Unseen: The Boy Victims Of The Sex Trade

[Rhea]

Unseen: The Boy Victims Of The Sex Trade (NPR article)

For the teens who enter into this realm like the first story - a real view of why underage sex is such an imbalance and why it is indeed criminally wrong to exploit the ignorance and naivete of those under the age of consent.

The spiral that you don't know, at that age, how to get out of. The inability to know when you are allowed to say "no." Not to mention the moral shaming that tells them, "you deserve it" when things go too far, too wrong.

Bates says he was lured by the attention and what appeared to be easy money. He secretly hoped his financially struggling single mother, or anybody, would notice what was happening and protect him.

No one did — and within two years, the tall, lanky youth was living alone in a dilapidated apartment, prostituting himself to get by. His home — and an array of hotel rooms in Connecticut and Massachusetts — became a “revolving door” of sex buyers.

“I really thought I was the bad person selling myself,’’ said Bates, now 26 and living in Worcester. “I didn't realize that I was a victim.”

In Massachusetts alone, more than 411 boys have been referred to the state Department of Children and Families since 2018 for concerns they were victims of commercial sexual exploitation — about 15 percent of the total number of referrals, according to state data. An additional 109 youth were identified as trans or non-binary, state data shows.

[...]

Yet too often male victims of sexual exploitation go unseen and unhelped, specialists say, their stories stifled by personal shame, stigma and a world that has trouble seeing boys and young men as victims at all, especially gay and trans youth and boys of color.

And part of the action needed is training people - police, social workers, teachers, parents - how to identify victims. Both female and male victims. This is why we have to believe them, long enough to step away from dismissal and assumptions, and actually hear them and follow up.

To better identify and help victims and hold exploiters accountable, the state in February released new law enforcement guidelines. But the 52-page document offers no specific details on how to help find male victims — leaving advocates like Stephen Procopio frustrated that despite years of calling for more attention, boys are still an afterthought.

The guidelines state that the majority of “identified” sex trafficking victims are women and girls, but males are “routinely underindentified.” Law enforcement officials are advised to treat male victims as seriously as female or transgender victims. “It is important to be aware that males can be victims and are in need of assistance,” the document reads.

Procopio says law enforcement should be provided more information about how to identify male victims of sexual exploitation and trafficking. This is not a new complaint. A 2013 state-funded commission detailed the dearth of information about male victims and LGBT youth, recommending more research, programs and training.

 

[Toni]

Thank you for sharing this.

I wonder if part of the problem of under-identifying male prostitutes on the part of law enforcement is that it is hard for men to identify male as victim, especially as a victim of a sex crime. Boys are still very much conditioned to be strong/tough, to win. But to be human is to need to be loved, to need affection, attention. Teen years are so fraught with conflicting emotions and wants and needs, a changing dynamic with parents and other adults and often friends, even in the best or most stable homes.