The average age of entry into prostitution is 12 years old

[AlphaCentauri]

Some children in the county's foster care system are being recruited as child prostitutes from emergency shelters or group homes, members of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors acknowledged Tuesday.

And of youth arrested on prostitution charges in Los Angeles County, a majority comes from the county's foster care system, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing county officials. The newspaper said that, according to the county, "in some cases, pimps use underage sex workers to recruit fellow group home residents."

``The average age of entry into prostitution is 12 years old, and the
average life expectancy following entry is seven years,'' said Supervisor
Michael Antonovich, citing sources from the U.S. Department of Justice and the
FBI.

How youth in county foster care, particularly in the emergency shelter, would be able to leave the shelter was not immediately clear. But as the accompanying video shows, the typical approach to young girls is to shower them with attention gifts, and a recruiter or pimp can earn up to $140,000 per child.

http://belmontshore.patch.com/articles/county-foster-kids-recruited-as-child-prostitutes

[seabeyond]

1. some people insist this is a myth. then they can ignore. and the children can be invisible....

so we are more comfortable with our choices.

thank you for putting this article up, so people can educate themselves.

[riderinthestorm]

26. The original LA Times article that's linked in the Belmont Times is more in-depth

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-1128-sex-trafficking-20121128,0,7344639.story

[1StrongBlackMan]

2. Maybe I'm off the wall here; but ...

the typical approach to young girls is to shower them with attention gifts, and a recruiter or pimp can EARN up to $140,000 per child.

EARN? We have to change the phrasing with respect to gathering money ... pimps no more earn their living, than Paris Hilton or any other person, collecting passive income.

[seabeyond]

3. yes yEs YES. so true. thank you so much for point that out. nt

[AlphaCentauri]

4. Knowing the talent Paris Hilton has shown, She is a pimp

of all those who make her an idol

[redqueen]

13. No, she is not a pimp.

Pimps make money by selling other peoples' bodies to sex buyers.

It is a very specific word. It represents one of the most horrible things humans can do to each other. It should not be used lightly.

[Marrah_G]

21. I agree

[1StrongBlackMan]

23. There you go ...

getting all right, again!

[redqueen]

25. Hey, you...

always so nice to see you.

[1StrongBlackMan]

32. likewise! n/t

[AlphaCentauri]

68. Selling images of others body could be a Literal vs. Figurative Language

isn't it?

[Scuba]

5. Thanks for posting. This is shameful and horrifying.

[PDJane]

6. Disposable people. Like the school to prison pipeline.

When human life isn't valued, these thing occur. If they're girls or black, it happens more often.

[GermanSmoker]

7. My thoughts

Stuff like this happens when prostitution is outlawed. The pimps are outlaws who don't care about any rules. I don't think the average age is 12 in countries where prostitution is legal like here in good old germany.

[riderinthestorm]

9. If you really believe that trafficking in children doesn't occur in places like Germany

or other European countries then you are being willfully blind.

Europe has a notorious problem with child prostitutes. Just because prostitution is legal doesn't mean children aren't being exploited.

[GermanSmoker]

11. Pedophilia is the problem

And it's the job of the police to fight stuff like this. Do you think that child trafficking didn't happen in societies that outlawed protitution? Men(Or women) who buy children for sex should get punished big time. But the main issue here is not prostitution it is pedophilia.

[seabeyond]

15. because of the legalization it makes it tougher for the cops to get to the criminals. check out

sweden.

[liberal_at_heart]

16. I don't think the main outrage of the OP was meant to be the prostitution itself

The outrage is the age at which children are being lured into it and how the pimps are getting their hands on children who are suppose to be protected by the state.

[riderinthestorm]

19. When do they stop being exploited children and become "child" prostitutes?

According to most experts, they remain categorized as children until they are 18 years old. Would you recognize a 17 year old "child" prostitute or would you say they are being sexually molested by a pedophile?

What if the "child" entered this working profession willingly. Working prostitute or sexually molested child?

