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JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Now a landmark study funded by the U.S. Justice Department to learn more about how the underground commercial sex market in this country operates and to better understand its scope.
Hari is back with that.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): It may be the world’s oldest profession, but little is known about the true economics of the illicit sex industry. It has never really been quantified, until now.
A study done by The Urban Institute, and released today, estimates that the underground sex market in each of seven U.S. cities generates between $40 million to almost $300 million a year. It also found that sex traffickers often operate with formal business models, some even doing market research.
Meredith Dank is the lead author of the report and a senior research associate at The Urban Institute.
So, what was the point of the report? Why did we need to do it in the first place?
MEREDITH DANK, The Urban Institute: Because we didn’t really understand the scope of the underground commercial sex economy.
Anecdotally, we heard a lot of stories, but this essentially gives a blueprint as far as entries and pathways into it, how they recruit others into the underground commercial sex economy and how they ultimately operate their business.
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