Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Homeless Youth and sexual Exploitation

This is something I wasn't expecting. To cite this report by the National Alliance to end Homelessness:

Studies are inconclusive as to whether there are gender disparities between females and males with respect to sexual exploitation. Some studies note that homeless girls have a disproportionate rate of sexual abuse histories as compared to boys, while others note higher rates of involvement in survival sex and prostitution for homeless male youth than female youth.

To cite some of these studies (not all tell us something about the participants genders)

Feitel (1992) - New York - 150 shelter using youth age 13-22:
21 percent of the boys and 5 percent of the girls said that they had engaged in sex in exchange for ‘food, shelter, money, or drugs.

Rotheram‐Borus (1992) - New York - 206 homeless youth age 11-18:
13 percent of males exchanged sex for money or drugs and 7 percent of females exchanged sex for money or drugs.

Kipke (1995/97) - Los Angeles - 409 street youth age 12-23:
43 percent reported experience with survival sex (46 percent of young men and 32 percent of young women).

Wagner (2001) - Seattle - 289 homeless youth age 13-22:
47 percent of females and 37 percent of males were propositioned to sell sex.

Certainly another one that it would be wrong to focus only on females when it comes to sexual exploitation.

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