Written by Michael Thervil
When it comes to sex trafficking Houston Mayor John Whitmire has vowed to do his best. But is his “best” enough? For the people with a healthy dose of optimism, they think that any efforts on behalf of not only Mayor John Whitmire to combat the social issue of sex trafficking is a great thing. However, for those that are initiated on not only the vast amount of funding sex traffickers have on hand on an international scale, but they are also keenly aware of how much of a commodity the sex trade is on the black market. The truth of the matter is, fighting sex trafficking is like fighting terrorism, and fighting terrorism is like trying to drink water from a fire hose.
What we mean by this is that like the war on drugs, the efforts of Mayor John Whitmire and others that labor to combat sex trafficking will be in vain; they will undoubtedly fail. The question is why? Well because sex trafficking is a $150 billion dollar a year illegal business, they have the ability to counter just about any efforts law-enforcement agencies and most certainly Mayor Whitmire’s efforts to counter their existence. In a country where we can’t even get $150 billion dollars for education and infrastructure – there is no doubt that we can even garner $500 million to acquire the resources required to make a dent in this illicit trade – especially on the local level.
Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that most of the people who get busted for sex trafficking aren’t even real “sex traffickers” – they get convicted of “human trafficking”. Many people fail to see the difference between sex trafficking and human trafficking and will often use the two interchangeably. But what people must remember is that words matter, and the law is definitely written. In fact, when you look at both the law and sex trafficking statistics, they are often lumped together with human trafficking statistical data. The term “human trafficking” is an exceptionally broad term that encompasses 6 types of trafficking which are labor, child, bonded, marriage, organ and of course sex trafficking. And since it’s such a broad term it allows people to be easily convicted under human trafficking laws.
Adding insult to injury are the following statistics are provided by Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS):
On the surface that’s an increase but it is relatively small when compared to other social issues on the table, this is especially true on the local level. Another statistic from the BJS is the following:
That is roughly the average size of a high school in Texas. Again, that is nothing; especially when compared to the city of Houston who has an estimated 2.28 million people. This begs the question: why is there such a push against sex trafficking when there’s other social issues that are more pressing? Currently, no one has an answer for that. Yes, the trafficking of people in any capacity is bad – people know this and the people who engage in sex trafficking know this. However, the resources that are used for combating sex and human trafficking could be better used for prevention methods – not the incorporation of more laws on the books.
The root cause of sex trafficking comes from single mother led homes. We say this because according to Statista: “253 sex trafficking survivors reported being between the ages of 15 and 17 when they were first trafficked (2019).” And in the United States: “Almost a quarter of U.S. children under the age of 18 live with one parent and no other adults (23%)” according to the Center for Disease Control. Another statistic backing our position is by single motherguide.com: “Single motherhood has grown so common in America that today 80 percent of single-parent families are headed by single mothers — a third live in poverty”.
So, to successfully combat sex trafficking, in which the vast majority of “victims” are female and come from single mother led homes; we must first combat the root cause by implementing preventive measures and that means preventing the breakup of the nuclear family.
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