Study says 1,000 children sexual exploitation victims
By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer
It seemed like easy money.
Before the unwanted touches, the crude remarks and the humiliation, the lure of cash was enough for Shannon Mar to become a stripper. She thought it would be a party life. But soon, she was taking drugs to numb herself and keep working.
| How to help stop the cycle of abuse | |
| Authors of the report released today about commercial sexual exploitation of children in Honolulu and 27 cities in the United States, Canada and Mexico, offer recommendations aimed at solving the problem: | |
| • | Make it easier for children to report sexual abuse, and give law enforcement the resources to fully investigate claims. |
| • | Punish the adults who exploit children instead of punishing the children. |
| • | Enforce existing laws relating to child sexual exploitation. |
| • | Support communities in efforts to strengthen laws. |
| • | Establish a national Child Sexual Exploitation Intelligence Center to monitor national trends. |
| • | Create multi-jurisdictional task forces on sexual exploitation. |
| • | Expand law enforcement's Internet Crimes Against Children units. |
| • | Enlarge the national pool of child sexual exploitation experts and specialists. |
| • | Do additional specialized research into perpetrators of child sexual exploitation and their victims. |
| Source: Researchers Richard Estes and Neil Weiner, authors of "The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the U.S., Canada and Mexico." | |
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"I grew up in a pretty good home, not deprived," said Mar, 18, who is out of the business and speaks to Honolulu students about the dangers of the sex trade. "It all started when I was dancing in a club, not thinking there was one thing wrong with it."
For at least 1,000 teens in Hawai'i involved in commercial sexual exploitation each year, that's often how it begins, said Richard Estes, an author of an international study being released today that examined the sex industry in Honolulu and 27 other cities in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
An estimated 325,000 U.S. children age 17 or under are prostitutes, performers in pornographic videos or have otherwise fallen victim to "commercial sexual exploitation," the study found.
The 3-year, $400,000 study is considered the most extensive look at a growing national problem. The report also offers troubling evidence that Honolulu provides fertile ground for exploitation of young girls.
The research by Estes and Neil Weiner of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for the Study of Youth Policy was financed by grants from the Department of Justice, the W.T. Grant Foundation, the Fund for Nonviolence and Penn's Research Foundation. Previously, there were few estimates of the number of children involved in the nation's illegal commercial sex trade.
Hawai'i's transient military and tourist population, along with cultural attitudes that are accepting of the sex industry, make it a prime target where children are vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation, Estes said.
"Our eyes are closed to this problem, and our society is in denial about this issue," said Estes, a former Hawai'i resident, now a social work professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
His research looked at other vacation-destination cities such as Las Vegas, Miami and New York, Canadian spots like Montreal and Toronto, and Mexico's Acapulco, Cancun and Tijuana. The trend in Honolulu is what Estes calls "designer sex." Some teens trade sex for clothes, jewelry and drugs in their own homes.
"Drugs are a big motivation in Hawai'i," he said. "These kids are living in communities all over the island. It could be in Kahala. It could be in the hills. It could be in downtown, Chinatown, Maunawili, Kailua, Waipahu or the North Shore."
Additionally, his research found Hawai'i to be a major distributor of pornography into and out of Asia and that Honolulu is a city foreign children pass through in international sex trafficking.
Behind closed doors
Only 10 to 15 percent of prostitution in Hawai'i fits the Hollywood image of girls and their pimps on street corners, said Jayne Bopp, director of HIV preventive services at the Life Foundation, and a former employee of the Waikiki Health Center, where she worked with street prostitutes.
The more common places where teens are lured into commercial sexual exploitation are strip clubs, massage parlors and escort services, and places where sex can be bought out of sight, child protection advocates say.
"The sacred cow of prostitution in our state is the ... hostess bars," Bopp said. The problem, she said, is they're so hard to regulate, and O'ahu has more than 300 of them. In many, the activities are perfectly legal, she said, but some are feeding grounds for prostitution.
