We drove into the motel parking lot scanning the faces of those sitting outside their doors. Our eyes bounced from person to person looking for her distinct baby-faced smile.
We knew the corners she often tucked herself in attempting to be shielded from the elements and the watchful eyes of those coming to evict her from the property for lack of payment.
We made the loop and glanced once more at the open doors and passersby. We met another car as we both managed to squeeze into the narrow-paved area as we passed one another.
There was one more place to look, not too far away, where she may have found some refuge. Young and vulnerable, she tended to bounce from place to place. She roamed in a way that some try to romanticize as if the life of a gypsy is glamourous. It isn't. It's often a homeless and hungry existence scrapping together room rent and food. It's often resorting to drugs or alcohol to cope with the toxic blend of current hardship and past trauma.
We pulled into the next motel and committed to a similar loop through the property. As we pulled through, relief and joy spread throughout the car as each of us recognized the small-framed girl sitting in a chair midway down the strip of rooms. Her stuff was bagged and leaned against an old mattress. Motels routinely air them out or exchange them to attempt to control the bed bugs.
We pulled past her with the intention of turning the car around for a better parking angle. In that brief moment, however, another car pulled behind us.
It was the same car we had spotted at the previous motel: a mid-2000s SUV with an older white male behind the wheel. He was easy to identify considering the blue neck pillow resting on his shoulders as he drove.
He pulled up to our girl, rolled down his window, and asked her a series of questions. Then, we waited sadly knowing we were not the only ones who were looking for her. As familiar as we were with her usual spots, so was he. As vulnerable as we knew she was, so did he.
What is Demand?
Human trafficking, including sex trafficking, is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world, behind only drug trafficking in overall profitability. In the coming years, it is on pace to overtake drug trafficking as the most prevalent and profitable criminal activity. Why? Because while drugs can be sold once, a human being can be sold and purchased for sex again and again.
Demand for commercial sex is the core of sexual exploitation. The term demand refers to a buyer's desire to purchase sexual interaction whether through prostitution, pornography, or stripping.
Demand is the economic engine of sexual exploitation. Drawing from basic principles of supply and demand, the absence of demand would innately diminish the criminal activity of supplying victims for commercial sex, who are predominantly women and girls facing histories of trauma, generational poverty, etc.
So, how do we acknowledge and address the rising issue of demand for commercial sex?
The Data on Demand: Who Are Buyers? Who Are Victims?
Buyers of sex are overwhelmingly male and represent 99% of buyers, also known as "johns". Of the general population, 20% of all men report having purchased sex at least once in their life, with 6.2% considered as active buyers. One-third of buyers are married. One-half of buyers have children under the age of 18 years old (National Center on Sexual Exploitation).* Buyers of commercial sex are much more likely to have an addiction to pornography, have negative viewpoints of women's sexual agency, and consider the purchase of sex as a victimless crime.
As Dr. Melissa Farley, the foremost leader in research on the correlation between trauma and prostitution, put it, "Even today, some assume that prostitution is sex. In fact, prostitution is a last-ditch means of economic survival or 'paid rape,' as one survivor described it. Its harms are made invisible by the idea that prostitution is sex, rather than sexual violence" (2004).* Another advocate shared, "The only difference between rape and purchased sex is money." Both are unwanted exchanges under unequal power dynamics.
How is it possible to make this equivalence?
Of those prostituted, 84% are under third-party or pimp control, which is legally considered sex trafficking. 95% are victims of childhood sexual trauma. 89% desire to escape but see no way out. They experience a death rate 240 times the average. 75% have experienced homelessness. The majority are caught in cycles of generational poverty, heralded from minority communities, and actively struggle with addiction (Treasures LA).*
Buyers of sex place emphasis on their personal gratification and view money as license to objectify and abuse the women and girls they purchase without regard for their circumstances of poverty, trauma, etc. that lead to their bodies being bought and sold.