[redqueen]

27. This is what so many *choose to* ignore.

The average age of entry is 12.

The average age. Average.

And so many of these girls don't escape. They grow up to be adult prostitutes, and are among the vast majority who want out.

[seabeyond]

14. except child sex slavery escalates in every country that legalizes. but, other than that

ya.

[dsc]

55. Do you have anything whatsoever to back that up?

I admit that I find it difficult to believe and thus would like some stats to back that up.

[reorg]

64. it's a false claim

The source, cited by the previous poster several times here, was a German police official who misrepresented some statistics.

The number of INVESTIGATIONS into forced prostitution (by Eastern Europeans) in Germany has risen slightly in recent years, which is interpreted by those who want to make prostitution illegal as a sign that "legalization" does not work. (The number of actual cases and convictions and persons involved has not risen.) If anything, these statistics show that the police now has the time and the means to deal with real problems.

[LadyHawkAZ]

38. True. Trafficking in Germany went down since legalization.

and your police have said it's made it easier to ID traffickers. You'd think we would learn from our mistakes...

[riderinthestorm]

8. A sad, bitter K&R for more DUers to see this story. AVERAGE age of entry is 12 fucking years old.

Horrifying.

[redqueen]

10. Canada is struggling with this too.

http://metronews.ca/news/toronto/441750/child-prostitution-victims-call-for-group-home-changes/

The entire world is, to one extent or another.

Less so in Nordic countries, fortunately for girls there.

[cthulu2016]

12. Let's credulously lap up an obvious lie

Does anyone reading this believe the average is 12?

Does anyone here know what an average even is?

Pathetic.

"citing sources from the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI."

Yeah, whatever.

The first step to an issue being taken seriously is to present the issue as something other than a bunch of crackpot lies.

This shit does not help anyone. It doesn't help girls. It tends to trivialize whatever the actual probelm is while makiing everyone stupider and more dishonest.

[GermanSmoker]

17. Thank you

As if they have done a serious poll about the issue. Yes under age prostition happens. But i doubt that the article's content is true.

[lapislzi]

18. ONE underage prostitute is too many.

I cannot speak to the veracity of the article, but I can voice my outrage that this occurs at all. Dismissing the article doesn't solve the problem.

[riderinthestorm]

24. The numbers come from the LA Dept of Probation

"Of the 174 juveniles arrested on prostitution-related charges in Los Angeles County in 2010, 59% were in the foster care system, according to Probation Department statistics."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-1128-sex-trafficking-20121128,0,7344639.story

The original LA Times article is where the Belmont Times article gets most of its information.

This information comes from the LA County Board of Supervisors....

[dsc]

30. but that is only of the people being recruited from the foster child system

where everyone is under 19. That doesn't mean that the average age of people entering prostitution is 12.

[riderinthestorm]

39. That stat's from the US Inspector General's own report

http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/FBI/a0908/chapter4.htm

If you don't weep by the end of it well.....

[dsc]

47. again that is entrance into CHILD prostitution

not prostitution overall. This is no different whatsoever from what Dr. Cameron did when he claimed gays die at age 45. He chose a method sure to eliminate old gays and then found the average age of death.

[reorg]

61. So, just about 100 girls per year out of tens of thousands in foster care

end up getting arrested for prostitution in LA county, the most populous county in the United States, with a population of 9,818,605.

Los Angeles County has suspended a long-standing effort to reduce the number of children in foster homes because keeping more of the children with their birth families could be unsafe, the county's top child-welfare official said.

The decision marks a turnaround for the Department of Children and Family Services, which for many years has sought to cut the foster care rolls, in part by trying to mend troubled families. The department's leaders have cited the decline in foster children -- from a high of 52,000 in 1997 to a low of 19,900 last year -- as one of their proudest achievements.

(...)

Foster care has many critics who say children often are dispatched to one place after another without any sense of permanence or normal family life, and end up homeless and unemployed in adulthood.

