The business world and economy both run on the model of supply and demand. The equation is simple. When demand for a product increases, supply increases, and vice versa.

One of the fastest growing demands around the world, and in the United States, is commercial sex, and children are most requested.

“All of the sex trafficking in Iowa has been children,” said former Iowa Sen., Maggie Tinsman. “In Iowa, if you’re under 18, you’re a victim. Even if [the children] so-called ‘decided,’ whether or not they wanted to go into prostitution, it’s trafficking.”

The average age of entry into the sex industry in Iowa is just 13 years old. Tinsman, now chair of Braking Traffik, an organization dedicated to spreading awareness of sex trafficking to the Quad Cities, said the demand is for younger victims, mainly 12-16 year olds.

“[Those who are] most vulnerable to sex trafficking are homeless and runaway youth who are born here,” said Teresa Downing, executive director of Network Against Human Trafficking. “Right now, at any given moment in this country, we expect at least 100,000 American-born kids are being trafficked.”

At any time, it is estimated 300,000 or more children are vulnerable to this situation.

Downing said in Iowa in 2011, there were 3,800 homeless and runaway youth.

“[Those who are in] foster care or [have] been sexually abused are ‘at risk teenagers’ and are the ones [traffickers] are looking for,” Tinsman said.

Police in Davenport, Iowa, said a child on the street won’t last 24 hours before they are approached by someone involved in the trafficking industry.

“You will never hear from the [victims] again,” Tinsman said. “They won’t be killed, but drugged and raped and convinced that this is all they can do with their life.”

Traffickers use multiple tactics to lure children into this multibillion dollar industry of human trade.

A common tactic traffickers use is offering the youth new gadgets, food, shelter or even drugs.

“Almost nobody I’ve heard of gets into human trafficking unless they’re ‘drugged’ in,” Tinsman said. “Drugs delusion and force the victims to be dependent on their suppliers.”

The most recent indictment of criminal sexual exploitation of minors in Iowa was filed on Feb. 26, 2013, and involved the use of alcohol and substances to convince the victims to engage in sexual activity.

As reported by The Valley News, Tony and Jennifer Stogdill, a married couple from Shenandoah, Iowa, were indicted of transporting one or more minors to engage in sexual activity in locations such as their home and in remote areas that Tony, an over-the-road truck driver, drove through on his trucking trips.

According to court records via The Valley News, the Stogdills’ criminal activity began in 1996 until their present indictment. One teenage male and several females, ranging from ages 7 to 16 years of age, were involved.

The latest the couple has appeared in court was Wednesday, June 12. An argument for a continuance was accepted within six minutes.

Tinsman told of the first conviction of human trafficking in Iowa involving two girls from Fremont, Neb., who walked away from a juvenile home.

“[They] got a ride to Omaha/Council Bluffs. A woman by the name of ‘Jazzie’ found them on the street and offered them food and clothing and a ride to Davenport,” Tinsman said. “They said yes.”

Later identified as 19-year-old prostitute Marcia Ryan, “Jazzie” was working with Leonard Ray Russell, whom the girls were forced to call “Sir,” in recruiting the girls.

After offering food and shelter, the pair drove the girls to Davenport and supplied them marijuana. Once in Davenport, Russell told the girls, who were 15 and 16 years old at the time, that they had to pay him for the marijuana.

“Sir” forced the girls to walk around a hotel parking lot in Davenport to solicit for sex in order to repay their debt.

“They were then taken to Illinois, and then to Denison, Iowa, and were forced to go to Big Earl’s Strip Club and strip,” Tinsman said.

After a few days, one of the girls was sent on a Greyhound bus to go to Washington, D.C., to learn how to “walk the tracks,” or solicit for sex.

Tinsman said a tip came from someone who saw a picture of one of the missing girls and alerted police, who then raided Big Earl’s Strip Club to rescue the girl who was still there. Washington, D.C., police were notified and the other victim was rescued when the Greyhound bus arrived.

The girls had been under the control of Jazzie and Sir for about a week.

“Whenever these cases have come up, it has been someone else who has brought it to the police. The police do not find it themselves. It’s the community that has to,” Tinsman said.

Gail Sheridan-Lucht with the Iowa Division of Labor Services said she has received calls from the public about young children selling unfamiliar products.

“[The callers] could tell the child was afraid and not really interested in what [he was] doing,” Sheridan-Lucht said.

Between the end of school and beginning of summer, Sheridan-Lucht said that is the time when businesses start targeting. Traffickers will even wait outside of malls and schools for, again, vulnerable-looking kids who may not have a constant authority figure.

The children are sometimes persuaded by promises of a new phone or iPod.

“These kids would never have an opportunity to get these things otherwise, so it’s a pretty big motivator for them to want to do that,” Sheridan-Luct said.

Internet and social media are also used to bait children. Downing said all of the cases that have been prosecuted in Iowa have had an online ad involved and that pornography is also part of the problem.

“One in five pornographic images is of a child. Pornography is one of the significant ways youth are trafficked in America,” Downing said.

Both Downing and Tinsman have said one of the best ways to end human trafficking is to decrease demand by not paying for commercial sex, and to increase publicity.

“If you go out to these strip clubs, if you’re using pornography or going to an erotic massage parlor, there’s no guarantee that you’re not being serviced by a trafficking victim,” Downing said. “[People] need to be aware that their consumption of sex could involve the exploitation of trafficking victims.

Citizens are encouraged to get involved with the issue by spreading awareness and reporting any suspicions.

“The more publicity the better. Iowa is not doing much about it. We need more active people to know more about it,” Tinsman said.