Every day on the streets of the US, women are being raped, viciously attacked and left for dead. When women do die, their killings almost never make the local news and the perpetrators who commit these horrendous acts of violence do so with almost total impunity.

Under the country’s laws, these women are victims. But their lives are deemed worthless by the public and the state. They hold no political agency or economic power and, while they are incarcerated time and time again, the perpetrators – the people who hurt them – are never jailed.

The men who attack them are “regular” guys – husbands, sons and co-workers – but they are seen as outcasts, somehow deserving of mistreatment.

This is the reality of life as a victim of human trafficking in the US today.

In recent years, sex trafficking has become a cause taken up across party lines, with politicians and celebrities professing their horror and disgust at the scale and scope of the sexual exploitation of women, men and children across the country.

Yet the reality facing the women we work with on a daily basis remains critical.

Over the past year, we collaborated with the Guardian on The Trap, a film that exposes the trafficking of female inmates in correctional facilities across the country. It depicts a cycle of incarceration and exploitation of women in Worcester, Massachusetts, and Chicago, Illinois.

In our experience, prostituted women are often victims of trafficking at some point in their lives

Despite the political anti-trafficking rhetoric, our system continues to treat women in prostitution as criminals. It routinely punishes victims instead of the men who are selling and buying them.

We know firsthand what impact having a criminal record has on your chances of escaping the life. We understand because we are both survivors of addiction, prostitution, and trafficking.

We are often asked: “Why don’t they just walk away?”Many of the women we work with in jails in Worcester and Chicago return to the life because they feel they have no other choice.

Even the concept of choice is alien to many of the women with whom we work. In our experience, prostituted women are often victims of trafficking at some point in their lives. Choice implies a freedom and sense of wellbeing few enjoy when sexually exploited.

There is a good reason that the word “consent” does not appear in any legal definition of human trafficking. When it comes to being exploited, consent is irrelevant. Trafficking is defined as someone profiting from another through the use of fraud, force or coercion. In one study of more than 200 women in prostitution in Chicago, almost half said they were giving their money to someone else. About 80% believed they would be harmed if they stopped. Almost all the women surveyed reported high levels of forced sex and physical violence in their daily lives.

Every week, the women that Nikki works with at her drop-in centre in Worcester, are raped and beaten by sex buyers, pimps and their partners. Few of these crimes are reported and, when they are, it is mostly futile. Recently, Amanda, a client at the drop-in, was sexually assaulted at gunpoint by a sex buyer and reported it to the police. They arrested the perpetrator within minutes, still in the possession of the loaded weapon he had used to rape her.

Nikki Bell works with sex trafficking victims in Worcester, Massachusetts. Photograph: Rick Friedman/The Guardian

Amanda was taken to the hospital, where she gave a lengthy statement to police and was subjected to a rape kit. Amanda did everything asked of her and yet, the following day, the judge set the perpetrator free. She is convinced that, if she were a student, housewife or professional instead of a prostituted person, he would have been detained.

This is not an isolated case. In the past two months, Nikki has seen other women who have been sexually assaulted with crowbars, had their eye-sockets broken and been beaten unconscious. This year alone, she has lost seven young women to this life.

We know what it’s like to feel worthless in the eyes of society. To carry that fear, that desperation with you every day. We are among the few who managed to escape, and today we represent thousands of women and children still locked in a cycle of systemic prostitution and exploitation that stems from a failure to implement global laws in place to protect us and hold abusers accountable.

What’s the solution? We need systemic change to break this cycle. Change must happen at the highest levels. Although it is a matter of intense debate, we want to see the Equality model (Nordic) approach to prostitution adopted in the US. It has been implemented in countries inlcuding Sweden, Norway, Iceland, and Northern Ireland. This model holds sex buyers legally accountable for the harm they cause and requires governments to provide comprehensive exit services to prostituted people.

There have been some encouraging signs in the US. We are proud of our involvement in the enactment of the critically important federal law, Allow States and Victims to Stop Online Sex Trafficking, or Fosta-Sesta, which holds websites accountable for knowingly facilitating trafficking online. Fosta-Sesta also provides victims with civil remedies and increases the ability of states to take action. The UK is considering similar legislation that would hold buyers and websites accountable.

Meanwhile, women in growing numbers who are caught in a loop of trafficking and criminalisation are left to be attacked with impunity.

• Nikki Bell is a survivor of the sex trade, a national anti-trafficking advocate, and founder of Living in Freedom Together, an anti-trafficking organisation in Worcester, Massachusetts. Marian Hatcher is a survivor of the sex trade, a national anti-trafficking advocate, policy analyst and victim advocate at the Cook County sheriff’s office of public policy in Chicago, Illinois

• Find out more about how The Trap was made in the latest episode of the Guardian’s The Story podcast