“Unlike sex trafficking, survival sex is not a financial transaction. Survival sex is, quite simply, exchanging one’s body for basic subsistence needs, including clothing, food, and shelter. While estimates vary, most figures put the homeless youth population in the U.S. around 1.5 million. These are kids under the age of 18 who were often either kicked out of their homes because of dwindling financial resources or ran away to escape an abusive, volatile environment.”

As human trafficking becomes an increasingly acknowledged reality in the United States, states are gradually implementing anti-trafficking laws to discourage the clandestine practice. According to the Polaris Project, a nonprofit combating human slavery and trafficking, 300,000 children are at risk of sex trafficking in the U.S. each year. In response to this rising epidemic, safe harbor laws have been enacted in states like Minnesota, New Jersey, Vermont, Washington, and most recently, New Hampshire.

So-called “safe harbors” grant immunity from criminal prosecution to minors under the age of 18 engaged in prostitution. The thinking is that these minors are not criminals but victims, often homeless and runaway teens who are exploited by malicious, manipulative pimps. Such laws comply with and reinforce federal law, which has decriminalized prostitution for minors and now legally classifies them as victims of human trafficking.

But here’s where things get tricky. The well-intentioned deluge of anti-trafficking laws, political rhetoric, and bipartisan legislation are exclusively focused on people coerced into the commercial sex trade. In other words, forced prostitution. What this overlooks is a frightening, lesser-known exchange: survival sex.

Unlike sex trafficking, survival sex is not a financial transaction. Survival sex is, quite simply, exchanging one’s body for basic subsistence needs, including clothing, food, and shelter. While estimates vary, most figures put the homeless youth population in the U.S. around 1.5 million. These are kids under the age of 18 who were often either kicked out of their homes because of dwindling financial resources or ran away to escape an abusive, volatile environment. Once on the streets, these teens rapidly find that clothing, food, and shelter are far from guaranteed. Without any money or the ability to get a job, many are forced to rely on their bodies as the only commodity they possess.

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