Youth Trafficking in Oakland: Big Business Despite Government, Police Efforts (Series Part 1)

Published on Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Last updated on 07:07AM, Wednesday, May 12, 2010

A young woman strolls "the track," Oakland's International Blvd., a major hub of US youth trafficking. Photo by Alison Yin.

by Barbara Grady

This begins our eight-part, four-day Oakland Local investigative series on youth sex trafficking.

It's nearly midnight on a Thursday and teen-age girls are on every corner of International Boulevard in the dozen blocks stretching south from 41st Street. Many are dressed up. But this is not prom night or a concert letting out.

Some have bruises on their bodies; some are pregnant. Not far from any one of them is a sex trafficker who stands to make $500 a night from each girl he or she controls. Recruited with promises of love, or sometimes simply kidnapped, the girls are then put out on the streets.

These girls are commodities in a slave trade that is rampant in Oakland and similar cities across America, law enforcement and social workers say -- one that's growing with the recession. It's a trade in which adolescents peddle their flesh to make money for pimps in exchange for food, shelter and affection. Some are held against their will and continue the work to avoid getting beat up or tortured.

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"They have quotas. If they don't come back with (the) quota, they stay out or get beaten," said investigator Jim Saleda, of the Oakland Police Department's Child Exploitation Unit, as he drove along International one night in an effort to rescue some girls and arrest pimps.

"Typically it's about $500," he said shaking his head. "Ten tricks," he said. Ten encounters with strangers.

"This is modern day slavery"

Trafficking children for commercial sex has become big business in Oakland and across America, rivaling only the weapons and narcotics trades in size, according to the U.S. State Department. A pimp who controls four girls -- which is not unusual -- can bring in close to $2,000 a night or an average take of $632,000 a year, according to a study out of Washington, DC, by the Polaris Project. Such easy money is making this the fastest growing criminal industry in America.

"When people think of human trafficking they think of shipping containers and Asia. But it's happening right here in our backyard with girls from Oakland and the East Bay," said Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Sharmin Eshraghi Bock, who created and heads the Human Exploitation and Trafficking Unit at the DA's office.

"This is modern day slavery," she said. "We think we ended slavery in this country 150 years ago. Well it's all over the streets of America. And it's turning into a crisis."

As the Great Recession continues, more kids are landing on the streets, leaving, or being pushed out from, families in financial stress or group homes that closed during the recession. Once on the street, they are vulnerable to being recruited into prostitution. In fact, most runaways will be approached by a sex trafficker within 48 hours, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Some youth start trading sex for food or a couch to sleep on, and then find they’re ordered to turn tricks to please the person providing them sustenance. Some are lured by seeming friendship by a pimp posing as a boyfriend. Still others are brought into this business violently: raped or kidnapped and forced to turn tricks under threat of gunpoint or physical harm. Being trafficked means they must hand over the money they make turning tricks to receive the shelter, food or clothing that a person too young to get a job cannot procure for themselves.

"It's a way to survive," said one girl who admitted she was working the streets on San Pablo Avenue one Saturday night. It wasn't her idea to make money this way: she got into commercial sex "through someone I thought was my boyfriend" but turned out to be a pimp, she said. Then she continued, not knowing what else to do. "It's been about a year" she started to say -- before walking off to meet a blue sedan that had slowed down in front of her, turned the corner, and stopped.

Youth sex trafficking statistics

Traffickers prey upon vulnerable kids who run away from home or who look like they need some attention. The National Runaway Switchboard reports that the number of calls to its crisis line from homeless kids doubled in 2009 to 1,470 calls from 739 calls in 2008, while the number of calls from "throwaway kids," those who are kicked out of their homes, rose 22%.

The problem is even bigger in Oakland -- where poverty, unemployment and underfunded schools have left hundreds of young people struggling economically. According to Covenant House (which runs youth homeless shelters in Oakland and Los Angeles), one in four Oakland youth live in poverty. Meanwhile, 14% of Oakland youth aged 16 to 19 are neither enrolled in school nor possess a high school diploma. Also, 25% of locals aged 18 to 24 have neither a job nor a high school diploma.

