Sex

Underage Sex Trafficking Not as Popular as Ashton Kutcher Wants You to Believe

If you're buying into Ashton Kutcher's  media blitz about underage sex trafficking, and think 100,000 to 300,000 children in America become prostitutes every year, you've been Punk'd.

Kutcher's stats are way off -- which he'd know if he did a little research before taking up a cause and blindly throwing around a number based on a rough estimation of how many kids are at risk for prostitution.

Village Voice Media actually researched the subject, and while underage sex trafficking is certainly a problem, it's not nearly as dire as Kutcher would have you believe.

VVM staffers spent two months investigating arrests for juvenile prostitution in the nation's 37 largest cities during a 10-year period, and they found records for only 8,263 arrests across America. This doesn't mean other child prostitutes aren't slipping through the cracks, but 8,263 over a decade is a far cry from 300,000 per year.

Read more in the Village Voice's investigation into underage sex trafficking.

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James King
Contact: James King

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