But it's hard to pinpoint how many children are involved in commercial sexual exploitation because most of it is never reported, said Nanci Kreidman, executive director of the Domestic Violence Clearinghouse and Legal Hotline, who worked on a project last year aimed at preventing sexual exploitation.
What's needed is widespread education and shelter for women who want to escape the sex industry, Kreidman said.
Finding refuge
Krystle Shaffer looked for a way out after 20 years in a life of prostitution.
Her story of child sexual exploitation began with a broken home, sexual abuse and foster homes where she says the sexual abuse continued. By the time she was a teenager, she was a prostitute.
"I've been shot. I've been stabbed. I've been raped. I've been marred. I've been thrown out of cars," the Salt Lake woman said. "I tried the regular world, and something wouldn't seem to click."
For a while, giving away sex made her feel loved. She would try to wash off the part that made her feel dirty. Years of prostitution eventually made her feel tarnished. Her rock bottom came with a cocaine charge in Hawai'i's drug court.
"When you look in the mirror and you pray every night that God takes your life," she said, "then you just look at where you've been and where you're going."
She ended up at the Rev. Pam Vessels' doorstep, and that's where she found family.
Vessels, a Christian Church Disciples of Christ minister, was running a transitional home for prostitutes at the time. Vessels founded the Kaimuki home after one of her friends was killed by a customer in 1991. The money that paid for the home has since run out.
But Vessels still introduces Shaffer as her daughter and Shaffer calls the minister "mom."
Hookers in Waikiki remember Vessels as "the condom lady," stemming from between 1988 and 1996 when she would pass out condoms and return for holidays like Christmas eve when she handed out communion.
Her ministry extended to writing grants for her work with prostitutes. She never forced them to change their lives. She says her mission was to reduce the danger in their lives.
Shaffer, 40, has been out of prostitution for seven years and said she finally has found a loving family.
When she's low on cash, Shaffer, who is still in therapy, remembers the times when she could earn $3,000 a day selling her body. But her self-respect costs a lot more than that now.
She's willing to talk about her experience because she hopes others might learn from what she went through.
"I believe I'm not a success," she said. "But I'm not afraid now to say I was a former worker."
Where the buck stops
Connie Tostado is among the masses of girls who thought prostitution would make them rich.
A girlfriend at Kaimuki High School introduced her to prostitution three years ago.
"At the time, I was trying to fit in with my friends," she said. "I had problems with self-esteem. I had an eating disorder. I had problems at home. I was running away a lot."
Tostado experimented with sex for money. Her mom put her in a group home. But when Tostado couldn't get a job at McDonald's, she turned back to men who sent her to get her hair done and her nails painted in exchange for sex. She says her pimps siphoned most of the money.
Eventually, Tostado said she got busted when someone told police she was a minor while she was working in Waikiki.
At Hawai'i Youth Correctional Facility, she found help for her eating disorder, and she found a way out of prostitution.
She met Kelly Hill, a former prostitute and a founder of Sisters Offering Support, a Honolulu non-profit organization dedicated to helping prostitutes get out of the business.
"I didn't want anybody to tell me something they had read in a book," Tostado said. She believed Hill because Hill had been there.
When Hill does surveys at public and private schools in Hawai'i, one in five teens tell her they have felt someone has tried to recruit them into sexual exploitation.
Hill says she will use Estes' research to back up testimony she plans to give in the next legislative session to push for a law making it a felony offense to employ a minor in a strip club, massage parlor or escort agency.
Because of Hill's program, Tostado said she has finished high school, attends Kapi'olani Community College and wants to be a social worker. She also is among those speaking out against child sexual exploitation.
"It's so hidden," she said. "It's not glamorous. I got beaten up. I had people throw pennies at me. It was just not what I thought it would be. I have higher self-esteem. Now I can look people in the eye. I don't feel so closed in."
Reach Tanya Bricking at 525-8026 or tbricking@honoluluadvertiser.com.
