"We don't have this in our town"

Eleven ways any community might be involved in prostitution

  1. Parents, teachers, and leaders set examples, directly or indirectly, which encourage youth to be customers of the sex industry without seeing the harm being caused.

  2. Child sexual, physical, or emotional abuse is kept a secret, setting youth up for the lures and traps of predators.

  3. Children grow up neglected or feeling unloved, making them vulnerable to people who offer them attention or love in order to exploit their bodies.

  4. Children are brought up with the assumption that they will be safe if they stay in the right areas. They, therefore, don't need to develop survival skills to protect themselves.

  5. Children don't meet up with articulate, fast-talking, humorous, friendly con men or women. No one bothered to equip them with communication skills to cope with such encounters.

  6. Some adults in the community are actively engaged in using the services of the sex industry: some use people in prostitution; some view pornography; some go to strip clubs; some use pornography to seduce or molest their victims; some interact with people through the Internet or telephone; some businesses hire people to do sexual favors for their customers.

  7. Local adults are silent on the issue of commercial sexual exploitation, which can easily be interpreted to mean it doesn't exist or it isn't harmful or adults like it.

  8. Community members regard the sex industry as an "it" over there and stigmatize "it", leaving themselves positioned as "we" who have nothing to do with "it", not responsible for "it" and unable to really talk about any way "it" is actually affecting "us".

  9. Young people leave the community, pressures are put on them to work in the sex industry or be customers of it, and some yield to those pressures.

  10. If not for money, there are some members of the community giving sexual favors in exchange for food, shelter, drugs, rides, or jobs.

  11. Family members of those trapped in the sex industry agonize helplessly in silence.

Do you still think you don't have prostitution in your town?

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