Continuous reports of teen prostitution in San Diego, including Balboa Park, have prompted the creation of the ACTION Network, according to Manolo Guillén, program manager for the San Diego Youth & Community Services’ (SDYCS) B-SAFE Human Trafficking Project and chair of the ACTION Network.

The ACTION Network, which stands for Against Child Trafficking and Teen Prostitution in Our Neighborhoods, conducted their first meeting on Oct. 25. More than 60 organizations have joined the network since its inception.

Guillén said under the B-SAFE Project (Baja California-San Diego for Freedom from Exploitation) and with help from the San Diego Human Trafficking Trainers Bureau, over 10,000 people have been trained in the last two years to provide services and outreach to trafficking victims.

“We saw a lot of the same elements that we see in trafficking [in teen prostitution], like force, fraud and coercion,” Guillén said. “We felt we needed to be true to the community and say this is a real issue and an issue that we can’t ignore.”

Human trafficking, as defined by the United Nations, is the smuggling, recruiting, transportation, abducting, harboring, buying or selling of a person by means of force, fraud, threats or coercion for the purposes of labor or sexual exploitation. Examples are those who are forced into prostitution or pornography, Guillén said.

He also said prostitution among GLBT youth in Balboa Park is still seen as a problem, though it is not as widespread as it once was in the mid-to-late ’90s.

“Our outreach team still goes out there, and I still once and a while go out there and see young males just driving around what we call the ‘fruit loop’ just over and over and over,” he said referring to Marston Point, adjacent to Sixth Avenue on the west side of Balboa Park. “Of course, sometimes they might just be searching for a date, but you know, more than often we suspect that they are actually searching for men to pay for sex, mostly with boys.”

Jeffrey Evans, a program manager for SDYCS’s Storefront, leads a team of outreach workers who go into Balboa Park two to three times a week to distribute condoms and information on STD and HIV testing sites to youth ages 12-24.

Evans believes those who do prostitute themselves do not perform their acts in Balboa Park itself.

“Most of the youth walk up to the car, actually get into the vehicle, prices are discussed, [and] they’re taken to a location and then brought back,” he said.

Lt. Chris Ball, a commanding officer of the San Diego Police Department’s Central Division, said that prostitution within Balboa Park is not as much of a problem as it was 25 years ago when he was a patrol officer.

“I would say at this particular point in time, it’s not a significant issue,” Ball said. “I’m not saying it has not gone away, but it’s not a significant issue for the police department.”

Ball said the SDPD has not made any recent prostitution arrests, and is not currently doing any undercover or sting operations in Balboa Park. However, he said, police have noticed activity within the rest rooms.

“We do go by the restrooms, and, you know, if we see people who we think are hustling, we kick them out of there,” he said.

ACTION Network’s mission, determined during the creation of their official charter at a meeting in December, is to restore the lives of exploited children and prevent child victimization through increased awareness, advocacy and collaboration within San Diego’s communities. The charter states its vision is a society where children are valued and protected from exploitation, and their human rights are defended.

“It’s to provide or to create a comprehensive community response to end childhood exploitation,” Guillén said. “We realize this is a multi-faceted issue that can only be addressed by multi-disciplined teams on multiple fronts.”

Guillén said that ACTION Network needs more representation from the GLBT community since teen prostitution is a prevalent problem.

“We do think it’s very important. Every community should be represented. It’s a really vulnerable population, and we want to make sure we are connecting with the right folks,” he said.

In addition to SDYCS, local organizations that have joined the Action Network include the San Diego Juvenile Court, the San Diego Police Department’s vice unit and juvenile services, the San Diego Family Justice Center, the Youth Restoration Alliance, the Center for Community Solutions’ Rape Crisis Center, San Diego State University, the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), the San Diego County Probation Department, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, San Diego County Mental Health Services, the San Diego County Office of Education, the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office and the San Diego City Attorney’s Office.

Local branches of the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Institute for Public Health, the U.S. Treasury Department, the IRS and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security are also involved.

Guillén said eight committees, consisting of six to eight people each, have been formed within the ACTION Network to address specific goals. These committees include law enforcement, social services, research, advocacy and public policy development, the arts, outreach and health promotion, resource development and capacity building, and education and training.