What is DMST?
Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking is also known as Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children
Violence, threats, lies, debt bondage, and other forms of coercion used by sex traffickers to compel adults and children to engage in commercial sex acts against their will. Under U.S. federal law, any minor under the age of 18 years induced into commercial sex is a victim of sex trafficking—regardless of whether or not the trafficker used force, fraud, coercion, or any combination of such means.
DMST involves the exchange of anything of value with a minor in exchange for sex; giving food to a hungry child, cell phones, clothing, shelter, drugs, and promises of love and protection.
Did you know?
The average age of a child who is first exploited in the State of Georgia is 12-14 years old. 91% of DMST victims were enrolled in schools (www.doas.ga.gov). Childhood sexual abuse is the number one pre- conditioning factor that makes children vulnerable to sexual exploitation later in childhood. Childhood sexual abuse is most times committed by someone the child knows and trusts.
Foster Care and Youth Homelessness
85-89% of DMST victims had prior or current involvement in the foster care system. 31-46% of youth aging out of foster care experience homelessness. 550,000 children will experience homelessness lasting longer than a week.
According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 1 in 3 runaways have been forced to perform a sexual act against their will.
Trafficking Facts
DMST | Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking
Human trafficking is “when one person obtains or holds another person in compelled service” and consist of “forced labor, sex trafficking, bonded labor, debt bondage, involuntary domestic servitude and child soldiering.
Women are estimated to represent 98% of the 4.5 million in the global market for the commercially sexually exploited people, with 21% of those being children. In the United States an estimated 326,000 children are at risk of sexual exploitation.
If the victim of trafficking is a child, the standard of measure is different and providing “force, fraud or coercion” is unnecessary.
According to the Department fo the State (2013), trafficking in persons or human trafficking occurs “when an adult engages in a commercial sex act, such as prostitution, as the result of force, fraud or coercion or any combination of such means.”
If the child is “recruited, enticed, harbored, transported, provided, obtained, or maintained to preform a commercial sex act,” that child is a victim of sex trafficking.
(U.S. Dept. of State 2013 | Wilson & Butler 2013)
Words Matter.
Teen Prostitute | DMST Victim
Runaway | HURTING CHILD
Child Porn | CHILD SEX ABUSE MATERIAL
Foster Kid | CHILD PLACED IN FOSTER CARE
Sex with a Minor | RAPE
Incest | RAPE AND/OR MOLESTATION
Statistics
Human Trafficking is the 2nd fastest growing industry in the world behind the Drug Trade.
1 in 4 girls are sexually abused by the age of 18.
1 in 6 boys are sexually abused by the age of 18.
Up to 300,000 children will be trafficked in the U.S.
100,000 is the average number of American children forced into the for-profit sex slavery industry annually.
53% of children in the U.S. own a smartphone by the age of 11
91% of kids were enrolled in school during their exploitation
95% of identified survivors never receive trauma informed care.