A regional division of the Not For Sale Campaign

Atlanta is ranked as one of 14 cities with the highest levels of child prostitution. Not the highest - but enduring such a chronic problem in the area that the FBI put Atlanta on the target list as one of the Bureaus top priorities for focusing resources. By its estimates, some 1.6 million children leave home as runaways each year and at least 40,000 of those children are likely to be trafficked for sex. These children, Georgias children can be so mistreated by pimps that their ordeal ends only when the children are killed. Trunking, is a popular form of punishment and also outright sale for street pimps. The process involves tossing a captured child in the trunk of a car, transporting them to another state and selling them to pimps in that location.

The FBI notes that major metros like Atlanta with large sports venues tend to see high instances of child sex trafficking. The very things that make us proud in Atlanta cultural destination, sports destinations, varied entertainment venues are the exact things traffickers like about the city as well. Its a city with a glittery surface that obscures a dark industry that is quite literally devouring our children.

The Juvenile Justice Fund, located in Fulton County, commissioned a longitudinal study last year that is only now releasing results. The findings show that as many as 270 minors were trafficked on the streets of Atlanta in just eight corridors of activity in the first part of 2008. Even more disturbing is that updated numbers show that the count rose above 300 per month in the latter part of 2008.

Individual conversations with pimps tell the story of complex men and women who sexually enslave Georgias women and children for the purpose of profit. One pimp in particular noted his ability to tell within five minutes of meeting a female as to whether she had prior issues with sexual exploitation and whether or not he would be able to develop her into a working girl. Studies on the subject show that 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 10 boys will be sexually assaulted before the age of 18.

The reasons children are prostituted are myriad, as noted by researchers Finkelhor and Ormrod:

"The prostitution of juveniles occurs in a variety of contexts. Both international rings and interstate crime operations traffic young girls to distant places with promises of employment and money. Parents advertise and prostitute their children over the Internet. Runaway and homeless youth on city streets are recruited by pimps or engage in survival sex. Drug pushers force addicted teenagers to prostitute themselves as a condition for receiving drugs or a place to stay. As part of initiations, gangs may require members to engage in sex for money or other services. But also, acting on their own initiative or in the company of friends, young people may engage in casual or even frequent prostitution for money or for adventure."

NFSGA has been engaged in a mapping study of escort services, massage parlors, and online or print listings offering sex services for hire. While the first year of research is not complete , the study shows preliminary indications that over 15 percent of the listings catalogued include the descriptor of age 18. In both the JJF study and our own research, use of this descriptor is a means of indicating that minors are available through this particular listing. In fact, age descriptors in the teens in online ads span 36 percent of all ads that indicated an age; 90 percent of the ads carried an age descriptor. More than three percent of the ads, even after countless crackdowns both by law enforcement and by internal management at online sites listing personal ads, included the young or barely legal descriptors, verified by law enforcement to be code used in delineating the availability of minors.

Of the listings that indicated age 18, 41 percent required an incall only visit. This descriptor has proven, through our investigation, to mean that the individuals selling sex are located at a single point of contact. This seems to be consistent with most CSEC cases in that the trafficker endeavored to control the environment completely. Of the remaining listings for age 18, 40 percent gave no information on incall/outcall conditions; 19 percent were listed as incall/outcall. There is no methodology to support that incall/outcall combinations can be counted as an additional factor in determining the likelihood of CSEC.

Disturbing trends noted along with a teen age listing included the above descriptors of young and barely legal in addition to petite, pregnant, new in town, and several listings included height and weight descriptions that would be consistent with the size of a child. The descriptor new in town, though currently unsubstantiated by our research, is likely to be similar to the term under new management used in many massage parlor ads to indicate the introduction of a new set of girls. It is NFSCs hypothesis that additional evaluation will prove this to be true.

In examining data specifically from the Savannah area, we found that the FBIs assertion that CSEC traffickers tend to move toward larger, urban settings to be supported. Less than three percent of ads (of a comparable population) had age indicators of age 18, less than one percent included the indicators of young and no instances of barely legal were present.

Working to prevent the commercial sexual exploitation of children

CSEC IN GEORGIA

GEORGIA