Children may be abducted using threat, force and aggression. In instances of armed conflict, children are captured as prisoners of war.
However, In recruitment, poverty is still the major contributor to the perpetuation of child sex trafficking. In Captive Daughters, a non-profit site seeking an end to sex trafficking, poverty is considered the core cause of sex trafficking. It adds,
“To go straight to the root cause of sex trafficking (poverty), means many years of research to identify these trafficked populations, many years of work to improve the economies and well-being of these impoverished areas, perhaps many years to earn the trust of these vulnerable women and girls, many people to implement this aid, many years of follow through while these affected nations begin a rise out of poverty, and primarily, a great amount of money to develop programs that provide an alternative to sex trafficking and address poverty as the root cause of sex trafficking.”
(source: Captive Daughters)
Below are ways by which traffickers recruit or lure their victims:
- Debt bondage or rendering service as payment for a family’s debt;
- Emotional blackmail or threat of exposing a child’s embarrassing secret to the public;
- False friendships, false marriage proposals or false elopement;
- Fraudulent adoption;
- Introduction of narcotics and encouragement of addiction to illegal substances;
- Peer pressure from friends;
- Promise of scholarship or opportunity to study;
- Promise of legitimate employment in conventional businesses, such as domestic work, or a modeling or acting career;
- Promise of travel, of securing travel visas that are difficult or expensive to obtain, or of immigration to another country; and,
- Outright purchase of a child from the child’s parent or guardian.