Youth at higher risk of involvement in the sex trade

All youth can be recruited or forced into the sextrade.

However some youth are more at risk.

Youth in foster care and youth with child welfare involvement

A 2007 research report out of New York State found a high correlation between child welfare involvement and subsequent commercial sexual exploitation. between 85 to 89% of youth reported to be commercially sexually exploited had prior child welfare involvement.1

Youth who are homeless,AWOL, runaway, in unstable housing  situations

Research results demonstrate a consistently high risk of involvement in survival sex or other forms of commercial sexual exploitation for youth without stable housing. the most recent federally funded national study found 70% of homeless youth are commercially sexually exploited.2

Out of school youth, unemployed youth, low or no income youth

While not documented specifically in research, youth in group discussions have reported a lack of money or survival needs (even when youth have a place to live), lack of access to jobs and lack of skills from dropping  out or being pushed out of school as direct links to their involvement or consideration of the sex trade to make money.

Youth with family involved in the sex trade and/or an active sex trade in their community

Youth in prevention workshops continue to identify being around an active sex trade in their community or family members involved in the sex trade as a risk factor. Youth stress that people in the community are more likely to encourage or recruit them and an active sex trade normalizes the option.

Youth with a history of sexual abuse

All research studies that ask youth who are or have been involved in the sex trade about previous sexual abuse prior to any commercial sexual exploitation find rates of up to over 90%. Research also suggests that sexual abuse is a factor independent of any resulting running away or substance abuse.3

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Questioning Youth

Personally I disapprove of the word Queer…..by definition….abnormal or odd.  Traditional teachings tell me that all human beings are spiritually equal in creation and have a purpose in the grand scheme of life.  But the movement is because of the context in which it was reclaimed, queer has sociopolitical connotations, and is often preferred by those who are activists, by those who strongly reject traditional gender identities, by those who reject distinct sexual identities such as gay, lesbian, bisexual and straight, and by those who see themselves as oppressed by the heteronormativity of the larger culture. In this usage it retains the historical connotation of “outside the bounds of normal society” and can be construed as “breaking the rules for sex and gender.” It can be preferred because of its ambiguity, which allows “queer” identifying people to avoid the sometimes strict boundaries that surround other labels. In this context, “queer” is not a synonym for LGBT as it creates a space for “queer” heterosexuals as well as “non-queer” (“straight-acting”) homosexuals.4

LGBTQQ youth make up 20 to 40% of all homeless youth, resulting in high rates of survival sex.5

Additionally, a study in Canada found LGBT youth were three times more likely to trade sex for survival than heterosexual youth.5 Almost 60% of transgender youth reported exchanging sex for money in recent Chicago based research.

Youth of Color

African American minors are over-represented in prostitution arrests, comprising 55% of all arrests of juveniles for prostitution across the U.S. in 2002. Some of the evidence suggests this may have to do with unequal law enforcement strategies that target communities of color. However this may also reflect a higher involvement of African American, Latino, Asian,  and Native American or First Nations, that  experience higher rates of poverty and involvement in the child welfare system.

1. Gragg, F. et al.  (2007). New York Prevalence Study of Commercially Sexually Exploited Children. http://www.ocfs.state.ny.us/main/reports/CSEC-2007.pdf. Accessed April 8, 2009

2. Estes. R and Weiner N. (2001). The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the United States. Canada and Mexico. http://www.sp2.upenn.edu/-restes/csec Files/Complete CSEC 020220.pdf. Accesses April 8, 2009

3. Simons. R and Whitebeck, L. (1991) Sexual Abuse as a Precurser to prostitution and Victimization Among Adolescent and Adult Homeless Women. Journal of family Issues, 12(3).

4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer

5. National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (2007). Lesbian,gay, bisexual and trangender youth: An epidemic of homelessness. http://www.thetaskforce.org/reports and research/homeless youth. Accessed April 8, 2009

6. (Gaetz, S. (2004). Safe streets for whom? Homeless youth, social exclusion, and criminal victimization. canadian Journal of Criminal Justice, 46(6).)

7.Howard Brown Health Center (2008). http://www.howardbrown.org/uploadFiles /HowardBrownResearchNews0408.pdf. Accessed April 8. 2009

8. Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2002). Crime in the United States. http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cuis 02/html/web/arrested/04-table43.html. Accessed April 8, 2009

Claudine O”Leary    http://www.rethinkresources.net

A few personal thoughts by yours truly…

Signs of Sexual Assault

Physical Evidence

Difficulty Going To The Bathroom

Blood of Semen on the child’s diaper or clothing.

