Identifying and Supporting Commercially Sexually Exploited Children

Time: 5 hours

Developmental Competencies

(Pending approval)

  • Understands the broad dynamics of commercial sexual exploitation of children and how experiencing commercial sexual exploitation may impact a child/youth.
  • Ability to identify commercially sexually exploited children and children who are at risk of being commercially sexually exploited.
  • Knows policy and legal requirements for action when a child is identified as being commercially sexually exploited or at risk of commercial sexual exploitation.
  • Ability to engage with youth to reduce their risk of becoming sexually exploited or to address the impact of experiencing commercial sexual exploitation.
  • Knows interventions that can support commercially sexually exploited children.

Learning Objectives

As a result of completing this training, participants will be able to:

  1. Understand the basic dynamics of commercial sexual exploitation of children and how experiencing commercial sexual exploitation may impact a child/youth.
  2. Be able to identify commercially sexually exploited children and children who are at risk of being commercially sexually exploited.
  3. Know policy and legal requirements when a child is identified as being commercially sexually exploited or at risk of commercial sexual exploitation.
  4. Know interventions that can support commercially sexually exploited children, and how to link the youth to resources in their community.

Course Description:
This 5 hour course will help CHET workers and others who work with adolescents in the child welfare system identify youth who are at risk for or are being commercially sexually abused. The training will provide a framework for understanding this issue that greatly impacts adolescents in the child welfare system, as well as understand the basic social work practices that support helping these youth reach positive outcomes. Participants will leave understanding CA’s policy and legal requirements related to screening and supporting these youth, and will be provided with a list of some resources to use in connecting commercially sexually exploited children to community providers who can best meet their needs.
Authorship and Conditions of Use:
This curriculum is an adaptation of “Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking of Youth: Content Guide, Trainer’s Manual and Tool Kit” authoredby YouthCare via Leslie Briner, MSW; Sexual Exploitation Training and Policy Coordinator for YouthCare. Large pieces of the curriculum and associated content are directly taken from “Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking of Youth: Content Guide, Trainer’s Manual and Tool Kit” and this training curriculum and associated materials should be considered intellectual property of YouthCare and Leslie Briener.
Conditions of Use:
This curriculum and associated training materials are designed to be used ONLY by someone who has completed an authorized Training of Trainers(TOT) workshop conducted by Leslie Briner, YouthCare, or another person as designated by YouthCare/Leslie Briner. Organizations or individuals who wish to use this curriculum, in part or in whole, must contact YouthCare and obtain permission to do so, including determining how they will complete the TOT. YouthCare and Leslie Briner may allow certain individuals or organizations with obvious expertise on the topic to use these materials without attending the TOT.
No person or entity can use this curriculum or any of its parts to offer or provide a training or other workshop for a fee. This training and any training/workshop which uses any part of this training or the associated materials must be provided at no cost to the participants.
Funding:
“Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking of Youth: Content Guide, Trainer’s Manual and Tool Kit” was funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Children’s Bureau, Grant #90CA1825. For more information please contact, Kelly Mangiaracina, King County CSEC Task Force Coordinator and Grant #90CA1825 Program Manager.
Center for Children and Youth Justice (CCYJ) is responsible for supporting the statewide distribution of this program in Washington State through the regional protocol task forces. For more information please contact Nicholas Oakley, Project Respect Program Manager.

Materials and Preparation

Computer and Projector/TV hookup

Flip chart paper & Markers

Handouts

  • Participant Manual

All handouts have been provided together as a single packet, the Participant Manual. As each is needed during the classroom session, it’s identified in the curriculum.

Resources

“Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking of Youth: Trainer’s Manual, Content Guide, and Toolkit”

Trainer’s Note:
A core function of this training should be to increase empathy for people in the commercial sex trades. In order to be successful in helping children and youth who are being sexually exploited, it’s critically important that anyone providing direct services to these children and youth have both concrete knowledge about the subject and an understanding of the significant impacts of sexual exploitation. Caseworkers who cannot interact with these youth respectfully and with an understanding of the complexities of this issue will not be able to provide support or help youth achieve safety, and indeed may dissuade the youth from seeking support with other adults.

Evaluation

The effectiveness of this training is being studied by a group at the University of Washington. Please use the following links to have people complete a short survey on their phones before and after the training.

Please contact Michael Pullmann, Ph.D. at if you have any questions or concerns about this survey.

Pre-training survey link:bit.do/csec-pre

Post-training survey link: bit.do/csec-post

Classroom Training

Handout: Glossary

As participants arrive ask them to sign in and to read the Glossary, the first page of their participant manual

Have participants complete the short introductory survey.

