“On average, girls become victims of sex trafficking at 13 years old.”
This is just one of the statistics that we’ve heard that leads to some questioning. The following Fact Checker article explores this claim to explain how this number simply isn’t credible.
Fact Checker Article
The statistic was said to come from the FBI. However, it originally came from an opinion article that was once posted on the FBI website. The article sited a report from 2001, which interviewed 107 girls from either the street or in human service agencies. The average age of 13 was briefly mentioned in the report. The report was not peer reviewed and it is also at least 15 years old. So it is risky to generalize this number from a such slim outdated research.
FCAHT's Blog 