Unexplained lesions in genital and or anal area.

Presence of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)

Frequent vaginal infections

• Behavioral changes
• Failure to thrive
• Extreme change in mood, grades, social interactions
• Loss of appetite
• Fear of being left alone with someone
• Mental health deterioration, Suicidal tendencies
• Age inappropriate knowledge of Sexual Behaviors
• Sexualized behaviors
• Poor body image and or self esteem
• Self mutilation
• Delinquency
• At risk behaviors

Searcher “Do abusers love their victims?”

This is my response to the searcher who ask the above.
Abusers are MASTERS of deception,
“All deception in the course of life is indeed nothing else but a lie reduced to practice, and falsehood passing from words into things.”
Author: Robert Southey, manipulation, “For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, who art as black as hell, as dark as night.”
Author: William Shakespeare, and the only love they feel is for themselves and their property.
HOW CAN YOU LOVE THE THING YOU COVET AND AT THE SAME TIME BEGRUDGE THEIR HUMANITY?
What do I mean by humanity…..the gifts bestowed you by your creator….your gift of sight that views beauty in another human being or creation, the gift of touch that makes you spontaneously reach out to touch another human being, the gift of scent or the gift of sound. He/she is with out fault but you may have many, it is human to have fault is it not?

THE DEFINITION OF LOVE.
by Andrew Marvell

I.
MY Love is of a birth as rare
As ’tis, for object, strange and high ;
It was begotten by Despair,
Upon Impossibility.

II.
Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing,
Where feeble hope could ne’er have flown,
But vainly flapped its tinsel wing.

III.
And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended soul is fixed ;
But Fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt.

IV.
For Fate with jealous eye does see
Two perfect loves, nor lets them close ;
Their union would her ruin be,
And her tyrannic power depose.

V.
And therefore her decrees of steel
Us as the distant poles have placed,
(Though Love’s whole world on us doth wheel),
Not by themselves to be embraced,

VI.
Unless the giddy heaven fall,
And earth some new convulsion tear.
And, us to join, the world should all
Be cramp’d into a planisphere.

VII.
As lines, so love’s oblique, may well
Themselves in every angle greet :
But ours, so truly parallel,
Though infinite, can never meet.

VIII.
Therefore the love which us doth bind,
But Fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the mind,
And opposition of the stars.

Source:
Marvell, Andrew. The Poems of Andrew Marvell.
G. A. Aitken, Ed. London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1892. 73-74.

PROPERTY HAS NO HUMAN VALUE!

This is an interesting quote it is uncanny that most abusers deny that they are abusive.
“It is twice the pleasure to deceive the deceiver.”
Author: Jean De La Fontaine

Breaking the Silence

You are sincerely revered and honored by me……thank-you!

Breaking the Silence

I was abducted, beaten and raped by a stranger. It wasn’t a neighbor, a coach, a relative, a family friend or teacher. It was a recidivist pedophile predator who spent time in prison for previous sex crimes; an animal hunting for victims in the quiet, bucolic, suburban neighborhoods of Lincoln, Rhode Island.

I was able to identify the guy and the car he was driving. Although he was arrested that night and indicted a few months later, he never went to trial. His trial never took place because he was brutally beaten to death in Providence before his court date. 34 years later, no one has ever been charged with the crime.

In the time between the night of my assault and the night he was murdered, I lived in fear. I was afraid he was still around town. Afraid he was looking for me. Afraid he would track me down and kill me. The fear didn’t go away when he was murdered. Although he was no longer a threat, the simple life and innocence of a 14-year-old boy was gone forever. Carefree childhood thoughts replaced with the unrelenting realization that my world wasn’t a safe place. My peace shattered by a horrific criminal act of sexual violence.

Over the past 34 years, I’ve been haunted by horrible, recurring memories of what he did to me. He visits me in my sleep. There have been dreams–nightmares actually–dozens of them, sweat inducing, yelling-in-my-sleep nightmares filled with images and emotions as real as they were when it actually happened. It doesn’t get easier over time. Long dead, he still visits me, silently sneaking up from out of nowhere when I least expect it. From the grave, he sits by my side on the couch every time the evening news reports a child abduction or sex crime. I don’t watch America’s Most Wanted or Law and Order SVU, because the stories are a catalyst, triggering long suppressed emotions, feelings, memories, fear and horror. Real life horror stories rip painful suppressed memories out from where they hide, from that recessed place in my brain that stores dark, dangerous, horrible memories. It happened when William Bonin confessed to abducting, raping and murdering 14 boys in California; when Jesse Timmendequas raped and murdered Megan Kanka in New Jersey; when Ben Ownby, missing for four days, and Shawn Hornbeck, missing for four years, were recovered in Missouri.

