The Plight of GLBT Sex-Trafficking Survivors
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“SAM” RAN AWAY after his father discovered he was gay and threw him out of the house. Arriving in Chicago’s “Boy’s Town,” he was drugged and kidnapped by a human trafficker. Sam was then sex-trafficked for about a week before escaping, only to find himself homeless again. Like many sex-trafficking survivors, he returned to the street to engage in survival sex, defined as prostitution in exchange for resources to meet basic physical needs (food, shelter). Survival sex can lead to re-victimization, as it did in Sam’s case.

A growing number of anti-trafficking nonprofit organizations and federal agencies have begun to recognize the high risk for GLBT youths of becoming victims of human trafficking.