What is the link between Sex-Trafficking and Prostitution?
Sex-trafficking and prostitution are extremely similar except in seldom cases where a woman willingly chooses to pimp herself to clients for money. The reality, though, is that most prostituted persons (over 90%) do not want to be involved in prostitution but feel that they are trapped by their pimps or their dire financial situation. Sex-trafficked persons are not willing to prostitute themselves and have been either forced or manipulated into prostitution. It is also important to note that all prostituted minors are automatically defined federally by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) as sex-trafficked victims. In both sex-trafficking and prostitution, pimps/traffickers often have control over the prostituted person in terms of movement, eating habits, earned income, fashion, social life; essentially, the pimp controls the freedom of the prostituted person who is seen as nothing more than his commodity.
