Women's Funding Network Sex Trafficking Study Is Junk Science

And given the tricky nature of the photographs, she admits that counting pictures isn't a precise way to measure juvenile prostitutes. "I can't guarantee that any picture that four of those six people said looked young — that may not be the girl that you'd get if you called up," she concedes.

Asked whether she has any reason to believe that the six observers in the study have the identical 38 percent error rate as the 100 random citizens who were the initial test subjects, she allows that it might be worth revisiting that question.

Illustration by Jesse Lenz

Courtesy of David Finkelhor

David Finkelhor, the director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, says reporters need to resist the urge to cite bogus studies.

Details

EDITOR'S NOTE: Village Voice Media, which owns this newspaper, owns the classified site Backpage. In addition to finding used cars, jobs, and couches, readers can also find adult ads on Backpage; for this reason, the Women’s Funding Network and its allies have often called attention to the site, sometimes going so far as to call for its closure.

Certainly we have a stake in this discussion. And we do not object to those who suggest an apparent conflict of interest. We sat quietly and did not respond as the WFN held symposiums across America — from Seattle to Miami — denouncing Backpage. Indeed, we were never asked for a response.

But then we looked at the “science” and the media’s willingness to regurgitate, without question, these incredible statistics. In the interest of a more informed discussion, we decided to write.

For background articles go to:
www.villagevoice.com/sex-trafficking

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Wall of Shame: CNN, USA Today, and other media organizations got fooled

Super Bowling for Dollars: The great American game is another chance to foist false research on a gullible media

Beth Schapiro responds: "We stand fully behind our work"

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More About

• Kaffie McCullough
• Beth Schapiro
• Deborah Richardson
• Prostitution and Sex Workers
• Child Prostitution

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The basic truth is that the study exists in service of the advocacy, and if news outlets present the Schapiro Group's numbers as gospel, it certainly doesn't hurt the advocates' cause.

Admitting that there is no authoritative scientific count of juvenile prostitution, as Finkelhor recommends, isn't an option for McCullough. She recalls an early presentation she made in Nebraska, when a politician gave her a piece of advice that stuck.

"He said, 'If you all as a movement don't start having numbers, you are going to lose the money,'" McCullough recalls. "'How can you justify millions of dollars when there are only hundreds of victims that you're actually serving?'"

Editor's conclusion: On March 16, the drumbeat continued in the U.S. Senate with a briefing on domestic sex trafficking of minors that featured actress Mira Sorvino and the startling statistic that 100,000 children are trafficked for sex annually in America. Trafficking — in labor and sex — became a defining issue in the administration of President George W. Bush. But as an investigation by the Washington Post in 2007 revealed, victims in the sex trade were difficult to come by. Today, advocates have shifted media attention to allegations of trafficking in children. But facts to suggest a plague of underage perversion simply do not exist, despite claims to the contrary.

In a deficit-obsessed Congress, there is a long line of those seeking tax dollars to raise awareness of trafficking: government agencies, nonprofits, religious groups, the well-intentioned, as well as abolitionists opposed to pornography and adult services.

It is no surprise that some seek to use children as a wedge.

Responsible parties prosecute predators and rescue victims. Not everyone with a microphone is responsible. The challenge of keeping children out of the hands of exploiters is real, but solutions are not clear in an atmosphere of hyped hysteria.