We need a strong federal child-marriage law to protect young ones from traffickers
In 2014 my best friend and her husband named me a godparent when they adopted their only child, taking her from a life of being sex trafficked. She was in a hospital room fighting for her life after a suicide attempt that had forced her traffickers to discard her seemingly lifeless body now useless to them. It was the only way she knew to escape.
The only contact information they could find was my friend’s email address shoved in her pocket.
She was a teenager, and her nightmare had begun as an infant. No one had protected her.
People think if we make prostitution legal, sex trafficking will end. This is not true. Prostitution is not always a choice. Victims of sex trafficking are bought and sold into prostitution every day, even as infants and children.
The people who take victims aren’t necessarily the end users. They are the sellers and users. That’s why they are called traffickers. They keep or sell victims against their will and profit by forcing them to have sex with others. Some are sold by their own family members when they are infants or young children. Others are taken. Some, as teens, are tricked into trusting a person who has groomed them to think that they are in love with the teen or that they will help the teen escape a bad situation at home or in foster care.
Victims of sex trafficking can even be sold without leaving their homes. Caretakers and parents can prostitute their children for money.
When I was a little girl growing up in the era of crack, mothers allowed men from the neighborhood to have sex with their pre-teen daughters in exchange for drugs and money. This is sex trafficking and prostitution.
Some victims might even be in their 20s — like I was.
I was happy, educated and starting a good life.
But I was set up by someone to be raped; someone who was paid to deliver a victim into the hands of the trafficker. It doesn’t matter if it’s a pimp or a parent; legalizing prostitution will only give sex trafficking legal cover.
Sex traffickers are already being helped by age-of-consent laws and the lack of a federal definition of consent for any age, as well as rules surrounding child marriage in this country.
There is no minimum age for marriage or consent on the federal level. Traffickers who are caught can claim they waited until a state’s age of consent or that they are having consensual relationships with minors.
Some even go on to marry their victims. Some don’t bother to wait until their victims turn 18. Every state in America, excpt two, allows some form of child marriage, thereby legalizing and legitimizing child rape. This leads to more victims still trapped in sex trafficking as they grow into adults.
This legal two-step allows adult predators in the majority of the states to legally marry a victim before the age that the victim can give sexual consent and also gives them legal rights to the children the child victim has with the predator. In 13 states, there is no minimum age for marriage.
The child can’t leave the predator, enter a shelter or file for divorce because they are under the age of 18. This is a crime often exacerbated by wealth and influence. How does a victim escape and leave their small child behind? They would have to fight for custody with no money or help after physical violence, rape, brainwashing and trauma have crippled them.
That there are no federal laws establishing a minimum age of consent, minimum age of marriage and no federal felony childabuse laws is a blemish on America’s character.
Legalizing prostitution will just make this crime more profitable. It is not the answer to ending sex trafficking. Changing laws on the federal level will send a stronger message that America finally is serious about protecting victims.