Despite what happened that night and the constant reminders that continue to haunt me years later, I wouldn’t change what happened. The animal that attacked me was a serial predator, a violent pedophile trolling my neighborhood in Lincoln, Rhode Island looking for young boys. He beat me, raped me, and I stayed alive. I lived to see him arrested, indicted and murdered. It might not have turned out this way if he had grabbed one of my friends or another kid from my neighborhood. Perhaps he’d still be alive. Perhaps there would be dozens of more victims and perhaps he would have progressed to the point of silencing his victims by murdering them.
Out of fear, shame and guilt, I’ve been silent for over three decades, not sharing with anyone the story of what happened to me. No more. The silence has to end. The fear, the shame, the guilt have to go. It’s time to stop keeping this secret from the people closest to me, people I care about, people I love, my long-time friends and my family. It’s time to speak out to raise public awareness of male sexual assault, to let other victims know that they’re not alone and to help victims of rape and violent crime understand that the emotion, fear and memories that may still haunt them are not uncommon to those of us who have shared a similar experience.

For those who suffer with the memories, I hope my story brings some comfort, peace and hope. To those who suffer in silence, I pray you find the strength to speak out.

My story has just been released as a novel, Men in My Town, available now on Amazon.com.

More info is available at the Men in My Town Blog at http://www.meninmytown.wordpress.com

