Sexting
Stalking and Sexual Assault
Sexual Abuse Images of Adolescent victims
Sexual Violence against those involved in Prostitution
Human Trafficking

Sexting

Sexting is the consensual taking and consensual sending of nude or semi-nude pictures.

One person can take the picture of another, or a person can take the picture of themselves, a third party can send the pictures to another consenting party with the consent of the person in the pictures. As long as there is consent, it is sexting.

If consent is not a part of the total equation and expressed freely by all parties involved it and/or involves an adult and a minor, or a minor who is 4 or more years older than another minor it is not merely sexting. In cases where it is not sexting it may be instances of sexual abuse of a minor, child pornography, solicitation, sexual harassment, intimidation, black mail, etc.

For example:

• If it involves an adult and an adolescent under the age of consent it is not sexting.
• If it is done to threaten, manipulate, intimidate, or scare another it is not sexting.
• If images that had been sent consensually are used to blackmail, intimidate, or manipulate another it is no longer sexting.
• If an adult solicits an adolescent to send nude/semi-nude pictures or videos of themselves or other adolescents it is not sexting.
• If an adult sends nude/semi nude pictures/videos of themselves or others to adolescents it is not sexting.
• If an adult sends nude/semi nude pictures/videos of themselves or of others to adults who do not want to see such images it is not sexting.

Stalking and Sexual Assault

In a 2001 study of men who admitted committing acts that met the legal definition of sexual assault, the participants reported:

• They “staked out” their victims.
• They considered women “targets” and “prey.”
• Behaviors that met the definition of stalking occurred both pre- and post- sexual assault.

A general pattern for both stranger and acquaintance rapist involves targeting someone, watching them over a period of time, waiting for the opportunity when she/he is vulnerable. Many pre-sexual assault behaviors can be considered predatory behaviors and stalking.

Understanding connections between stalking and sexual assault can help:

• Validate victim experiences
• Decrease victim blaming
• Strengthen investigations and prosecutions of sexual assaults by providing law enforcement and prosecutors with evidence of an offender’s intent and pattern of behavior. 
• Lead to developing educational programming as well as other advocacy responses for communities
• Identifying stalking behavior can increase options for intervention before a crime occurs.

UCMJ – Article 120a

1. Any person subject to this section--
   1. Who wrongfully engages in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear death or bodily harm, including sexual assault, to himself or herself or a member of his or her immediate family;
   2. who has knowledge, or should have knowledge, that the specific person will be placed in reasonable fear of death or bodily harm, including sexual assault, to himself or herself or a member of his or her immediate family; and
   3. whose acts induce reasonable fear in the specific person of death or bodily harm, including sexual assault, to himself or herself or to a member of his or her immediate family;
      is guilty of stalking and shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.
2. In this section:
   1. The term `course of conduct' means--
      
      1. a repeated maintenance of visual or physical proximity to a specific person; or
      2. a repeated conveyance of verbal threat, written threats, or threats implied by conduct, or a combination of such threats, directed at or toward a specific person.
   2. The term `repeated', with respect to conduct, means two or more occasions of such conduct.
   3. The term `immediate family', in the case of a specific person, means a spouse, parent, child, or sibling of the person, or any other family member,

Sexual Abuse Images of Adolescent victims

A 2008 study on digital communities found that with regards to internet searches for sexual abuse materials the mean age of all queries was for victims aged 13 years. Additionally, 79% of all gender specific searches for minors portrayed in sexual abuse material were for females. The study also found that 99% of all search requests were for videos of minors being sexually abused. However, still images of sexual abuse are the most prevalent in availability. There is currently a high demand for sexual abuse videos evolving online. Therefore, those who sexually abuse minors and/or capture and disseminate the images now have an overwhelming demand for videos and live action feeds that are not currently the most prevelant materilas. In short those who create this material by sexually victimizing minors will be responding to this demand by creating new videos and live feeds of sexual abuse.

The US generates more internet searches for materials of minors being sexually abused than the combined queries of Germany, United Kingdom, France, Canada, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain. One out of three of all internet searches for such materials originate from the US. More than any other country in the world, people living in the United States drive the demand for the creation and dissemination of materials depicting the sexual abuse of minors. 

Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition

The Supreme Court’s recent decision in the case of Ashcroft v. the Free Speech Coalition gives those who control and/or possess materials that depict the sexual abuse of minors a loop whole. By decriminalizing materials of the sexual abuse of virtual minors, defendants can now declare that the minor depicted was actually an adult altered to look like a child. The obligation is now on the courts to prove otherwise. Therefore, finding the actually minor victim is vital to ensuring that those who drive the demand for the creation of these materials are held accountable.

