New Study on Chicago's Sex Trafficking

By Margaret Lyons in News on May 7, 2008 9:38PM

A new study released today from The Schiller DuCanto & Fleck Family Law Center at DePaul looks at young women and prostitution in Chicago. In a survey of 100 women under 25 currently working in the sex trade under a pimp, researchers found:

• The average age of entry into the sex trade: 16.4

• 70 percent were recruited, and of those, 11 percent were recruited by family members.

• 47 percent reported forced sex with their pimps

• 25 referred to their engagement in the sex trade as for "survival sex." Survival sex is defined as trading sex for survival needs to obtain food, clothing, and shelter, but not money.

According to the report, "[y]oung women in the sex trade in the Chicago metropolitan area who are controlled by a pimp should not be regarded as prostitutes but as domestic violence victims in need of assistance....A criminal justice approach that responds by arresting and punishing these young women is counter-productive and inhumane." Pictured is a map sex-trade venues survey participants identified. [full report]