Sexual Assault Boys to Men

I recently listened to a story from an Indian man who is a survivor and is encouraging other men to speak up about the sexual abuse they have suffered in their lives.
He is doing this for several reasons, most importantly it is breaking the silence, and the road to healing can begin. Another reason is that perpetrators may be held accountable and other young boys may be saved from the same abuse.
It is harder for males to admit they have been victimized sexually by other males for reasons we as a society play a role in. First of all, there is a stink about homosexuality that permeates this country and the world. This stench denies male victims justice, for fear of social ostracism. Secondly, society has equated masculinity to strength as in not having human emotions and the main perpetrators of this is men themselves. Myself, as a women, witnessing a man showing human emotion attribute this to integrity and balance. Lastly, we as women and mother’s of both sexes, male and female are not acknowledging these issues exist and our children are suffering and most likely will die or commit suicide with this socially perpetrated injustice. Following is an article to prove my point further:
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
April 1, 2009
“Trail of Tears”
Police are digging into two possible suicides, a drug death and the molestation of at least 28 boys.
TRACKING ACKER’S TRAIL
By Tom Kertscher
GREENFIELD, WI– At least one and possibly two of Daniel Acker’s suspected victims committed suicide and a third died because of complications from drug use, according to the police official who is supervising the Acker investigation.
And Greenfield police now believe that Acker, 61, a longtime West Allis resident before moving to Waukesha last year, molested at least 28 boys.
In an hour long interview Tuesday with the Journal Sentinel, Deputy Inspector Bradley Wentlandt retraced the “trail of tears” detectives have followed in their investigation, which could reach a pivotal stage this week.
And he detailed how Acker, who is suspected of assaulting boys in his homes, on the lakefront, in a park and elsewhere, managed to cloak his actions over four decades.
“I guess you could say that over time, he got better at it,” Wentlandt said.
Prosecutors have charged Acker with a 2005 assault on a boy who is now 19 and are expected to decide this week whether to file charges involving two other suspected victims.
In an interview Sunday from jail, where Acker admitted to “weaknesses,” and “poor choices” but denied having sexual relations with boys.
Greenfield police are investigating the case because on of Acker’s accuser’s, a man now in his 40’s said he was molested by Acker in Greenfield in the 1970’s.
Wentlandt said the man reported the alleged assaults in a voice mail message left march 19 with West Allis-West Milwaukee Recreation Department, which has employed Acker as a part-time swim instructor for 37 years.
Wentlandt said a supervisor of that department spoke to the man the same day, then informed Greenfield Police March 23 Acker was arrested that day while teaching a youth swim class in West Allis.
Wentlandt said he didn’t know why the supervisor waited four days to make the report but doesn’t believe the delay hampered investigation.
Since then, more than 100 people have spoken to investigators. Police say the 28 males they have identified as victims were molested by Acker between 1972 and 2005.
The boys generally were between the ages of 7 and 15 when they were abused, although some continued to be molested into their later teen years, according to Wentlandt.
The assaults occurred over the years at Acker’s homes, first in Greenfield and later on the northwest side of Milwaukee and in West Allis, where he lived from 1990 to 2008, Wentlandt said.
Acker also molested boys at Whitnall Park, near Like Michigan, in Eagle River and in Waterford in Racine County, Wentlandt said.
Acker met the boys from among the literally thousands of children who took his swim classes, through a previous job working at the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex and through other people, Wentlandt said.
Acker befriended boys from troubled families, bought them things and took them places, let them hang out at his home and sometimes gave them alcohol and marijuana.
After a period of months, he would ask the boys if he could take nude pictures of them; later he would touch them sexually.
Some of the boys refused to be photographed nude and never saw Acker again, but others-thankful for the attention Acker showed them-succumbed to indecent touching and eventually to more advanced sexual activity, Wentlandt said.
“They’re already being assaulted before they know what happened,” Wentlandt said.
“I GUESS YOU COULD SAY OVER TIME HE (Acker) GOT BETTER AT IT.”
One of the suspected victims committed suicide as an adult, another death is considered a possible suicide and a third died from complications stemming from drug use, Wentlandt said. He said relatives of the drug user tied the drug use to Acker’s suspected assaults.
Other men identified as Acker’s victims suffer from broken marriages and can’t hold jobs, Wentlandt said.
Even though the number of suspected victims has reached 28, it is not known whether police will be able to seek charges involving more than the three cases already submitted to the district attorney’s office.
In 15 of the cases, the alleged abuse would have occurred before 1989, beyond the statute of limitations. In 10 cases the suspected victims were unable or unwilling to provide enough information.
Equally frustrating is the belief that Acker likely continued molesting boys after 2005, the year of the assault involving the 19-year-old, Wentlandt said.
But Wentlandt said he understands, having witnessed the anguish of men in their 30’s and 40’s recounting their allegations of abuse by Acker, how a teen molested more recently would not come forward. Victims often feel a stigma about having been abused, believe they somehow consented to it or fear being labeled homosexual, he said.
“I can’t imagine how a 14 year old boy would feel in the same circumstances” said Wentlandt.
Despite police allegations that Acker committed hundreds of attacks, neither West Allis nor Greenfield police have records of any prior reports of abuse by Acker. Milwaukee police said they have no record of any other contact with him.
After his arrest, Acker would not volunteer any information about sexual contact with boys, Wentlandt said.
But after being confronted with the details about the 19 year old and about five other victims from the 1970s, he admitted to assaults involving these boys, Wentlandt said.
Wentlandt said he hoped to exhaust most leads this week and then turn over information to other law enforcement authorities about alleged assaults in their communities.
As a mother and a tribal victim advocate I am pleading with you boys and men to break your silence and bring these perpetrators to justice so we may can put a stop to this on our lands!

SEEKING INFORMATION

THE DETAILS SURROUNDING THE CRIMEOn Tuesday, June 8, 1999, the bodies of Wilson Edison Black Elk, Jr. and Ronald Owen Hard Heart were found on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation(PRIR) in South Dakota, several hundred yards north of the Nebraska-South Dakota border near White Clay, Nebraska. The two victims, both residents of PRIR, were last seen on the main road to Pine Ridge, South Dakota from White Clay, Nebraska on Sunday, June 6, 1999. Authorities have determined that both victims were murdered.

Wilson Edison Black Elk, Jr.

Ronald Owen Hard Heart

Victims (Deceased) REWARDThe FBI is offering a reward of up to $20,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the murders of Wilson Edison Black Elk, Jr. and Ronald Owen Hard Heart.

IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION CONCERNING THIS PERSON, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR LOCAL FBI OFFICE OR THE NEAREST AMERICAN EMBASSY OR CONSULATE.

DIRECTOR
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20535
TELEPHONE: (202) 324-3000

Mother of starved infant had faced earlier charges

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
2/7/2009
By Crocker Stephenson

Vera Morehouse, who police say allowed her infant son to starve to death, was charged earlier with intentionally running over the child’s father weeks before a case worker left her children with her without providing additional safety services, according to court records and a report released Friday.
Morehouse was charges earlier in April with misdemeanor neglect….one of her children a 6 year old boy was found sleeping on a playground bench near her apartment at about 7 p.m., Morehouse was not home.

