Reframing Connection: Church Partnership Strategies in Fighting the Slavery of Human Trafficking

Introduction: Commercial Sexual Exploitation

Candace was the social worker’s, Marsha, first client who was a commercially sexually exploited youth (CSEY). Candace and Marsha are pseudonyms for the purposes of confidentiality. Despite being exploited, Candace denied being a victim. In her first meeting with Marsha, Candace was resistant to talking to yet another social worker. Having been in the foster care system for several years, this sadly was not a new situation for Candace. She thought: another social worker, another interview, another person trying to “help” and to what end? Much to Marsha’s surprise, during the one-on-one time with Candace, she cried when they began getting into her history with her father. That was the first and last time that Marsha ever saw Candace cry. Her difficult history included multiple running away from placement, refusing of treatment, utilizing drugs, and posing for explicit pictures on the internet. Her tragic life ended when she was murdered in the backseat of a vehicle a few months after turning 18. Marsha often thought back to the story of Candace and asked: Why did her life have to end so horrifically? What could have been different? How could she have been saved? This chapter seeks to provide an alternative to Candace’s story through a relationally informed approach to prevention.

Commercial sexual exploitation (CSE) is a multibillion-dollar industry of the modern-day slavery trade and one of the largest procedures of human trafficking (Dank et al., 2014). CSE is an interpersonal trauma that destroys the fundamental human right of safety and security, resulting in the deformation of a person (Hopper et al., 2018; Rafferty, 2018). The Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency defined the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) as “a range of crimes and activities involving the sexual abuse or exploitation of a child for the financial benefit of any person or in exchange for anything of value (including monetary and non-monetary benefits) given or received by any person” (2018). To put more succinctly, CSEC is the sexual exploitation of a minor for any form of profit. This includes instances like a hand job in exchange for a meal or anal sexual activity for shelter or sexual intercourse for money. In this chapter, CSE will be used to reference the coerced abuse of sexuality for profit and interpersonal trauma there incurred. Additionally, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act [P.L. 106–386] defined domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST) as “the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of U.S. minors for the purposes of a commercial sex act” (O’Brien, 2018, para. 1). Both CSEC and DMST are accepted terms used for referencing persons under the age of 18 who are victims of human trafficking. CSE refers to persons of all ages who are victims of sex trafficking. Moreover, victim and survivor are interchangeable labels for the purposes of this chapter (Johnson, 2012). Common slang terms utilized throughout research include: the life or the game (subculture of sexual exploitation with its unofficial rules and regulations), bottom/bottom bitch (supervising female for the trafficker), pimp/daddy/boyfriend (exploiter/trafficker), john/customer (person who pays or trades something of value for sex), wifey (victim’s reference to another victim controlled by the same exploiter), track/blade/stroll (an area known for prostitution), trick/dates (act of prostitution), and AWOL (absent without official leave; O’Brien & Sabonis, 2019). AWOL, also called AWOLing, is a common term used when a youth runs away from placement or their home without approval; it is synonymous with the concept of running away. Although all genders and sexes are trafficked, current research focuses on females as they are more easily identified and more numerous (Hopper, 2017a; Hossain et al., 2010).