Interpol, the FBI’s Innocent Images task force, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children all possess data bases that make such investigations possible. Materials are catalogued according to their unique technology finger print or Hash Mark as either “known” or “lost” victims. When law enforcement or prosecutors submit materials or websites collected during an investigation these data bases are able to provide reports that can be used at trial to show that the person depicted in sexual abuse materials was indeed a minor at the time of the crime.

Sexual Violence against those involved in Prostitution

Research has consistently linked childhood sexual violence with entrance into prostitution. Women are more likely to work in prostitution if they were sexually victimized as children and were later victimized as an adult. The majority of women involved in prostitution began as adolescents. The mean age for entry in prostitution is 13 for females, and 11 for males. Women working in prostitution are often in a constant state of revictimization. Because of this, women in prostitution may minimize child victimization or current victimizations. This is because dealing with prior or current victimization while currently in crisis for a current victimization can be too overwhelming for the mind to process. In Pennsylvania there have been cases of women being raped, the offenders charged, cases have gone to trial and judges have dismissed the rape charge feeling theft of services is what occurred. It is imperative that the criminal justice system in Pennsylvania work together to educate all of those involved in the investigative and judicial process that body autonomy is everyone’s right regardless of societal or personal judgment of the conditions a victim finds her/himself. It is imperative that legal advocates. Law enforcement, prosecutors, and the judiciary uphold the rights of all victims of sexual violence and strive to collectively hold offenders accountable through the workings of the criminal justice system.

Women in prostitution who have been sexually victimized need to be linked to services that will assist them in all of their needs; safe housing, job skills training, alcohol and drug addictions that have developed as a way of coping, suicide ideation, survivors guilt, counseling that addresses sexual violence experienced throughout life and counseling that addresses unique issues of prostitution such as the emotional and psychological repercussions of  a person being sold to another for sex, the emotional/psychological  abuse from societal stereotypes and dismissal of people who are involved in prostitution. 

Human Trafficking

The United States Government’s 2009 Report on Trafficking in Persons reports that human trafficking is a significant problem in the United States. Pennsylvania is no exception. There is both sex trafficking and labor trafficking in Pennsylvania and victims include children and adults, U.S. citizens and foreign nationals. Trafficking involves force, fraud , or coercion used to control an individual. It does not necessarily involve transportation from one location to another.  Examples of trafficking in Pennsylvania include individuals controlled by pimps and commercially sexual exploited via truck stops, Craigslist, message parlors, strip-clubs, indoors at hotels and in homes, and on the streets. Run-away and throw-away girls are at high risk for being targeted by pimps and trafficked. International victims are sometimes fraudulently offered employment for legitimate jobs but once they arrive in Pennsylvania their documents are seized and they are forced into either labor without pay and at an increased risk for sexual victimization by traffickers or are commercially sexually exploited and in some cases raped up to 40 times a day in closed network residential brothels. Such victims are increasingly advertised on internet sites like Craigslist.  Victims of labor trafficking are typically found in domestic servitude, restaurants, nail salons and in agriculture.  Victims of trafficking are repeatedly threatened, beaten, raped, starved, chained or locked up, isolated and manipulated, or psychologically tortured.
In 2006 the Pennsylvania legislature enacted a provision to make human trafficking a 2nd degree felony, and in cases where a perpetrator injures the victim or the victim is under 18 it is a 1st degree felony. 

Pennsylvania has numerous perceptions that need to be address in order to start effectively embracing the 2006 provision. 

Local and state law enforcement and victim service providers are more likely than federal agencies to come into direct contact with victims and perpetrators of human trafficking. Therefore, it is more likely that effective action can be taken at the local level in investigating and prosecuting these crimes.

Victims of trafficking are often seen as prostitutes who choose to be “in the life” and when questioned are non-compliant or as foreigners who are working here illegally. It is important to learn how to interview non-compliant or non-responsive victims of trafficking in order to locate traffickers and sexual predators. Traumatic bonding, fear, and hopelessness are all factors that must be considered to understand why a victim may be non-compliant or non-responsive to offers of assistance or in asking for help. 

Law enforcement deserve to be granted access to training on how to identify and respond to human trafficking cases.

Coordination between law enforcement, prosecutors, victim service providers and the public on human trafficking laws and cases, training, action plans, and victim resources is imperative at the state and local levels.