In February 2002, police officers raided a house where they suspected illegal activity. Along with the stashes of morning-after pills, the bare, putrid mattresses and the rancid doorless bathrooms, the police discovered four girls between the ages of 14 and 17. Prostitutes? No. These girls were sex slaves: Mexican nationals lured to America and forced to have sex with clients for $35 an hour.

The house, located in the middle-class suburb of Plainfield, NJ, is just one example of the clandestine brothels surrounding metropolitan areas all over the country. Many Americans are surprised when I tell them this story, confirming the concern raised by numerous non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) and researchers: that the American public is largely unaware of the existence of sexual slavery in the United States, despite the tens of thousands of women and children living in bondage today.

Maria, a 17-year old girl who is quoted on the pamphlet distributed by Polaris Project, an anti-trafficking organization, describes what it is like to be trapped in this sort of brothel: “We worked six days a week and twelve hours a day. We mostly had to serve 32-35 clients a day...If anyone refused to be with a customer, we were beaten. If we adamantly refused, the pimps would show us a lesson by raping us.”

According to estimates from State Department documents, arrest and prosecution records, and information from nearly 50 social service agencies, 10,000 women and children are trafficked into the US each year as forced prostitutes. Clients have the choice of three age groups: toddler to age 4, ages 5-12, and teens.

The victims come from 40 countries around the world, but are mostly from Eastern Europe and Mexico. Girls in Kiev and Moscow are lured by traffickers with promises of jobs in America as models and actresses, but are instead taken to camps in Mexico where they are “broken in.” In Mexico, organized associations of pimps dispatch men to date and seduce local girls. One of these men will offer promises of marriage or an American visa, but will actually kidnap the girl, drug and beat her, and keep her in captivity at a ‘training’ camp.

As preparation for servicing American customers, the girls in the Mexican camps are forced to have sex with 20 to 30 men a day. Threatened by beatings, death, or the death of family members and often addicted to drugs, the girls have no choice but to comply.

Life doesn’t get any better once the victims reach the ‘Promised Land.’ Peter Landesman, author of the New York Times magazine article “The Girls Next Door,” writes: “If anything, the women I talked to said that the sex in the US is even rougher than what the girls face on Calle Santo Tomas.”

The number of victims who have been rescued is appallingly small, compared with the number of forced prostitutes brought into the US each year. Only 153 trafficking investigations were open as of April 2004 at the Department of Justice, a tiny fraction of the number of slaves who still live in this country.

Not only is most of the American public unaware that sexual slavery exists in their country on such a large scale, but border agents and local policemen are also not immune to the myths and misconceptions about sex slavery. According to Laura Lederer, a senior State Department official, “We’re not finding victims in the United States because we’re not looking for them.” Landesman adds that American police departments seem to assume that these women choose to sell their bodies, and are not only prostitutes but also undocumented foreign nationals trespassing on American soil.

Even among concerned professionals, knowledge about the details and extent of the problem is limited. Many experts, including the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, have called for more research on sex trafficking within the US.

It is also very difficult to prosecute these cases. Only four states, Texas, Washington, Missouri and Florida, have laws against trafficking in human beings. Despite all the federal laws passed against sexual slavery, regional US Attorney offices do not have the resources to prosecute every trafficker under the federal statutes, according to Polaris Project.

A scourge that has spread to all corners of the country, sex trafficking is an issue that must be dealt with immediately. I am starting a policy group at the Institute of Politics, which will feature a three-prong approach: raising awareness on campus and nationwide, conducting research to investigate the full extent of the problem with the help of guest speakers whom we will invite to speak to the group, and publishing a policy proposal with specific recommendations for state and national lawmakers. Efforts like these should be taken on campuses and communities around the country to draw national attention to the problem.

Loui Itoh, an editorial editor, is a government and comparative study of religion concentrator in Quincy House. The policy group on sex trafficking begins meeting on Monday, February 28, 5 pm at the Institute of Politics in room 275.