…..Milwaukee Child Welfare was notified….the 6th referral the bureau had received….since 2005 and the second that month.
…..It is unclear if, the caseworker was aware Morehouse had been charged March 29 with second-degree recklessly endangering safety.
According to the complaint filed in the case, Morehouse loaded her children into her car looking for their father…..she found him with his girlfriend…..she tried to drop the children off with him…..he refused….she took the children out of the car…..drove over the curb…..children watching…..and hit him…..he landed on the hood smashing the windshield.
Morehouse was pregnant at the time with a son born June 1…..the boy spent most of his life strapped into a car seat, and died of starvation.
…..among the findings is that the caseworker had not tried hard enough to help the family.
“The failure to act is inexcusable”, said Cyrus Behroozi, Children and Families Administrator.
Less than two months after her son’s death on September 20, Morehouse attacked and stabbed babies father’s pregnant girlfriend she was charged with substantial battery while armed……she threatened her and stated she was going to kill her and “stomp the baby out of her”…..the girlfriend ran and got stabbed in the buttocks.
Morehouse was also charged with violating a restraining order filed by the girlfriend two days earlier.
WHAT AM I THINKING…..NEVER GIVE UP…..USE EVERY RESOURCE AVAILABLE…..AND “GOD BLESS THE CHILD…..”!

Cyber sex case stumps parents

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By Erin Richards
2/6/09

Since Anthony Stancl former New Berlin Eisenhower High School student was charged Wednesday facing charges for using facebook to sexually assault peers.
Stancl, 18 was charged by Waukesha County district attorney Wednesday with posing as a female on facebook, a social networking site, persuading at least 31 teenage boys from Eisenhower to send him nude photos of themselves and the threaten to release those pictures to the public unless the victims agreed to perform sex acts with him.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
by Jacqui Seibel
2/7/09
The Waukesha County district attorney said Friday that he hopes to prosecute without having to call victims on stand……”For child victims of sexual abuse, we have to find a way so they don’t have to relive this in the courtroom,” District Attorney Brad Schilmel said.
Authorities think there was more boys but no more have come forward, the boys ages were from age 13 to 19…..about 300 photo’s were found on Stencl’s computer.
PARENTS TALK TO YOUR CHILDREN!
GET CYBER SMART!
TEENAGERS GET CYBER SMART!
REPORT CYBER SEXUAL PREDATORS THE LINKS ARE UNDER THE BLOGROLL.
STOP SENDING NUDE PHOTO’S INTO CYBERSPACE.

Boarding Schools

Assimilation policies also took the form of mandatory boarding schools, with devastating consequences that continue to reverberate today through out Indian Country. It is believed that the prevalence of Indian-on-Indian domestic and sexual violence in Native communities is rooted in the forced removal of Indian children from their homes and from their families and Tribes into religious and government-operated boarding schools.  I must add that some of the boarding schools were run by the military, for instance the Fort Totten Boarding School in North Dakota. This boarding school had grey nuns from Canada that were established on site and housed children from the age of five, forcibly taken from their families. The school it self is still standing today. Under the school is dirt sellers with bars where children were placed in solitary confinement.  Twenty inch paths from dorm to classrooms were patrolled by military on horseback carrying crops to keep children on the beaten path. Apache women had their garments adapted  (skirts) made wide and large, to attempt to hide their children from agents.

From 1879 through the 1950s,  more that 300 boarding schools across the county taught lessons of self hate, domestic and sexual abuse, gender stereotypes and patriarchal norms to Native children forced or coerced into attending the schools.

Children attending the boarding schools were not permitted to see their families, speak their own language, or follow their cultural practices or traditional religion, the children were expected to  stay for a minimum of four years.

It is believed thst the prevalence of Indian-on-Indian domestic and sexual assault in Native communities is rooted in the forced removal of Indian from their homes and from their families and tribes and into religious snd government-operated boarding schools. -Felix S. Cohen

Felix Solomon Cohen (July 3, 1907 – October 19, 1953) was a lawyer and scholar who made a lasting mark on legal philosophy and fundamentally shaped federal Indian law and policy.

Cohen was the drafter of the centerpiece legislation of this era, the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act. In 1939 he became Chief of the Indian Law Survey, an effort to compile the federal laws and treaties regarding American Indians. The resulting book, published in 1941 as The Handbook of Federal Indian Law.

The trauma suffered from boarding school survivors is expressed today in substance abuse,  suicide, domestic violence,  pedophelia, sexual assault, and being passed on to further generations.

