What’s in a name?

One of the biggest problems I find entering this field is figuring out what language to use in describing this phenomenon.

Definition: Child prostitution is the sexual exploitation of children for renumeration in cash, usually organized by a parent, family member, procurer, teacher, or other person.  Quick Fact: 10 millon children worldwide are part of the sex industry in some form. Change Online

A number of organizations define this phenomenon as “slavery” – and it is. I have a hard time relating to the word in a modern context, because I have such an attachment to the word being used to describe the historical, African American context. Whereas, I feel lessons learned from the historical context can be useful today, I still have a hard time using this word to describe girls’ experience. Connected with my hesitation to use the word slavery is my struggle concerning the topics of agency and choice. Slavery, like sex trafficking and kidnaping, are words that make us believe that the girls have no agency and no choice; whereas, sex work and prostitution connote full agency and choice in the situation. Neither extreme seems to capture the situation.

I appreciate Rachel Lloyd and others in the field for the term “Commercial Sexual Exploitation” or “Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC)” because the term makes it clear that the situation involves the exchange of money between two men. “Sex work” and “prostitution” connotes an idea of women and girls being paid for having sex. More often than not, girls are being bought, sold and rented by their “pimps”.  Prostitution is also a crime. Girls who are caught by the police often end up experiencing additional trauma at the hands of the criminal justice and legal systems. In this situation the girls and women are seen as criminals as opposed to victims.

I have also come to appreciate the term “domestic minor sex trafficking”, because “sex trafficking” usually makes us think about girls and women who are brought to another country – by kidnapping or under false pretenses. Girls in the U.S. are often kept very close to home. They are prostituted in their own communities , although the “johns” usually come into the poorer neighborhoods from more affluent ones.

Finally, I have come to appreciate those who use the word prostitute as a verb. Girls and women who are being “prostituted”. In this way, the label can externalized. It will be important in work with survivors to help them see themselves as more than the situation they were once in. In interviews with young women, they will use the phrase “in the life” (as in “back when I was in the life”) and I believe that “pimps” – like abusive husbands in domestic violence situations – isolate their victims and create a sense that they are everywhere and can see everything. “In the life”, represents a world owned by the “pimp” and is bent around his will. Survivors would probably need help seeing that life is actually much broader than the world they have escaped.

I have been using quotes around words like “pimps” and “johns”, because I haven’t found the right language for these men. Procurers, slavers, child molesters, sexual predators…??? I am still working this part of the equation.