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Study Says Area Falls Short Shielding Kids From Sex Trade
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Published: March 26, 2008
TAMPA - Social services and law enforcement in the Tampa Bay area need better training and to devote more resources helping children and teenage girls involved in the sex trade, a study released today states.
Also, the region's large number of strip clubs provides ample opportunities for underage girls to show fake identification and dance at the clubs, the study says.
The assessment was performed by Shared Hope International, a nonprofit organization that was formed to help women and children escape prostitution or other sexual exploitation.
The assessment also says police and prosecutors need to focus more on arresting and prosecuting the pimps who manipulate and force the adolescent girls into prostitution or working at strip clubs.
Services aimed at helping youngsters with problems such as eating disorders could be used to help children deal with the psychological damage of being forced into prostitution or stripping, but the services are not used enough, the study said.
"The most frequently identified victim of domestic sex trafficking of minors in the Clearwater/Tampa Bay area is the child pornography victim. Unfortunately, those victimized through pornography and identified by law enforcement and prosecutors are rarely accessing the services, specifically mental health services, available to them and offered free of charge through Florida's Victim of Crime Compensation Program," the study says.
The state Department of Children & Families this year hired a group to train employees how to recognize victims of sex trafficking and the type of psychological trauma they have suffered, said Sarrah Troncoso, spokeswoman for DCF.
The study estimates that various agencies and law enforcement officers in Florida since 2000 dealt with more than 400 children who were potential victims of sexual trafficking. It does not give a number for the Tampa Bay area.
Though there has been an increased effort to prosecute the pimps in the Tampa Bay area, a main barrier is the frequent unwillingness of the children to cooperate in prosecution because of bonds and control the pimp formed, the study says.
On the positive side, many of the social service professionals in the Tampa Bay area who encounter the children recognize the teenagers are victims of pimps and sexual abuse. Also, law enforcement and social service agencies have increased training on minor victims of sexual exploitation.
However, even when children forced or manipulated into the sex industry are viewed as victims instead of criminals, a shortage of shelter space leaves police with little option except to place them in a juvenile detention facility.
Nearly everyone interviewed in the study pointed to the lack of a secure shelter for the children to separate the child from the pimp or person exploiting them.
The children trapped into the sex trade can come from the area's homeless population, foster families, are abducted, enticed online or "recruited" by other teens already controlled by pimps.
Under Florida law, if a minor charged with prostitution mentions he or she has been manipulated or forced by a pimp, the charge is dropped. However, if the child does not mention a pimp, prosecution continues and most are urged to plead guilty to a misdemeanor.
When the girls plead guilty to misdemeanors, they do not get a public defender who might be able to channel the girls toward an agency that can help them, said Linda Smith, president and founder of Shared Hope International.
Smith said most of the girls trapped in the trafficking start at 12 or 13 years old and are beaten, raped and brutalized by the pimps -- who manipulate them into believing they cannot escape.
They often are told family members will be harmed.
"They believe they have no refuge," Smith said.
The study recommends that police be given more training in how to recognize and help children trapped in the sex trade.
Detectives from the Tampa police sex crimes unit have received training in how to recognize young victims of sex trafficking, said Laura McElroy, spokeswoman for the Tampa Police Department.
The study also recommends telling operators of strip clubs how to better identify minors who apply to dance at the clubs.
Also, police and the state attorney's office should increase arrests and prosecution of the customers, or "johns." The goal is to establish the Tampa Bay area's reputation for being tough on the people who pay for the sexual services.
The report on the Tampa Bay area is one of 10 performed in metropolitan areas of the United States that Shared Hope International examined. A grant from the United States Department of Justice paid for the assessments.
The study tries to identify child sex trafficking victims and their access to services.
Other metropolitan areas looked at include Las Vegas, Dallas, New Orleans and Buffalo, N.Y.
Smith, a former member of Congress from Washington, founded Shared Hope International in 1998, initially focusing her work in India, where the foundation opened its first safe houses and village for women and children escaping prostitution.
Smith, a Republican, served in Congress from 1994 to 1998.
Reporter Neil Johnson can be reached at (813) 259-7731 or njohnson@tampatrib.com.
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