"There are significantly more girls getting into this," said Lt. Kevin Wiley, head of the Oakland Police Department's vice and child exploitation unit, which he created eight years ago when he noticed this gut-wrenching business take hold of Oakland streets.

Moreover, "It's more violent."

"He told me he would kill me"

Fear of her pimp is what one slender girl described when questioned by police one February night after she was detained for solicitation. Investigators and reporters listened from an adjoining room.

"He told me he would kill me if I didn't go," she said of how she first ended up on the street. The girl said she had run away from home three states away because of constant fighting and landed in Oakland. Within days she was befriended by a slightly older man. But the man soon raped her and locked her in a hotel room. After two days he brought her to "the track," as International Boulevard is known, and told her to offer sex to johns passing by.

"I didn't know what I was doing," she said -- adding that she tried to leave, but he followed her.

Because she is a juvenile, her name is not being published.

Selling teens instead of dope

On an average night in Oakland, about 100 youth are trafficked for commercial sex, according to the Oakland Police Department. Nationwide, 300,000 to 400,000 kids are trafficked on the streets or traded over the Internet each year, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

"Drug dealers are leaving selling dope, and selling children instead," because of the high profits and lower risk, said Deputy District Attorney Bock.

"What's the overhead in trafficking compared to dealing drugs? A McDonald's Happy Meal and a $39 hotel room you're going to use many times? And it is less risky," she said, anger rising in her voice. "Sadly there is no more lucrative crime than selling children for sex," she laments. One trick brings in $40 or $50. Make a kid do ten tricks a night and that earns $500.

Seasoned criminals from the drug trade have switched industries, Lt. Wiley says.

"In the past two years the traditional turf wars over drug deals have moved over to this," Wiley said. He said evidence exists in the patterns of who stands on what corners and in tattoos some girls have on their bodies with initials of the pimp they belong to, similar to how cattle get marked before sale.

NEXT in this series: Part 2, Victims of Youth Trafficking in Oakland...

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This story was produced under a fellowship sponsored by the
G.W. Williams Center for Independent Journalism, a project of Tides
Center.

We also would like to thank Robert Rosenthal and California Watch for their support -- as well as our reporters Barbara Grady and Sarah Terry-Cobo, and photographer Alison Yin -- for their amazing work.

Support more independent quality reporting like this! Please donate to Oakland Local on Spot.us. We are seeking additional support for continued coverage.

About Barbara Grady

Barbara Grady is a freelance reporter who often writes for Oakland Local. Before her current stint of writing about social issues for various news and non-profit organizations, Barbara was on staff at the Oakland Tribune and, earlier, at Reuters. She's a recipient of a Sigma Delta Chi award from the Society of Professional Journalists for a series published in 2008. Contact her at barbgrady1@gmail.com

Mary Jayne Zemer commented at Fri, 7 May at 7:42am

It's becoming apparent that solving the growing problem of human trafficking will require a holistic solution that addresses all of the factors contributing to the problem. We know that runaway girls are at risk of becoming homeless, being raped, and being preyed on by human traffickers (In: 2010 Threats to Girlhood Report, http://www.bit.ly/afXBAt). If we’re going to reduce the number of girls that are at risk of being trafficked, we have to help prevent and protect runaway girls. We have to punish the johns that pay for child prostitutes- being afraid of getting caught, punished, and publicly humiliated will help reduce the number of men willing to risk paying for a child prostitute. We need to help change the cultural perception of prostitutes and help people to understand that many prostitutes are actually sex slaves......

Raising awareness of the problem is a vital first step toward improving the situation. Thanks for the great article!

Dawn E. Worswick commented at Thu, 13 May at 2:22pm

I agree with you Mary. After being in the sex industry for 7 years as a stripper, I know how John's think: These John's need to be prosecuted for rape ~ to the fullest extent of the law. Until we take a stand against this horrible crime and punish businesses, John's, traffickers, pimps and any other people who enable and perpetuate this crime... we are never going to combat human trafficking effectively.