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/05/local/la-me-foster-care5-2010feb05

There are obviously many problems with foster care to discuss, but some people still manage to get grossly misleading, prurient headlines out of the troubles of others.

[riderinthestorm]

41. These aren't lies. Yes, they DO know these things as facts

http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/FBI/a0908/chapter4.htm

The first step to you being taken seriously is to make sure you have the facts.

[Warren Stupidity]

51. Again, this is the average age of entry FOR CHILD PROSTITUTES.

What part of that don't you understand?

Inferring that the average age of entry for all prostitutes is 12 is a goddamn lie.

Child prostitution is a very serious issue, dealing with this issue by using inflammatory propaganda is not helping, it is hurting efforts to deal rationally with the problems associated with prostitution.

[cthulu2016]

71. No, the first step is learning to read

If you cannot read then you will know know what the facts are:

"estimated age of entry into child prostitution is 12 years old"

See the word in bold?

The statement with that word omitted is not a "fact," it is false on its face.

[EOTE]

53. I find it odd they don't mention which average they're speaking of.

I don't believe that statistic is true either. If it's the median, that means that there are just as many people entering prostitution UNDER 12 as there are people entering over twelve. I'd need some serious statistics to believe that. If it's the mean, that means there are an awful lot of 2 and 3 year old prostitutes needed to balance out the 40 and 50 year old prostitutes out there. This doesn't make sense at all. But of course that's not going to prevent a number here from toting this as fact and using it to further their means.

[Egnever]

60. Agreed this is clearly a number made up to promote outrage

Child prostitution deserves scorn to be sure but lying to make your case only makes your case weaker.

This is an issue that should be taken seriously and these so obviously manipulated stats do not help IMO.

[XemaSab]

74. Thank you for saying this

If that were the case, then for every woman who entered prostitution at the age of 18 there were four girls who entered at the age of 10.

That's... not happening.

I'm not saying it never happens, but is it the norm? No way.

[dsc]

20. Your headline is misleading to the point of being flat out dishonest

The average age of these children being recruited into prostitution is 12 but that isn't anything remotely like saying the average age at which all prostitutes start prostituting is 12.

[gcomeau]

22. No it isn't.

I'm not trying to downplay the seriousness of the issue, but claiming that the average age of entry into prostitution is 12 one of those statistics that is so self evidently ridiculous that it's like someone claiming the average age of Alzheimer's patients is 21.

And posting self evidently ridiculous statistics doesn't help anything. Do you have the faintest clue what the distribution of entry ages would have to look like to put the AVERAGE age at 12? You'd have to have significant numbers of four year olds being recruited into prostitution. VERY significant numbers. I don't know what so-called "sources from the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI" this guy is supposed to be citing but the most charitable interpretation is that he just badly misunderstood something he was told and doesn't know enough about basic bath to understand how obviously wrong that number is.

My best guess? He was told the average age of entry into prostitution *of child prostitutes* is 12. Which still seems extremely suspect but at least remotely possible since you have then excluded all the high age data points, and maybe even somewhat plausible depending on what age "child" is defined as for the purposes. If the top age cutoff is like 15 or 16 and nothing above that counts in this number? Then sure, average of 12 could be something that could happen. Maybe.

[redqueen]

29. Your basis for disagreement is your gut? That's reasonable.

Yeah, the distribution would be from around 9 to 19, to get to an average of 14, which is the figure reached by this organization. http://www.justice.gov/ag/readingroom/surveillance1.pdf

Is it REALLY so hard to believe? If so, I think it is because you are choosing to ignore some very ugly truths.

[dsc]

31. Yes it is literally impossible to believe that no one enters prostitution post age 19

there is no way on earth that, that is true.

[redqueen]

36. Small numbers of older entrants are balanced by much larger numbers of young ones.

This is why I can't stand these discussions.

So many people seem to have so much invested in ... whatever.

