Care. Equip. Share.

These past weeks have been new for everyone.  A new “normal” has forced its way into homes, businesses, and communities across our blue planet causing a fear and isolation that is changing the very foundation of our humanity.  In many ways what has happened has, and will be, pinned down in the history books as “the catastrophe that stopped the world,” but let us take a closer look at the effects of this disaster as it pertains to sex trafficking and the people who make their living off sex industry in the streets.

Let take a look at this situation from two different economic perspectives…macro and micro.

Macro

From a macroeconomic perspective, both the buyers and traffickers view the supply of sexual fulfillment as a commodity.  What does that mean? It means that despite how the news and world talks about it, the “street life” has been a bustling and thriving “business” with an ever-expanding clientele and ergo an always expanding need for “sex workers.”  It has been a business that, as some say, “is the oldest profession,” but, for now at least, that has changed.

According to research and resources, the In-person purchasing of sex has come to a near-complete halt (estimated to be very near 0%) and has been credited to two different factors:

1. Service model – Two (or more) people must be present in order for “transactions” to take place.  The mandatory lockdown and six-foot distancing, combined with the increased risk of infection, have been huge factors.
   1. On the supply and demand side, these school closures are limiting the demand for those transactions to take place.
2. Market built entirely on discretionary spending
   1. Saint Louis Fed – “Unemployment may reach 32% this year” –  CNBC Article: Coronavirus job losses could total 47 million, unemployment rate may hit 32%, Fed estimates
      1. 1. Unemployment during the great depression was 29%
      2. For all of those people out of work, each discretionary dollar is going to be very carefully spent which ultimately takes away from the stimulating of the economy.
      3. Trickle-down economics – The industries that lack workers or cannot manufacture products will, in turn, affect all corresponding industries who are dependent on them.  This brings all commodity and outsource driven businesses to a halt. 

So, again, factors to take into consideration are the two main issues which have disrupted the flow of purchases of sexual activities.

1. Unemployment – Cause and effect – People do not have jobs > goods/commodities are not produced or purchased
2. Closed schools – Have effected both buyers and sellers and kids are now a part of the everyday equation.  Limiting the windows for transactions to take place.

Online, advertising clicks (down 53.2%) and “hobby” sites (down 78%) are suffering.

1. 1. Reviews on “hobby site” TER have dropped 90.6 % month over month.
      1. Very close to 0%
      2. 17 reviews this month (a site with over 1.5 million reviews)

*Results fluctuate in each locality differently and seem to have some correlated to when the stay at home orders were issued.

Let’s take a look an example, Pornhub, the largest porn site in the United States and the world,  indicated that they have had an 5.7% increase in viewers since the quarantine began.  Worldwide traffic to Pornhub was up 11.6% on March 17th.  

Traffic from the United States (Pornhub’s largest market) was up 6.4% on March 17th.

Between Febuary 20th and March 16th, 9.1 million searches have taken place on Pornhub looking for porn containing “Carona” or “Covid.”

(https://www.adweek.com/digital/pornhub-increase-traffic-self-quarantine/).  (https://www.pornhub.com/insights/corona-virus#daily)

Micro

Huffington Post Article: Coronavirus Fears Are Decimating The Sex Industry

In-person purchasing of sex has come to a near-complete halt (estimated to be very near 0%).  Buyers still buying are likely to be high frequency or high-risk buyers.

Many “providers” are going to online platforms such as onlyfans – “reported a surge in new accounts since March 1, with 60,000 new content creators”  Vice News Article: Making Money on Onlyfans is a lot harder than you think

What makes this difficult are the following:

• People want free (or cheap) sex videos
• Children being at home during quarantine has made it difficult for people to engage with the online population
• Online is full of porn and now sex workers are trying to join into that saturated market.

Will sex workers received substituting checks?  Yes and no. Although companies in the porn/adult entertainment industry are not able to apply for the government loan/grant (which is being provided to most businesses in the USA in order to keep people employed) people who work as self-employed performers and independent “workers” are eligible to receive the 1,200 stimulus check.  This is also a reason why many in the industry will feel the pressure to move to the online platform.  The Sun Article: Porn stars and sex workers are denied coronavirus stimulus aid

Conclusion

There has never been a worse time to be in sex/human trafficking as an industry but the truth is that even though the system has come to a stop there is no way to count how many individuals are in danger.  Many trafficked individuals are currently forced to “shelter-in-place” with their trafficker, pimp, or abusive boyfriend.  Optimistically this long shelter in place can cause an instability that could allow some who have been trafficked to get home, but it will also put many in vulnerable, exploitive, and dangerous environments of abuse.

Establishments who have a fixed location are going to be the hardest hurt because they have to continue to pay for the physical location while also needing to address sanitation and the cross-contamination between buyers and providers.

Because of the need for financial support the risk is rising daily.  People that have no income have to take more risks, and many of these people, even if they try to move to an online platform, are at a higher vulnerability level.

The buyers who are buying right now are the worst of the worst.  If the police could work to get some of these people, now would be the time.  The difficulty with this is that everyone, including the police force, is busy trying to stay safe and are busy from Covid-19

When it comes to online sex trafficking the difficulties remain: 

1. Hard to locate and intercept
2. Difficult to prove force, fraud, or coercion (which is required in charging someone over 18 with human trafficking according to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000)

From different perspectives, there are changes happening in the activities and approaches to the area of Trafficking during this global crisis.

Before > In-person > Livable

Now > Online > Competitive (Saturated market) > Demand decrease > Vulnerable people > Some publicly asking for help on forums

These changes on the  Supply and Demand WILL AFFECT Reginal > Domestic > Global

How are we looking at this and how are going to approach this shift? We may have been asked to stop our daily routines and stay at home, but this industry isn’t ready to stop yet. Will we be able to intervene? Is there a way to prevent it from happening?

Other source: Childsafe.ai