The false claim that human trafficking is a ‘$9.5 billion business’ in the United States

6-12-2015 Washington DC:

“It’s estimated that child sex trafficking in the United States alone is a $9.8 billion industry.” –Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), statement, May 19, 2015

“This [human trafficking] is domestically a $9.5 billion business.” –Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.), remarks at a congressional hearing, May 14

Readers should always be wary of false precision. The sex trade is an underground industry, so on what basis would the revenues from the trafficking of children–or children and adults–in the United States be calculated so precisely, either as $9.8 billion or $9.5 billion?

That’s what jumped out at The Fact Checker when we first spotted these figures, uttered by lawmakers as the House of Representatives considered the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act. The figures came from two different sources, but it turns out both were practically invented out of whole cloth. Let’s explore.

The Facts

For the $9.8 billion number, Goodlatte’s office originally directed The Fact Checker to an informational graphic posted on the Internet by Shared Hope International, which says it aims to eradicate sex trafficking. The graphic indicated that the statistic concerned all human trafficking in the United States— not just “child sex trafficking” as Goodlatte’s statement said.

“His statement should have said human trafficking, not child sex trafficking,” said Goodlatte spokeswoman Jessica Collins. “That was a staff error.”

But there’s a bigger problem. Shared Hope’s graphic gave as its source a 2005 International Labour Organization report on human trafficking. But that report contains no mention of a $9.8 billion figure for human trafficking in the United States.

Instead, there is only a broad estimate of about $13 billion in profits for “forced commercial sexual exploitation” for 36 industrialized countries (of which the U.S. represents about 30 percent of the population). ILO officials say they have never given a breakdown by country, only for broad groups of different types of economies.

The full methodology for the numbers in the report suggests the actual revenue for sex trafficking in this group would be close to $20 billion. It assumed turnover of $100,000 per prostitute, and then assumed profits of nearly 70 percent, or $67,000 per person. The report also estimated there were 200,000 people forced into prostitution in these 36 countries.

But these profit and revenue figures were based only a handful of examples and then applied across the board, making it a fuzzy number. The estimate of the number of people forced into prostitution is also a broad estimate that could be off by as much as 25 percent, ILO documents say.

So the number is a result of multiplying two guesstimates, both with large sampling errors. Trying to figure out the U.S. share of that total would introduce even more fuzziness.

Taryn Offenbacher, a spokeswoman for Shared Hope, acknowledged the $9.8 billion number was a mistake. “It was released as a misreading of the ILO report and has been fairly widely circulating,” she said. After being contacted by The Fact Checker, the group immediately withdrew the graphic from its Web site—a proactive step that we applaud.

“We pulled our fact sheet with that stat until we are able to update it,” she said. “We are careful to conduct our own primary research or only cite stats that can be supported by credible sources. I’ve read numerous articles questioning the accuracy of human trafficking statistics and want to ensure our office isn’t spreading inaccurate or unsupported information about the seriousness of this crime.”

So what about Wagner’s claim of $9.5 billion? Her office’s Web site cites the same 2005 ILO report, but after we pointed out that the ILO did not give an estimate for the United States, spokeswoman Moira Bagley Smith cited another source: the 2006 State Department Trafficking in Persons report. In the report, there is this statement:

This Washington Post article is amazing -and long- pointing out many errors in Congress. If you want to read the full article CLICK HERE.

The Pinocchio Test

In the end, we find that there is no reliable estimate for the business of human trafficking in the United States, let alone child trafficking. (As we have noted previously, estimates for both child victims of trafficking and victims of trafficking are highly suspect.)

One could certainly say that the underground sex trade in the United States likely is worth more than a billion dollars, but it would be a serious mistake to conflate that with human trafficking. Until more reliable and careful research is done, that figure is simply unknown.

In any case, claiming that child sex trafficking, or even simply human trafficking, is a $9.5 billion or $9.8 billion business in the United States is worthy of Four Pinocchios.

Four Pinocchios