Final Report of the Subcommittee on Domestic Trafficking

• The strategy <strong>of</strong> befriending and love is designed to fit <strong>the</strong> vulnerabilities <strong>of</strong> itspotential victim.• A procurer’s goal is to find naive, needy teenage girls or young women, con <strong>the</strong>minto dependency, season <strong>the</strong>m into fear and submission, and “turn <strong>the</strong>m out” into<strong>the</strong> sex trade.• Today, because trafficking in women and girls is determined to be more pr<strong>of</strong>itablethan trafficking in guns and drugs, all you have to be is a girl or young woman tobe targeted.• Guerilla Pimping: Pimps are looking more towards suburbia for “naïve girls”and “guerilla pimping” has emerged as a means <strong>of</strong> kidnapping girls and women.These traffickers use severe and immediate violence to force <strong>the</strong> victim toparticipate in <strong>the</strong> sex industry. A common <strong>the</strong>me found in “guerilla pimping” isthat a woman or girl is physically picked up, thrown into a trunk and transportedto cities throughout <strong>the</strong> US. SAGE Project has rescued individuals who do notknow what city <strong>the</strong>y are in and what cities <strong>the</strong>y have been trafficked throughwhile being forced to work in <strong>the</strong> sex trade that including strip clubs, escortservices, <strong>the</strong> streets, internet sites such as Craig’s list, or sites created by <strong>the</strong>pimps <strong>the</strong>mselves. They are sold on <strong>the</strong> back pages <strong>of</strong> alternative news papers,and sex trade magazines. They had been kept and transported in trunks <strong>of</strong> carsand isolated in out <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> way motels and single room occupancy hotelsthroughout <strong>the</strong> country while being brutalized, raped, tortured and are sold to allwho demand <strong>the</strong>m.• Smooth-talking Players: Some US traffickers, choose <strong>the</strong> “smooth-talkingplayer” role. They systematically and methodically break down <strong>the</strong>ir “prey,” bysocially isolating <strong>the</strong>m, taking <strong>the</strong>m away from family, friends and embroiling<strong>the</strong>m in a social system that involves living in transient hotels close to <strong>the</strong> “whorestrolls”, traveling from city to city, and socializing with transient persons usuallyalso involved in <strong>the</strong> sex industry as prostitutes or pimps. Harsher methods mayinvolve beating, raping, sodomizing, drugging and starving a woman beforeturning her out on <strong>the</strong> streets or over to a bro<strong>the</strong>l. All <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>se women and girls arelosing precious days, months and years out <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir lives, as well as, losing <strong>the</strong>normal development and life skills afforded to young women who are going toschool, building valuable and dependable and non-abusive social support systems,having after school jobs, opening checking accounts, renting apartments and evenbuying <strong>the</strong>ir own clo<strong>the</strong>s.• A critical step in seasoning a girl is changing her identity. She is given a newname and any necessary papers, such as false driver’s license, social security cardand birth certificate, so that <strong>the</strong> police will not be able to trace her real identity ordetermine her true age. More importantly, <strong>the</strong> stripping <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> girl’s identityremoves her past and makes her <strong>the</strong> property <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> pimp. According toanthropologists Christina and Richard Milner, “A pimp wants a woman’s mindmore than her body. Its love, loyalty, and obedience he requires as well as acapacity for self discipline.”• After a number <strong>of</strong> girls were murdered, we discovered that <strong>the</strong>y had beenarrested as adults. We found o<strong>the</strong>r girls were arrested as many as 30 times.75