[dsc]

43. Yes I have an investment in math

I don't like people presenting bogus math as if it were not bogus math because the cause is important. You think this topic is important enough to make up numbers you like. Dr. Cameron thinks taking away my rights is important enough to make up numbers he likes. I can't very well say it is wrong for him to do it but OK for you to do it. Either we believe in math or we don't. We don't get to pick and choose. The fact is your very own link shows you to be wrong. It says child not all entrants. The fact you are too invested in your ideology to see basic math isn't my fault, it is yours.

[redqueen]

54. So it is your belief that most prostitutes start when older.

And that there is no way that hundreds of younger entrants would offset dozens of older ones.

Yeah. Math. Right.

[EOTE]

57. Christ, some people really need to stay far away from math.

The way you interpret math would make a butcher blush. Do you honestly believe that a study can do ANYTHING to approximate the average age of entry into prostitution when the study SOLELY focuses on juveniles? Really?

[dsc]

59. I actually have no idea when most start

but the fact is that no matter when most start, if the average age one starts child prostitution is age 12, and there are any adults at all who start prostitution, then the average age as a whole would have to be higher. Your own link, BTW said 14, not 12, so even you apparently think the OP's headline is wrong by two years, which in the context of the average age of a child is a pretty big error. Now, I will say that I do think more people start being prostitutes as adults than as children. I don't know that and am willing to change my mind if the math says otherwise, but I do think that it is highly unlikely that the median age to start prostitution is under 16. For the average to be 14 or anything like it over all the median would have to be 14 or less since the data must be skewed right making the mean greater than the median. I think that there is quite likely a substantial number of people who turn to prostitution as young adults (18 to 25) due to drug use and/or other income issues. I find it quite hard to believe that this group wouldn't raise the mean or median age of being prostitution from either the 12 or 14 that is the average for children.

[redqueen]

65. You are not reading my posts. I noted that it was 14 according to that source.

Other sources say 13. It depends... but they are all pretty close.

Do you know how many girls are sexually molested?

Do you know how many run away from home?

There seems to be an awful lot that you are not taking into consideration.

I really can't continue with this discussion.

[dsc]

69. actually in this context even 13 and 14 would be pretty far apart

unless one study rounded 13.4 down and another 13.5 up. I am taking them into consideration I just happen to think they don't outnumber the other group by the about 100 to 1 that it would have to for the age not to move if you put the adults in.

[dsc]

73. In fairness since I am arguing for mathematical precision I should be more precise

Assuming we are discussing means, if you had 10 people with an average age of 14, then added in one person whose age is 25, the new average would be 165/11 or 15. If you had say a 15 to 1 margin then maybe the average age would only go up by about half a year. I still would find it nothing short of astonishing if the number of people who go into prostitution as children were to outnumber by even 10 to 1, the number who go into prostitution as adults.

[riderinthestorm]

46. I agree. Its just too depressing. The porn star thread last night

and now the willful, deliberate refusal to look at these facts either...

[dsc]

35. By the way you totally misrepresented what was said in your link

The link says, and I quote, the average age of a CHILD who enters prostitution is 14. Which is, it should be noted, pretty much exactly and precisely what the poster you are calling unreasonable said.

[redqueen]

37. CHILDREN who are rented out for rape often STAY in that business,

due to a lack of outreach programs combined with financial need and the DEMAND from sex buyers.

[dsc]

49. I am sure that is true

but that doesn't negate the fact that you are conflating age of entrance into child prostitution with age of entrance into prostitution as a whole. This is exactly the same thing Dr. Cameron did when he said gays die at 45. He chose a method (obits in gay papers in the 1980's) that eliminated older gays and then said gays die at a young age. Here you are doing the exact same thing. You eliminate all adults, then say the average age of entrance is 14 or 12 or whatever number you post.

[riderinthestorm]

42. Here's the link for the FBI Office of Inspector General report that the AVG entry age is 12 yrs

http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/FBI/a0908/chapter4.htm

But I'm going to guess that nothing will persuade those who so desperately want to believe that sex trades workers are all happy, enthusiastic, willing participants....

