This paper focuses only on the sex trafficking of women and girls. It formulates a new approach to combating sex trafficking that serves as a complement to the victim-centered approach that has been widely adopted in law and policies in the United States and around the world. Many of the tools for a perpetrator-focused approach already exist or have been enacted by the U.S. Congress and the Bush administration from 2000 to 2008. The foundation exists for a successful, far-reaching global movement to advance the human rights and status of women and girls by ending their commercial sexual exploitation.

This paper will briefly summarize the contemporary anti-sex traffick- ing movement, including the theoretical analyses and contributions of feminist nongovernmental organizations, conservative and faith-based groups, and the administrations of Presidents Clinton and Bush. It will describe the victim-centered approach to combating sex trafficking first developed by the Clinton administration and implemented by the Bush administration. The factors creating a demand for victims will be described. The paper will analyze how the victim-centered approach has failed to focus attention on the perpetrators of sex trafficking crimes. A new approach called the perpetrator-focused approach will be presented. It broadens the discussion beyond the Trafficking Victims Protection Act definition of sex trafficking to include other sex trafficking crimes.