Shadowraiths - there may have been some misinterpretations amongst us.
In your posting on human trafficking on the other thread, you had said":
"Take time to do the research rather than relying upon your (the general your) personal experience and/or view of the world"
and that is specifically what my posting was about - I was questioning the validity of my own habitual reactions/assumptions and "view of the world" on the subject: "The pimping of runaways seems safer and less trouble for the criminals involved than a kidnapping and slavery ring, to me, but is that because of the culture I've lived in most of my life?"
I was doing, what you had asked that we do, I thought.
I don't think I could quoted as trivializing the global trafficking of women & children, nor of commercial *advertiser censored* and it's relationship to that trafficking. Way back in these threads you'll find postings of mine where I talked about the Blue Orchid russian mob-linked *advertiser censored* bust, and that the perpetrators of it literally kidnapped children from orphanages or right off the street in Russia & the Ukraine, sometimes at gunpoint, and that the children they exploited for *advertiser censored* were subsequently sold to pedophiles all over Europe and Asia.
I went back through all the links you'd provided on the subject. I'm afraid that they seem to reinforce the perception that Doc Doogie expressed, about runaways and networks of pimps, more than the doubts I had developed about that.
http://www.sp2.upenn.edu/~restes/CSEC_Files/Exec_Sum_020220.pdf
"At the time of completing work on this report, a new study of the incidence of runaway and throw-away children in the United States (NISMART 2) was nearing completion (Hanson, 2000). Inasmuch as
60% of all the children we estimate to be at risk of commercial sexual exploitation fall within the "run-away" and "thrownaway" categories...
the findings from this updated national incidence study of runaway and thrownaway children—but not directly of children involved in commercial sexual exploitation— is expected to have a significant impact on our estimates of the number of children at risk of commercial sexual exploitation."
"Listed in the order of frequency with which they have been identified in the scholarly literature, child sexual exploitation appears to be fueled by: 1) the use of prostitution by runaway and thrownaway
children to provide for their subsistence needs; 2) the presence of pre-existing adult prostitution markets in the communities where large numbers of street youth are concentrated; 3) prior history of child sexual
abuse and child sexual assault; 4) poverty; 5) the presence of large numbers of unattached and transient males in communities--including military personnel, truckers, conventioneers, sex tourists, among others;
6) for some girls, membership in gangs; 7) the promotion of juvenile prostitution by parents, older sib-lings and boy friends; 8) the recruitment of children by organized crime units for prostitution; and, in-creasingly..."
and in the last rank, "trafficked children for sexual purposes". However, they cite children brought to the US from elsewhere, not children kidnapped off the street of American communities by organized pedophile rings:
"9) illegal trafficking of children for sexual purposes to the U.S. from developing countries located in developing Asia, Africa, Central and South America, and Central and Eastern Europe."
This one:
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/23598.pdf
gives very high estimates for trafficked persons:
"According to a 2003 U.S.Government estimate,800,000 to
900,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year having been bought,sold,transported and held in slavery-like conditions for sex and labor exploitation.The U.S.Government estimates that 18,000 to 20,000 people are trafficked annually into the United States".
but even so it states that "The United States is primarily a destination country
eople from other countries are trafficked into the United States." [emphasis mine]
that same report also talks about "trafficking within the US":
"As documented by several National Institute of Justice studies mentioned later in this Assessment ,the trafficking of youth into sexual exploitation within the United States is also a serious problem.According to one of these,there are over 200,000 youth who are victims of
commercial sexual exploitation in the United States."
but appears to be misquoting the source of that estimate, where it was stated that: "an estimated 200,000 American children at risk for trafficking into the sex industry." - and the first report I posted a link to goes out of their way to state that "at risk for" is not meant as "are involved in", and that they acknowledge their estimates to be hugely out of proportion to what has or can be onjectively documented at this time:
"Because of the significant difference between the estimated number of people trafficked into the United States annually and the number of victims that the U.S.Government has reached through investigations,prosecutions,Health and Human Services ’ certifications,,and provision of immigration benefits,the U.S.Government is concerned that there may be many more victims currently in the United States."
"The greatest challenge for the immediate future is locating and identifying victims.In contrast to the estimate that tens of thousands of victims of trafficking end up in the United States every year,the U.S.Government has assisted on the order of 450 victims since enactment of the TVPA"
"The numbers presented in these exhibits do not, therefore, reflect the actual number of cases of the CSEC in the United States but, rather, what we estimate to be the number of children "at risk" of commercial sex-ual
exploitation. A different type of study from ours--one that uses a different methodology and a higher investment of resources--is needed to carry out a national prevalence and incidence survey that could pro-duce
an actual headcount of the number of identifiable commercially sexually exploited children in the United States and the frequency with which they engage in such behaviors."