Slide 1

Activity #1:Unpacking Language

Use the handout: Unpacking Language

  • Starting in the first empty box, ask participants to spend 2-3 minutes in silence brainstorming what they would expect to hear during a “news story” about prostitution.
  • After 2-3 minutes have passed, stop the participants and ask them to do an identical 2-3 minute brainstorm of what they would expect to hear during a news story about sex trafficking or exploitation, using the second empty box.
  • Invite participants to provide information about what was included in each fictitious news story. What was the same? What was different? What do they see as the operational differences between these two “stories”?
  • Draw a large T-chart to capture their thoughts and highlight the following.

Teen Prostitution Victim of Exploitation/Trafficking

______

It’s a choice Force, coercion

Local context International context

Drugs/alcohol Organized crime/larger systems involved

Individual problem(s) Systematic problem(s), profit motive

Broken homes Kidnapping

Girls/gendered

Handout: Language Frames the Issue

  • Note that language matters. Shifting the language from prostitution (even prostituted youth) towards “youth experiencing sexual exploitation” or “victim of sexual exploitation or trafficking” represents a significant move away from criminalization and toward victim-centered approaches.
  • Children’s Administration is using the term Commercially Sexually Exploited Child, but you’ll hear other terms within and outside of this training.
  • The language youth use (“the life”, “dating” or “working”) is different than the language we use to understand the issue. Most youth also do not identify with the term prostitution. However, we can explain a term like “exploitation” in youth friendly language. (Example: “Exploitation is when you do the work and someone else takes part or all of your money; or, when you have to do things to survive that hurt you in some way.”).
  • When engaging with a young person, we use their language. When talking to law enforcement, service providers, caregivers, or when documenting, we use ours.

Slide 2

  • The training won’t provide in-depth expertise but should provide a basic framework to understand the issue and to do your job related to identifying these youth and connecting them to appropriate resources and supports.
  • We will provide a list of resources and others in your community that you’ll want to partner with when serving a child who is or has been commercially sexually exploited, or is at risk.

Slide 3

  • We all have our own beliefs and attitudes about the commercial sex trade.
  • We will offer you context, information, lessons learned. This may challenge some things you believed – which is why it’s a process of “un-learning” as well as learning.

Slide 4

  • In September 2014 federal legislation was passed called the “Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act” that included some specific language about what child welfare systems needed to do related to children who are commercially sexually exploited.
  • We must identify, document, and serve these children, as well as to report commercial sexual exploitation to law enforcement and to create a way to “count” these kids in FamLink (will become an AFCARS measure).
  • Any guesses why this legislation focused on child welfare?

Our system has more interaction with these youth than any other, with the possible exception of Juvenile Justice.

Handout: Federal and State Laws related to CSEC

Provide participants a few minutes to read the various laws and ask questions or make comments.

  • The key take away from the federal definition is, “force, fraud or coercion” ANDanytime (regardless of force/fraud/coercion) that a minor is involved in the commercial sex trade.
  • Note the wide range of things that are commercial sex acts. This is critical in determining who is a commercially sexually exploited child. In child welfare we must use this definition, when identifying, assessing and serving these young people (per PL 113-183).
  • In Washington State buyers will be convicted of CSAM and 3rd party traffickers will be convicted of Promoting CSAM. Notice that consent (on the part of the minor) and/or that the buyer did not know the age of the minor, is not acceptable as a defense for this crime. In working with law enforcement and prosecutors in Washington state, this is the phrase you are most likely to hear. (CSAM)

Trainer’s Note:
The requirement to report Children who have been commercially sexually exploited to law enforcement is already part of policy expectations because these children have been victims of a crime, and we must report crimes perpetrated on our children to LE.
This may not feel intuitive to staff as it pertains to this issue, but once they review the handout and realize the scope of what constitutes criminal behavior they may frame it differently. You may want to ask them about a more obvious crime – like “you would obviously call law enforcement if a child on your caseload reported to you that he or she was sexually assaulted, right?”

Slide 5

Activity #2: Can you identify the Commercially Sexually Exploited Children?

Handout: Identify the Commercially Sexually Exploited Children

  • Ask participants to work in small groups and identify which of the example scenarios is a Commercially Sexually Exploited Child. Remind participants to rely on the federal definition provided.
  • Allow about 10 minutes for the groups to decide what they think of each.
  • Review each example as a large group, having each small group provide a few of the answers. Discuss any concerns or questions as they come up using the Answer Guide that follows.

