THE ISSUES

Human Trafficking

Every year, traffickers generate more than $150 billion in profits by victimizing millions of people worldwide. Vulnerable and susceptible to manipulation, children and youth experiencing homelessness are a prime target of this lucrative and criminal industry.

Two main factors drive the spread of human trafficking: high profits and low risk. Like drug and arms trafficking, human trafficking is a market-driven criminal industry based on the principles of supply and demand. No country is exempt from this illicit enterprise.

Across the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Central America, where Covenant House provides residential programs and vital services to children and youth facing homelessness, the most common form of human trafficking is commercial sexual exploitation. Its primary victims: young women and girls.

Why Do Human Traffickers Target Kids Facing Homelessness?

In our long experience helping more than 1.5 million vulnerable children and youth in North and Central America, Covenant House has identified a direct correlation between youth homelessness and becoming a victim of human trafficking. 

Why do human traffickers target kids facing homelessness? Because these young people present a low-risk business proposition and are relatively easy to lure from the streets with promises of love, protection, food, and financial security. Because of their vulnerability, children and teens with no place to call home and no one to care for them make easy prey for traffickers. 

It isn’t long, though, before traffickers show their true intentions. At Covenant House -- in the safe houses and safe spaces across our movement -- we witness firsthand the physical, emotional, and psychological toll human trafficking takes on these young victims. 

As one of many Covenant House case workers says, “Trafficking is more than selling sex. Trafficking is young people being physically and sexually assaulted. Trafficking is torture. It means victims being kept up for days. It means forced starvation. Recovery for victims is long and complicated, and takes the efforts of a lot of good people.” 

What Else Do We Know About Human Trafficking Among Children and Teens?

• Most human trafficking victims are not in chains. Instead, pimps may use psychological and emotional coercion that is just as effective. Many victims become traumatically bonded to their pimps; despite enduring horrific violence, they believe their pimps love them. Cases of Stockholm syndrome among victims of human trafficking are not uncommon.
• Traffickers also may exert control over their young victims by giving them drugs to create dependency, confiscating their identification and money, withholding food or sleep, and isolating victims from their families and friends, among other tactics.
• Human traffickers exploit the lack of available beds in youth homeless shelters. They manipulate the young and homeless by telling them that shelters are full and promising them a soft bed elsewhere. 
• Young people facing homelessness often have to make the desperate choice between sleeping on the street or going with a pimp who offers them food and shelter. Faced with dire situations like this, these young people are easily manipulated into becoming victims of human trafficking.
• According to U.S. federal law, there is no such thing as a “child prostitute,” and any child under age 18 engaging in commercial sex is, by law, a victim of sex trafficking. Despite this, far too many children are sexually exploited and do not know how to escape the vicious cycle. 
• If a pimp forces a person to engage in sex for money against their will at any time, whether through threats, coercion, or physical violence, that person is a human trafficking victim, regardless of age or initial consent.
• While women and girls are most often detected as victims of sex trafficking, boys fall victim to trafficking, too. Just like girls, the exact number of trafficked boys is unknown; and boys are often less likely to ask for help.
• LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness are at especially high risk for human trafficking victimization. 
• Traffickers deny their victims independence, education, and the ability to gain employment skills. This may intensify the desperate feeling of human trafficking victims that they have no way out.
• If societies want to fight human trafficking, they cannot afford to cut services for young people experiencing homelessness.

Covenant House Florida Is on the Front Lines Against Human Trafficking

Because so many young victims are homeless before being trafficked, they often have no place to go after escaping the bonds of this modern form of slavery. That's why Covenant House remains a refuge for these children and youth – offering a complete approach that includes direct care, advocacy, and research, to ensure we can best serve young trafficking survivors.

Direct Care

Direct care allows us to make the greatest and most immediate impact in the lives of young trafficking survivors. Our direct care for human trafficking survivors includes the following:

• Intake Screening Tools
• Personal Care Kits
• Safe House/Safe Space Programs
• Holistic Care/Therapies
• On-site Case Management
• Mental Health Care
• Trauma-informed Approach

Providing direct care fuels groundbreaking research, which allows us to refine our programmatic methods and tools.