75% of underage sex trafficking victims said they had been advertised or sold online. (Report on the Use of Technology to Recruit, Groom and Sell Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Victims, Thorn, 2015)
325,000 children are at risk for becoming victims of sexual exploitation in the United States. (The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children In the U. S., Canada and Mexico, Executive Summary, September 2001)
The average age of entry into the sex trade in America is 12 – 14 years old. (The National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking: America’s Prostituted Children, Shared Hope International, May 2009)
A pimp can make $150,000-$200,000 per child each year and exploits an average of 4-6 girls. (Trafficked Teen Girls Describe Life In ‘The Game’, NPR, 2010)
One in six endangered runaways reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 2013 were likely sex trafficking victims. (Missing Kids)
Of the DMST survivors that participated in Thorn’s 2013 national survey:
- 63% were sold via the Internet at some point during their trafficking situation.
- 62% had access to a cell phone while they were being trafficked.
- 42% had access to the Internet while they were being trafficked.