The Juneteenth holiday marks the freeing of enslaved Africans in America. We celebrate Black history, renew calls for racial justice, and appreciate the rich diversity of Black culture across the nation. Many assume that freedom from past enslavement has been achieved, but is this true? Has the exploitation of African descendants ended in the United States? 

Black women survivors of sex trafficking know that race and gender-based servitude continue in the sex trade. “Prostitution is a racial justice issue,” says Vednita Carter, a survivor-leader and founder of the survivor-led organization Breaking Free. “The slave era is where sex trafficking began for African American women [and] today there are too many poor urban areas that middle-class men drive through for the sole purpose of finding a woman or girl of color to buy or use. You just can’t take race out of it.”  

The Sex Trade Profits from Racial and Gender Oppression 

The sex trade mirrors the history of sexual and labor exploitation targeting Black people. The myths that “sustained slavery and colonization drive [the] supply and demand [of] America’s modern commercial sex industry,” writes law professor Cheryl Butler. Butler explains that the racist and sexist beliefs that cast Black women as “eroticized sex objects” can be traced to the “stereotyping of female slaves and other Black women as sexually loose, seductresses, and prostitutes.”  

Today, these same ideas promote sexual entitlement over marginalized people’s bodies. CAASE’s analysis finds that in Chicago, people in the sex trade tend to be Black women in their mid-20s to 40s. Sex buyers, on the other hand, are often married white men with disposable income. These facts show us that abuses of power linked to race, gender, and class are woven into the sex industry. Melanie Thompson, a survivor-leader and Outreach and Advocacy Coordinator at Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, says “the sex trade is like a slave ship. You use and re-use the body so much while it’s able, down to the point where its energy is completely depleted, then toss it away like a useless rag doll, replace it with a new body and repeat. I was that rag doll and I was never empowered.” 

Violence and Trauma Fuel the Sex Trade 

The violence of the sex trade can’t be swept under the rug or regulated away. It’s not like other industries in our society—rape is not a standard “job hazard.” Survivor-leaders Vednita Carter and Evelina Giobbe testify to the cultural on-ramps that fuel the sex trade, including “economic marginalization, child sexual abuse, rape and battery, as well as racism, classism and heterosexism.” All this violence impacts mental health. It’s common for people who’ve been trafficked or sold sex to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, dissociation, and substance abuse to cope.  

People who try to leave the sex trade are often forced back into it. Their trauma and social isolation leave few other ways for them to meet their basic needs. “The majority of us come from poverty. We’re Black and brown. We’re marginalized. We don’t have money to eat. We don’t have a place to stay. We’re kicked out because of our sexual orientation. We’re undocumented,” observes survivor-leader Melanie Thompson. 

Traffickers and pimps prey on these vulnerabilities to make a profit and meet the demands of sex buyers. Chicago native Tina Frundt, a survivor-leader and founder of Courtney’s House, remembers that when she was trafficked and raped at age 14, the pimp used victim-blaming and brutality as tactics to control her. “He picked my clothes out, told me what to wear…how to walk, what to say to ‘Johns,’ and how much money I was to bring back to him. [He also] beat me in front of the other girls to make an example out of me.”   

Traffickers know that exploiting Black women and girls involves limited risk of legal accountability. This increases the threat of harm for these women and children. “It’s really a frustrating, disturbing understanding that Black women and girls’ lives are not valued in this country, and traffickers are targeting us because of that,” says Sydney McKinney, executive director of the National Black Women’s Justice Institute. 

Criminalizing Survivors Harms Black Women and Girls 

Black girls and women are less likely to be seen as victims of gender-based violence, more likely to be hyper-sexualized, and are criminalized instead of offered support. Research shows that fifty-one percent of youth arrested for “prostitution” are Black. “By contrast…buyers face little to no consequences for their role in exploit[ation],” reports human rights organization Rights 4 Girls.   

Sex trafficking is one pathway in the abuse-to-prison pipeline for Black girls. Research finds that when girls of color are victimized by sexual harm, they are more often criminalized than met with compassion. Girls are arrested, jailed, and sometimes sent to adult prison for offenses that are tied to their trafficking experience and attempts to meet their basic survival needs. We’ve seen this cruelty happen again and again in the youth cases of Pieper Lewis, Cyntoia Brown-Long, and Sara Kruzan who acted in self-defense to free themselves from buyers and traffickers. In Illinois, CAASE has worked to confront the abuse-to-prison pipeline by leading campaigns to pass the Prevent Unfair Sentencing of Youth Act and the Illinois Safe Children Act. 

Yet we must see that a 17-year-old experiencing trafficking doesn’t become any less exploited the day they turn 18. Survivor-leader Melanie Thompson reminds us that while most people agree trafficking children is inexcusable, people still justify the involvement of young adults in commercial sex. “The minute that…child turns 18…now all of a sudden society switches their lens and says this person is no longer a trafficked child—this is a, quote-unquote, ‘sex worker’.” 

Though some adults who sell sex do so by choice, survivor-leaders argue that isn’t the case for most people in the sex trade. Even using terms like “sex worker” or “prostitute” can muddy the waters about whether a person is truly in the sex trade because they want to be. They may be there because they lack options, they’re being trafficked, or both. The links between how people enter and participate in the sex trade, and the complexities of sex trafficking aren’t widely understood. As survivor-leader Vednita Carter affirms, “Black women and girls have been ‘prostituted’ since we landed on American soil, so in no way, shape or form is prostitution a ‘job’ and I will fight to the end to ensure that no legislator thinks it is.” 

Advocate for the Survivor-led Policy Model 

We must challenge legislative attempts that whitewash the reality of the sex trade. Listening to survivors and championing their advocacy is the true way forward. “The first time I realized I had power was when I told my story in front of the Illinois State Senate,” says Brenda Myers-Powell, a Chicago survivor-leader and co-founder of the survivor-led Dreamcatcher Foundation. “Getting caught up in the sex trade is easier than you think. Getting out is the hard part.”

 We can support people who want to exit by advocating for survivor-led perspectives like partial decriminalization, also called the Equality Model. The goal is to end the arrest of people experiencing trafficking and who sell sex, and instead offer trauma-informed services and safe ways to leave the sex trade. 

“The Equality Model puts an emphasis on our well-being—the people who are exploited, the people that come from poverty, the people that have a lack of resources,” explains survivor-leader Melanie Thompson. “Not only does it take us out of the situation and say you’re not the criminal, not only does it keep the penalties in place for those who want to continue to exploit people in the sex trade, but it also says ‘okay, now that you’re out, what do you need so that you don’t go back?’.”  

Black women survivors who support partial decriminalization are clear on the harms of the sex trade. They’re telling us how to confront a billion-dollar industry that profits from buying and selling children and adults. To be in solidarity with survivors requires us to listen to, stand with, and follow their lead. 

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CAASE published this piece on June 10, 2023. It was authored by CAASE’s Public Policy and Advocacy Associate Tayler Mathews with assistance from CAASE’s Communications Manager Hayley Forrestal and Public Policy and Advocacy Director Madeleine Behr. Learn more about our staff here.