[dsc]

45. actually no it doesn't say that

it says the average age of entrance into CHILD prostitution is 12. That is like saying the average age of infant death in this country is 1 means our life expectency is 1.

[riderinthestorm]

48. Oh FFS.

Somedays this isn't even worth trying....

I think I'll go schedule a root canal or something more pleasant.

[dsc]

52. I am sorry you find math so unpleasant

but the fact is the average age a child does something is very likely to be lower than the average age the whole population does the same thing.

[EOTE]

56. I think you're ignoring very basic math.

Do you really not understand how dishonest the title of this OP is? People with a lick of common sense and basic math skills know far better.

[gcomeau]

58. No, it's a basic knowledge of math.

Believing the average age of entry into prostitution (not child prostitution in isolation, but all prostitution) is 12 years old would require me to shut down the part of my brain that knows how averages are calculated. Which I am not inclined to do.

[LadyHawkAZ]

40. Your best guess is correct

and that's indeed what the FBI report says, although they don't source it here and I'm not going chasing. Links never convince anyone who doesn't want to believe.

In order for the average age of entry to be 12 and the average life expectancy to be 7 years, older prostitutes would be almost impossible to find.

[ChazII]

28. K&R n/t

[mzteris]

34. Maybe those girls wanted to feel

EMPOWERED.

[LadyHawkAZ]

44. And the beat goes on...

Children are not prostitutes -ever: child "prostitution" is trafficking. Oh wait, apparently in L.A. they are volunteers:

And of youth arrested on prostitution charges in Los Angeles County, a majority comes from the county's foster care system

What kind of system arrests a victim?

And the average age of entry into prostitution is not 12.

[hunter]

50. These kids are often in the foster care system because they've been sexually abused.

So it's no big surprise when these kids run away from the controlled environment of a shelter or foster home to pursue the kind of life they have always known. They are simply moving on from mom's pedophile boyfriend or family relative to a pimp.

That's what the problem is. The communities these kids come from are broken. Social services are inadequate, schools are bad, there's no hope of employment, drug and alcohol abuse is commonplace, etc., etc.

Michael Antonovich's bullshit statistics do nothing to improve or even illuminate the actual problems.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

62. I used to work with street kids, and here's what I learned about child prostitutes

Many of them are runaways from sexually or otherwise abusive homes. In other words, their homes are so bad that life on the streets is preferable. A large percentage are GLBT kids whose parents rejected them.

The boy prostitutes are not necessarily gay, and some of the lesbian girls are prostitutes for men. In the ethos of the streets," You do what you have to do to survive."

The pimps and johns, even the non-pedophiles, prefer the younger kids because the johns believe that the younger prostitutes are less likely to have STDs (not true--a few weeks and they're almost all infected with something). Because of this preference for younger prostitutes, there were cases in which a 12- or 13-year-old was paying most of the rent on a rundown apartment shared with some older kids.

Youth who are not otherwise prostitutes will sometimes prostitute themselves during bad weather in the hope of finding a john who will pay for a hotel room, and from then on, the "easy" money keeps them in the life, especially if they have little schooling and no job skills. It is very rare for a young person to be on the streets for more than a month without having done at least some prostitution.

Their life expectancy is low. One-third die before the age of 25.

[Aerows]

63. WTF are we doing

arresting 12-15 year olds on prostitution charges? That's not prostitution, that's child molestation. Children that have had this experience don't need to be locked up in a jail cell, they need counseling, and the people that molest these children for pay need to be locked up for the child molesters that they are.

[LadyHawkAZ]

66. Somebody gets it. +1 n/t

[NCTraveler]

67. +1

[Sissyk]

70. Thank You, Aerows!

The are not child prostitutes! They are victims!!

It is very discouraging that some people are more focused on getting their jabs in on prostitution that they are missing the BIGGER POINT!! These are abused, molested CHILDREN!!

[On the Road]

72. No Wonder the Average Age Was Under 18

Apparently, it applied to 174 girls under foster care in Los Angeles county.