StolenYouth is a nonprofit based in Seattle, Wash. The organization has been combating sugar dating by publishing counteractive ads online, building a platform to re-educate youth on what sugaring actually means and informing children and families about the signs sex traffickers may use to lure unsuspecting victims. Director of StolenYouth Marnie Backer worked with Youth Voice to compile the perspectives of employees as well as a young woman who has been directly impacted by sex trafficking.
That trauma is horrific, and there are a lot of factors that come into play when you successfully exit that life, so it can take years for someone to really successfully do it. The sad thing is that trafficking is a symptom of something else. The biggest predictor of a youth in trafficking is poverty. Sugaring is when an older person, usually a male, offers payment to a younger person in return for companionship.
Foster youth are one of the most vulnerable populations to engage in sex trafficking or to be groomed and exploited. Become a foster parent. This is the same as with the juvenile justice system — we just cycle them around. We live in a culture of shaming about sex … We have to talk about children being raped and exploited. As recently as , in some parts of Washington state there were trafficked kids because of the lack of foster care homes. When I used to work directly with trafficked youth in a group home, youth were picked up on the streets by law enforcement and actually were just taken to juvie.
We fund organizations that do direct services, prevention at schools, housing, youth care, and additionally, we have funds that help trafficking survivors with direct personal grants.
We are also working on revamping our prevention and education for schools, students, teachers and educators on [the] risks of trafficking and ways to intervene. I was going to community college at the time I used the sugar baby app to find someone to support me strictly financially.
