Demystifying the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Boys - Our Forgotten Victims

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/gender/demystifying-commercial-sexual-exploitation-boys-our-forgotten-victims



***SNIP

In the recently released study, “ And Boys Too” produced by the anti-trafficking group, End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purpose (ECPAT-USA), researchers found through anecdotal evidence that boys enter a life of trafficking around the same time as girls at approximately 11-13 years of age. Of the 40 informants contacted in the ECPAT study, almost half (18) said they would serve boys.

This is consistent with the findings of a previous John Jay College and Centre for Court Innovation study in 2008 entitled, ‘ Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in New York’ which revealed that as high as 50 per cent of commercial sexually exploited children in the United States are boys.

Perhaps the most shocking revelation to come out of that study was that while 87 percent of the 4000 sample of children interviewed expressed a desire to exit ‘the life’, a great number of youths perceived their ‘work’ as a curious and fascinating lifestyle, rather than being coerced into it by a pimp. In fact, most boys were not ‘pimped’ in the traditional sense but instead recruited by familial procurers or “friends” who didn’t manage their work per se but rather facilitated them by offering shelter or referring them to buyers in exchange for clients or a share of their earnings.

Such a narrative is certainly not one we hear about very often, particularly in the media, which tends to focus on the conventional pimp that preys upon and kidnaps children as portrayed in the media. Nonetheless, it is one that licensed independent clinical social worker Steven Procopio who is heavily involved in developing CSEC programs for boys, is most familiar:

“These boys can have pimps, either men or women, but generally as the boy ages out into his late 20s, he may rent an apartment with several other boys in the life and in exchange for those younger boys having shelter and a room to sleep, they work for the older boy. The other scenario is the fee-for-service drive-by-pimp – a guy will drive his car, ask a boy if he wants to make some money for the evening, pimp him out and then at the end of the night he may never see that person again. In other situations, families may pimp out their boys to support their drug addiction,” he told AlterNet.

[riderinthestorm]

1. Tremendously sad but really important story. K&R. nt

[xchrom]

2. kick

[marmar]

3. k/r

[brer cat]

4. What a sad account.

The only personal knowledge that I have of child prostitution was of the brother of my best childhood friend who did indeed seek out this life when he was a young teenager. No one in his family or among his friends ever came up with an answer to why he chose this route. He died in his early 20's. This was in the 1960's when such topics were simply NOT reported or discussed generally in society. I have to wonder whether we have made much progress in the decades since.

[LuvNewcastle]

5. I once knew a guy who had basically been raised in that life, along with his brother.

Their parents had them in a network of boys to service child molesters. Even when he was grown at the time when I knew him, he was the kept man of a local bar owner. He tried to get a job a few times, but he had no skills and failed miserably at everything he tried. I wonder sometimes what happened to him. How will he support himself when he gets older and loses his looks? I'd like to get hold of those parents.