ALLEGED INCIDENTS OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING REPORTED IN THE U.S. WASHINGTON

PEOPLE …PLEASE DON’T ALLOW YOUR SILENCE COMMIT THESE CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

ADVANCE FOR RELEASE AT 9:00 A.M. EST Bureau of Justice Statistics THURSDAY, JANUARY 15, 2009 Sheila Jerusalem 202-616-3227 http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs After hours: 202-598-3570 MORE THAN 1,200 ALLEGED INCIDENTS OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING REPORTED IN THE U.S. WASHINGTON – In the first 21 months of operation, the Human Trafficking Reporting System (HTRS) recorded information on more than 1,200 alleged incidents of human trafficking, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today. The HTRS contains data collected by 38 federally funded human trafficking task forces on alleged incidents of human trafficking that occurred between January 1, 2007, and September 30, 2008. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA), and its reauthorizations in 2003, 2005, and 2008 define a human trafficking victim as a person induced to perform labor or a commercial sex act through force, fraud, or coercion. Any person under age 18 who performs a commercial sex act is considered a victim of human trafficking, regardless of whether force, fraud, or coercion was present. Most (83 percent) of the reported human trafficking incidents involved allegations of sex trafficking. Labor trafficking accounted for 12 percent of incidents, and other or unknown forms of human trafficking made up the remaining five percent. About a third (32 percent) of the 1,229 alleged human trafficking incidents involved sex trafficking of children. More than a quarter of alleged sex trafficking incidents contained multiple victims, and nearly half of labor trafficking incidents had more than one victim. Labor trafficking incidents were more likely to involve more than one suspect (47 percent), compared to sex trafficking incidents (37 percent). As of September 30, 2008, less than 10 percent of the 1,229 alleged incidents had been confirmed as human trafficking. To be confirmed in the HTRS, the case must have led to an arrest and been subsequently confirmed by law enforcement, or the victims must have received a special non-immigrant Visa classification, as provided under the 2000 TVPA. Over 90 percent of victims in both alleged and confirmed human trafficking incidents were female. Nearly 40 percent of victims in alleged and confirmed labor trafficking incidents were male, while almost all (99%) victims in alleged and confirmed sex trafficking incidents were female. Hispanic victims comprised the largest share (37 percent) of alleged sex trafficking victims and more than half (56 percent) of alleged labor trafficking victims. Asians made up 10 percent of alleged sex trafficking victims, compared to 31 percent of labor trafficking victims. Approximately two-thirds of victims in alleged human trafficking incidents were age 17 or younger (27 percent) or age 18 to 24 (38 percent). Sex trafficking victims tended to be younger (71 percent were under age 25) and labor trafficking victims tended to be older (almost 70 percent were age 25 or older). Slightly more than half of all victims in alleged human trafficking incidents were U.S. citizens. U.S. citizens accounted for 63 percent of sex trafficking victims, compared to four percent of labor trafficking victims. Nearly eight in 10 human trafficking suspects were male. A fifth of sex trafficking suspects were female, compared to about a third of labor trafficking suspects. Nearly two-thirds of sex trafficking suspects were under age 35, while nearly two-thirds of labor trafficking suspects were age 35 or older. U.S. citizens accounted for 66 percent of suspects in alleged incidents. Nearly three-quarters of sex trafficking suspects and a third of labor trafficking suspects were U.S. citizens. The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-164) requires the submission of biennial reports on human trafficking using available data from state and local authorities. In response to this requirement, the Department of Justice (DOJ) funded the creation of the HTRS, which was designed by the Institute of Race and Justice at Northeastern University (NEU) and the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute (UI). The HTRS is updated monthly. The data in this report represent the status of each case as of September 30, 2008. The report, Characteristics of Suspected Human Trafficking Incidents, 2007-08 (NCJ 224526), was written by BJS statisticians Tracey Kyckelhahn, Allen J. Beck, and Thomas H. Cohen. Following publication, the report can be found at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/cshti08.htm. For additional information about the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ statistical reports and programs, please visit the BJS Web site at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs. The Office of Justice Programs (OJP), headed by Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey L. Sedgwick, provides federal leadership in developing the nation’s capacity to prevent and control crime, administer justice, and assist victims. OJP has five component bureaus: the Bureau of Justice Assistance; the Bureau of Justice Statistics; the National Institute of Justice; the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; and the Office for Victims of Crime. In addition, OJP has two program offices: the Community Capacity Development Office, which incorporates the Weed and Seed strategy, and the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking (SMART). More information can be found at http://www.ojp.gov.