Research
Shared Hope International's research on Child Sex Trafficking in America is leading local, state and federal initiatives in the identification and response to domestic minor sex trafficking. The reports provided below have established a solid foundation for revealing the issues related to domestic minor sex trafficking in America and the mandatory next steps in properly combating this issue.
The National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking: America's Prostituted Children
In 2006, Shared Hope International received a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to perform field research on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking (DMST) – the sex trafficking of American children. The National Report is the culmination of ten field assessments conducted in targeted locations in the United States, providing a comprehensive understanding of child sex trafficking across America. This unprecedented report reveals the starling reality that American children are being recruited from our neighborhoods and sold on our streets!
DOMESTIC FIELD ASSESSMENTS*
DEMAND.
Shared Hope International investigated the commercial sex markets in Jamaica, Japan, the Netherlands and the United States – Atlanta, Las Vegas and Washington, DC – under a grant from the U.S. Department of State, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. The DEMAND. report and documentary reveal for the first time the sophisticated business model behind sex trafficking and tourism, exposing the buyers who bring demand, the traffickers and recruiters who supply the victims, and the facilitators that feed the market.
INTERNATIONAL FIELD ASSESSMENTS*:
* All field assessments are in print-ready PDF format
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
A Legislative Framework for Combating Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking
An anti-trafficking legislative framework is the foundation for all efforts to combat domestic minor sex trafficking. It is the starting point for a holistic approach to ending domestic minor sex trafficking as well as all other forms of modern-day slavery. Anti-trafficking federal laws are comprehensive and contain severe penalties.It is essential that state laws are as comprehensive and severe in penalties as the federal laws to advance a full criminal deterrence program. Read "A Legislative Framework for Combating Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking", authored by Shared Hope International's Linda Smith and Samantha Healy Vardaman, and published recently in the Regent University Law Review.
The Problem of Demand in Combating Sex Trafficking
International Review of Penal Law - Four years of research by Shared Hope International in diverse countries, including the U.S. reveals a determinative commonality in the commercial sex industry: demand causes sex trafficking to occur in countries around the world. Demand is created by men and women (predominantly men) who seek to purchase sex or sexual entertainment from persons who have been subject to force, fraud or coercion or who are under the age of 18 years and are involved in commercial sex.