Domestic Sex Trafficking
In domestic trafficking, the victim is usually a runaway or a "throwaway":
- someone whose parents have abused her, perhaps sexually,
- someone who might also come from a poor family, a family who rejects her,
- someone who runs to an homeless shelter, where she’s almost immediately approached by a sweet-talking man who promises to be her boyfriend or marry her.
This vulnerable young girl will be promised a new beginning, a new life. Instead, she'll find herself sold on the streets, in an apartment, or in a home.
Studies have shown that homeless girls in Atlanta are approached by a pimp within 48 hours. Pimps cluster around shelters like vultures. And girls looking for someone to trust, and looking for self-confidence, get drawn by traffickers into the under-ground world of sex slavery.