What Is Actually Driving Demand

The majority of men do not stop to consider how our actions online can lead to increased demand for sex trafficking. The good news is that we have the power to stop this and we can start today.

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Statistics

28M people are being trafficked globally right now—more than ever in history. source

  • 132M child sexual exploitation incidents have been reported in the U.S. since 1998, the majority of them being toddlers. source

  • 1% of child sex trafficking victims are identified. source

  • +95% of people buying illegal sex are men. source

  • 20-25% of men have purchased illegal sex. source

  • The average age a victim begins being trafficked for sex: 12. source

  • $99B was spent on illegal sex last year. source

  • In one study, 84% of child survivors said they wanted help when they were being trafficked (and that the majority of them were in school). source

  • Pornography is the 3rd-most common form of sex trafficking, after escort services and elicit massage businesses. source

  • A person who watches porn contributes to sex trafficking. source

Words matter

  • Someone being actively forced, frauded, or coerced to provide commercial sex acts.

    Many people in active sex trafficking situations do not recognize themselves as being victims because they have been expertly groomed by a trafficker to believe they have chosen to participate in commercial sex. (source)

  • A person who was a victim, but is now free to make their own decisions & heal from what they endured.

  • U.S. law defines human trafficking as the use of force, fraud, or coercion to compel a person into commercial sex acts or labor or services against his or her will. The one exception involves minors and commercial sex. Inducing a minor into commercial sex is considered human trafficking regardless of the presence of force, fraud or coercion. (source)

    Human trafficking includes forced labor as well as sex trafficking.

  • Sex trafficking is a category of human trafficking. You can learn more here about the most common types of sex trafficking.

  • Someone who induces, recruits, harbors, transports, provides, or obtains through force, fraud, or coercion other humans to provide commercial sex acts. (source)

  • Using the term “rescue” or “rescuer” in the context of human trafficking is controversial. As one survivor put it, “Words like ‘rescue’ turn people off from getting help. It’s too dramatic… You don’t think you are being trafficked; you just think this is your life. So you don’t recognize yourself.”

    Read more about our stance on the term below.

“If we want to end sex trafficking,

we have to make sure that people have the things they need—money, love, safety, hope—so they do not have missing pieces in their lives. Because if there is a missing piece in a person’s life a trafficker will promise to fill it.”

— Polaris