Answer Guide: Can you identify the Commercially Sexually Exploited Children?
Examples which are underlined are not CSE, based on the information we have in the example.
The information critical in determining that the child/youth is CSE is in bold.
  1. Connor is 11 and his sister Sammy is 15. They live mostly in a car with their mother. Their mother recently allowed several different buyers to have “access” to their children in exchange for cash. The children are to perform agreed upon sex acts with these buyers.
  2. Markie is 17. She and several other girls are moved from town to town by a pimp. She performs sex acts for moneyevery night, and her pimp keeps the money. In exchange, she is provided “protection” and clothing, food, and personal care services (hair, nails, etc).
  3. MoNique is 17. She lives in a pre-adoptive placement with her aunt, and attends school. She uses a profile online to connect her to “dates” who pay for specific sex actswith her.
  4. Tien is 13. He is having sex with an 18 year old, who he considers his boyfriend. His boyfriend sometimes wants to do sex acts that Tien is uncomfortable with, and his boyfriend gives Tien nice jeans and sneakers in exchange for these acts.
*the key is that he gives him these things IN EXCHANGE for sex acts. To prove a case in the legal sense, there has to have been an explicit agreement- an oral or written statement. In working with the child our approach to supporting them isn’t particularly impacted by whether there was an explicit or implied exchange of goods for sex.
  1. Linae is 15. Her parents videotape and photograph others engaging in sex actswith her and sell these tapes/pictureson the internet.
  2. Sarah is 14 and has been living with a friend’s family since she was 12. When she turned 13, she was asked to help the family out by providing services at their massage parlor. This involves massaging people while she is naked, and selling some sex acts.
  3. Viktor is 17. He discloses at a health and safety visit that his girlfriend is pregnant and he is the father. She is 20 years old, and he has occasionally stayed with her in her apartment on weekends when he told his foster mother that he was at a friend’s house.
(The situation described is legal based on the age of consent in WA (16 as long as the adult is not in a position of authority over the minor). It may or may not be an emotionally safe and healthy relationship for this young man, but we don’t have any information based on the scenario that he is sexually exploited.)
  1. Rob is 16. He frequently runs away from foster care and typically lives “on the street” with a group of other youth. He sometimes trades sex acts for food or shelter for himself or for his “street family.”
  2. Alivia is 13. She recently ran away from placement in a group home with a peer. She is staying with the boyfriend of this peer. In exchange she is expected to have sex with his friends.
*See #4 for similar caveat. The exchange needs to be explicit for a prosecution but not in order for us to work with the child.
  1. Angela is 11. Her soccer coach pays her 75$ to text him a naked picture.
  2. Rene is 17. A friend from school showed her how to make money doing “webcam shows” where people pay for her to get partially or fully naked. She did this for the first time last week.
  3. Tyler is 12. When an older boy at school offers to pay him 40$ for oral sex he agrees.
  4. Aurora is 14. She has been “dating” an older boy, 19, who she considers her boyfriend. He has at times given her gifts, and taken her out to dinner. They have a sexual relationship.
(The situation described is illegal. It’s not likely safe for her emotionally or physically. It raises concerns, but we don’t have any information that she is currently COMMERCIALLY sexually exploited. Is she at risk for CSE? Yes. Do we want to work on getting a lot more information about this situation? Yes. Might we support her with some of the same resources we use with a youth who is CSE? Yes. Can we at this point document that she is CSE? No.)
  1. Zaria is 15 and has sometimes exchanged sex acts for food, shelter, or personal care items.

Slide 6

•Allow participants to consider and weigh in on the questions in the slide.

NOTE: When we’re discussing risk of CSEC, we’re talking about “Who is most likely to be exploited.” Or “What groups are disproportionately affected by this issue?”

•We really don’t know the scope or prevalence of this issue in the general population or among children in care. Most research that exists pre-dates the prevalence of Smart Phones. The Internet and Smart Phones allow anyone to post on line so they don’t need to be out on “the track”. These youth are more likely to be “self-managed,” and exploited by buyers but not by a 3rd party trafficker. There is a huge stream of money available which can be tapped into. This population of CSEC has not been adequately “counted” by researchers.

However we do know that…

•Young people involved in child welfare appear to be more likely to be commercially sexually exploited. This is not surprising given the life circumstances that bring families to our attention and kids into care.

•Statistics from the small number of studies that have been completed indicate that between 50 and 90% of CSEC are child welfare involved.[1]

  • Children who have experienced sexual abuse can be extremely vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation. Past sexual abuse is the biggest risk factor for CSEC. Child welfare system involvement appears to be the second biggest risk factor.

Slide 7