Now we know the problem exists. How do we solve this seemingly impossible crime? Easy! Harshly prosecute the offenders! End the drug wars so we can effectivly be able to afford to start a new, serious war against human trafficking criminals. Empty our jails of non-violent offenders and keep sex offenders in.

I just think our country would have more leverage against the criminals if we made drugs legal and taxed the heck out of them so we can concentrate on this war for human flesh. If people want to destroy themselves, let them! Don't let them destroy other people because that is what is happening!!!!

We need to create new money to fight this war, and if we are going to be in it to win it ~ we need to move our focus to a different part of the battle.

In no way am I saying, certain drugs are good and that our kids should be doing them. I do think our drug policies are causing unnecessary violence in our communities and over the boarder too. We could eliminate the cost, raise much needed taxes (like the alcohol sin tax) raise more awareness, and keep the drug people on one side of town where they will be under close watch by police officials.

We could be the leader in positive drug policies and treat people with drug problems with compassion and real world help, instead of expensive, taxing jail sentences that do nothing to rehabilitate the masses.

We could use that money to help these girls/boys in their time of need. The girls are scared of the police because they are on drugs and are afraid they will get into trouble. That is what they have been taught. We could change that.

Let's flip the table on the pimps and John's and show them who is really boss! If the US really wants to take a huge stand against this, we need to change our thinking, and start being more creative in our solutions.

So far the US has been the leader in fighting human trafficking. I am hopeful that it will continue to make progress, especially in our own "land of the free."

Dawn E. Worswick

www.dawneworswick.com

Barbara Grady commented at Fri, 14 May at 5:35pm

Thanks Mary Jayne for your thoughts. I agree with what you say. The sad thing is the root causes of this crime are very big and reflect the socio-economic ills of our time generally: poorly funded public education, poverty, little support for struggling families, too few opportunities for youth living on the margin and especially for foster or runaway youth. But we can certainly start making a difference by better funding K-12 education and programs for youth and families. Another cause is that legal penalities against trafficking have been too weak. Well now there is an effort in Sacramento, led by Alameda County legislators and district attorney's office, to toughen up those penalties.

Does NT. Matter commented at Tue, 29 Jun at 2:52pm

as one user wrote: >>will require a holistic solution that addresses all of the factors contributing to the problem.<<

While yes I agree in theory, I am also a realist. This won't happen in our lifetimes. So, instead of keeping the topic in that of a purely hypothetical one, I submit we focus our energies on more toward an "Immediate, take Action" approach.

What all of you female posters have bothered to comment on while definitely true of the vast majority of these girls, that is to say that they are true modern day slaves to their masters. It is a fallacy in thought or perhaps even as I suspect more of a gender specific shared dellusion that all of the "poor, innocent" teens are out here being exploited. <- Because that ladies is simply NOT true.

Quite a few of these girls, more than you'd like to admit are out their providing services solo. Moreover, they are Not out there because they have to be. Unfortunately, they are out there because they damn well want to be. The reason? Ask some? Ask all? I did. A few of you mentioned it in your posts. Although you all understand the logistics, your assumptions for induction are incorrect even though you are arriving at the same truth.

It does come down to simple economics. Having and Having Not.

It is as cut and dry to many of these young ladies just under and just over 18yrs. of age. They'd rather sell their bodies than take up a minimum wage job at McDonalds. Why sell a Happy Meal for $5, when you can BE the Happy Meal for $50?

I can understand why it is difficult as a female to stare straight into the face of truth when the truth is just this ugly. However, to get to the real truth of the matter here you Must free yourselves from these bondages of false thought.

Most specifically the thought that these females however young are being put upon, injustices foisted upon them. No, that is not true.

Persecuting Johns, arresting Pimps... etc.. these are all futile attempts. I liken this to placing band-aids on a multiple gun-shot wound victim.

