Commercial Sexual Exploitation

Commercial sexual exploitation (CSE) includes a wide range of often linked sexual activities which (typically) men profit from or buy from women and which objectify and harm women.

This includes the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act. 

This may involve being forced or through coercion/manipulation.  For children and young people under the age of 18, force, fraud, or coercion does not need to be proven to be considered sex trafficking. 

CSE or sex trafficking does not just happen to young women, it happens to all genders and can include:

  • Prostitution
  • Phone sex
  • Internet sex/chat rooms
  • Stripping
  • Pole/Lap dancing
  • Pornography
  • Trafficking
  • Sex tourism
  • Mail order brides

The majority of people who are exploited or trafficked are female and are very often on low incomes, substance users and victims of other forms of gender-based violence.