How Child Trafficking is Related to Housing Insecurity
Children at risk of losing their housing, or without safe and stable housing, are vulnerable to trafficking. When a family is struggling to pay for rent or their mortgage, it looms as a big bill with big consequences. Youth may feel a sense of obligation to help – even if their family doesn’t ask them for that. Traffickers prey upon this desperation. It’s not only a vulnerability for being trafficked initially, but it’s a massive vulnerability for youth who have already been trafficked to experience revictimization– because when most youth hear their parents say “We need $1,000 by Friday,” they don’t know what they could do about that; but a victim of child sex trafficking knows what they could do.
There’s another way to pay this rent.
Children who are experiencing homelessness or displacement are extremely vulnerable to trafficking. This has been the case for many of the children we’ve worked with globally. Youth become homeless due to poverty, fleeing abuse, being kicked out, being abandoned, or immigrating. When a child doesn’t have a place to stay, traffickers will offer shelter in exchange for sex or exploitative labor. And remember: any sex act with a child in exchange for something of value falls within the definition of trafficking.
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