C. White on December 7, 2015
The Ninety-eight percent of sex traffic victims are women and girls, 2% are men and boys, and about half (40-50%) are children (Hepburn and Simon 2010:2). The US is the number one destination for sex traffic migration from the Caribbean and Latin American, and one of the top three places for sex workers to enter from Asia (Hepburn and Simon 2010:3). Hepburn and Simon reveal that a quota of $500 per night for one sex slave to reach would give $182,000 per year, tax-free, to the sex trafficker and his or her associates, and the income increases if the sex trafficker sexually exploits other victims. Hence, sex trafficking has low risks and high gain of profits. Sex traffickers and their associates may earn between $1 and $8 million dollars, and detection from the police rarely happens and once it occurs, it is unlikely that authorities in criminal justice would find solid evidence of illegal activity. In addition to income from the business of sex slavery, traffickers earn income by making their victims pay them money for transportation, room and board, and passports, which is at least $900 (Hepburn and Simon 2010:21). The mean (average) sentence for sex traffickers with guilty criminal judicial rulings was 9.3 years in 2008 (Hepburn and Simon 2010:21).
Reference
Hepburn, Stephanie, and Rita J. Simon. 2010. “Hidden in Plain Sight: Human Trafficking in the United States”. Gender Issues 27:1-26. USA: Transaction Publishers. doi:10.1007/s12147-010-9087-7