By Linda A Smith Samantha Healy Vardaman Melissa A Snow

46Shared Hope Internationalresponsible for the failure of delivery of services and shelter to the child trafficking victim and has createda void of data regarding the prevalence of these victims in the United States.The ramifications of misidentification of child sex trafficking victims are pronounced. In an assessment ofthe Baton Rouge/New Orleans area in Louisiana, a clinical supervisor at a runaway youth shelter reviewedcomputer records and reported that 57% of the 157 youth that came to the shelter in 2006 were domesticminor sex trafficking victims pursuant to the federal definition, though they were not identified as suchat the time. 137 As a result, the true extent of their victimization was not made known to restorative serviceproviders or to law enforcement for investigation into the crime of trafficking. Most importantly, thesevictims were not given a response specific to their victimization.WestCare Nevada in Las Vegas also reported seeing many domestic minor sex trafficking victims withintheir youth population and reflects the frequent commingling of these victims with youth struggling withrelated issues or issues that develop as a result of their victimization, most notably drug addiction. FromApril 2004 through April 2005, WestCare Nevada tracked 64 girls through both their substance abuseand probation diversions programs, though neither of these programs were designed specifically to treatdomestic minor sex trafficking victims. WestCare Nevada found that 72% (46 of the 64 girls) had a historyof prostitution. Of those girls, 98% had a history of physical or sexual abuse. The majority of the girlsidentified with a history of prostitution were recruited between the ages of 12 and 13 years old, howeverthose girls were not identified as trafficking victims on average, until approximately 15 years old. Each girlrevealed that she had been exploited by a pimp. 138The Clark County, Nevada, Public Defenders Office-Juvenile Division surveyed 104 juveniles arrestedfor prostitution-related activity from July 2007 to November 2008 and found a high level of drug abusewithin this population of victims. The chart below provides a break down of documented drug use. It isimportant to note, that the average age of those using drugs was 14 years old. 139137Bayhi-Gennaro, Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Assessment Report — Baton Rouge/New Orleans, pg. 59.138Interview with Jennifer Hilton, Program Director, WestCare Nevada. Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking: How to Identify America’sTrafficked Youth. Prod. Shared Hope International. DVD. Washington, DC: Shared Hope International, 2007.139Clark County Public Defender—Juvenile Division. Unpublished Survey of Girls Arrested for Prostitution Related Offenses (July2007 — November 2008). Clark County, Nevada. Data on file with authors.