IF... IF we the people truly wanted this to go away, then we'd take one clear swift action and this cycle of infection that has manifested and installed itself onto the Community would begin to heal.

REMOVE the Teen vaginas from the street.

Make it a prosecutible crime to sell yourself, punishable by no less than 6mos. in jail. 1 yr. Juvenile hall. Mandatory parole stint that includes mandatory O.J.T., Option for 18yr. or older to enter into Military Service of no less than 2yrs., which counts toward elimination of sentence.

Just like a cancer this problem requires aggressive treatment.

Instead, the we do not push for corrective laws to be written. We un-empower our Police officers to the point where they just simply drive by the problem, without directly acknowledging. Why? Because they know if they arrest a girl for prostitution or suspicion thereof, she will be back out on the street in a matter of hours.

If we remove the source of the desire(young teen female flesh), all other surrounding and extraneous instantances(with respect to this particular cycle) will cease to propogate.

With all this said, and all those keys points that were brought up by you fine ladies, all this energy spent and yet nothing will be done to truly break the cycle. Do you realize that? Have you accepted it?

So, in the end hopefully at the very least this has been a cathartic exercise for us all.

Jeffrey commented at Wed, 30 Jun at 10:44am

It Does Matter!!

The above post is a perfect example of the narrow minded and utterly insensitive that will need to be educated and taught empathy before we are really able to address this problem. What do you want to bet this guy is a republican. Yeah, let's blame the victims, whether they find themselves in a situation where selling their body seems like the only recourse or they are being exploited by pimp or john, let's blame them and put them in jail. Are you for REAL you A-Hole.

I bet I can guess where you stand on immigration policy too.

Bust the john's, jail the pimps, get the young women, not even old enough to consent to sex, off the streets and help heal whatever trauma put them there. Most of the people on the streets have a history of violence and sexual abuse, and many of them have a history of foster care, been thrown out of their homes and/or are runaways. Poverty, crumbling schools, crumbling neighborhood are also contributing. Talk about putting a band-aid on gunshot wound, locking up these young women is just that.

Does NT Matter is not a realist, he is just plain clueless and heartless. I would not be surprised if he were a john or a pimp on top of it. Hard to believe someone could be so insensitive when we are talking young people (average age 14) being raped by adults. A-Hole!

Paula Wirth commented at Sat, 10 Jul at 9:07am

Another thing these girls need is someone to give them options to running away from home, to life on the street. They need safe places where they can get education, learn careers, have an enjoyable place to live, with mentors who made it out, who came from where they are now.

Duchessemel commented at Mon, 17 Jan at 1:14am

I guess I'll play the devil's advocate here and suggest what seems to me to be the most effective and logical solution to this problem. Decriminalization and regulation of prostitution in California would resolve ALL of these issues. If prostitution were legal then it would not only become far easier to regulate those practicing it, but it would also take the power away from pimps and put into the hands of the (of legal age) sex-workers. I feel strongly that, while unpopular in our puritanical society, this solution is the only one which can functionally address all of the issues at hand. It would even benefit "Does NT Matter", whom like Jeffrey, I strongly suspect to be a John himself. I'm sure I will get some backlash for this comment, but I am genuinely interested to hear what people see as the downside to legalization. As is clear from this article and the statistics, prostitution (the "oldest profession in the world") is not slowing down and I for one cannot find a downside to using our legal system to make it safer for everyone involved.

Monica commented at Fri, 18 Feb at 1:22am

Duchessemel,

Since you asked, the devil is ignoring one important bit of information. The men who are buying these girls want just that girls. They are not seeking adult women who freely decide to prostitute. When these girls turn 18, the pimps let them go.

Gangs of men are snatching girls from homes, schools, and off the street and boyfriends are selling girlfriends all to make a dollar in the pimping game. Legalizing prostitution is not going to stop the trafficking of underage girls. For evidence take a trip to Amsterdam.