 (2012).
Jessica DiBacco is currently a first-year law student at the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. Jessica is from Norfolk, Massachusetts and received a Bachelor of Arts in Counseling and Health Psychology from Emmanuel College. After graduation, Jessica hopes to become a prosecutor or do advocacy work.
