“Child prostitutes do not exist,” proclaims Nadine “Dr. Nay” Finigan-Carr, PhD, director of the Prevention of Adolescent Risks Initiative (PARI) at the University of Maryland School of Social Work.
What does she mean by that provocative statement?
“When these stories hit the news, people say ‘he was found with a child prostitute.’ When you use ‘child prostitute’ you villainize the victims. These children did not choose to do this. We need to recognize at center of this is the victim who was abused by a person of power,” says Finigan-Carr, who is also a research associate professor at the School of Social Work and an associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
While brave victims have come forward and plan to testify in the sex trafficking trial involving Ghislaine Maxwell and her ties to Jeffrey Epstein, many child sex trafficking victims are undetected, hidden in plain sight. They continue to be abused, and their abusers go unpunished. The majority of the children and youth victims of child sex trafficking are youth from our most vulnerable communities who may already be stigmatized due to poverty, race or ethnicity.
Finigan-Carr can reframe the conversation about child sex trafficking victims for your audience and provide resources and tips on how to spot a child in danger in plain sight right in your town, and how the School of Social Work’s Prevention of Adolescent Risks Initiative works with child sex trafficking victims.
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