What Is Sex Trafficking?

Our mission is to bring an end to to the threat and trauma of child sex trafficking in Maryland.

One of the first steps in that journey is education.

It’s important that every member of our community understands what sex trafficking is — and what it isn’t — so that we have a common language with which to build our prevention efforts.

This infographic from Shared Hope International offers insight into the issue. Some key takeaways:

 1. Sex trafficking occurs when someone uses fraud, force, or coercion to cause a commercial sex act with an adult OR causes a minor to commit a commercial sex act.

2. Traffickers find victims through the victim’s own social networks, neighborhoods, and schools. Increasingly, traffickers use the internet to lure their victims.

3. Traffickers use the promise of love, safety, food, money, and adventure to lure victims. It doesn’t always look like kidnapping.

4. The most common age for children to enter sex trafficking is between 14-16.

5. Victims need support and restorative services, not judgment.