Posted on 01/15/2008 6:55:08 AM PST by Mrs. Don-o
Fourteen-year-old Cara and her 15-year-old cousin, Stacy (not their real names) walked out of their homes in Toledo, Ohio on a rainy May day in 2005 to get milkshakes. A few blocks away, a couple driving a Lincoln Continental pulled alongside the cousins and asked if they wanted a lift. Believing the man’s claim to be a schoolmate’s father, the girls stepped into the car — and entered a nightmare world of sexual slavery.
The couple drove the girls to a house and locked them in. As their families frantically searched for them, the teens were sold over and over again at area hotels. Ten days into their captivity the girls were taken to a truck stop near Ann Arbor, Michigan, where police officers, acting on a prostitution tip, discovered Stacy and one of her captors in a truck. Because of her youth, police took Stacy into custody, and later rescued Cara.
We’re used to hearing about sexual slavery in other countries, like Thailand and India. But these were homegrown, corn-fed, All-American girls being raped by All-American men. There’s no need to fly overseas on sex tourism junkets anymore: Girls and boys as young as 12 are available right here in the USA — the more modest estimates running at around 100,000 of them. Some, like Cara and Stacy, are kidnapped into the brutal world of sex slavery. Others — runaways and girls exploited by older “boyfriends” — are seduced into it. Some victims unknowingly encounter pimps online, and when they meet these new “friends” at malls and parks, they’re drugged and then kidnapped. Pimps often move their human cargo across the country, making it difficult for girls to contact their families.
Former congresswoman Linda Smith, founder of Shared Hope International, an organization that rescues and assists women and girls forced into prostitution worldwide, says a pimp can easily make over $600,000 a year selling underage girls, making the peddling of human flesh more profitable than selling drugs. Living conditions are about what you’d expect for slaves: Girls are chained up in basements, or locked into closets. Those who try to escape are beaten, raped, and tortured.
Who buys children? Truckers, who seek out “Lot Lizards,” as they’re called, at truck stops. Executives who visit Atlanta or Las Vegas for conventions. Political activists who travel to Washington for meetings.
Shared Hope has created a DVD (the video contains some graphic content) outlining the extent of domestic minor sex trafficking. Visit their website and watch “Jessica” describe how she fell into prostitution at the age of 12, selling herself for a place to sleep at night. Or listen in on a conversations between a pimp and a man he believes wants to purchase a young girl — a man who is secretly recording their negotiations:
Pimp: “What type of girl do you want? Black, white, or what?
Buyer: “How many young ones do you have?”
Pimp: “Two black, two white.”
Buyer: “And how old are they?”
Pimp: “They’re between 14 and seventeen.”
Buyer: “What color is the 14-year-old?”
Pimp: “She’s white.”
Buyer: “Okay, white is good.”
Pimp: “If you pay the price, you can get what you want.”
Tragically, many people know children are being trafficked, but do nothing about it. When Linda Smith spent a few nights on the streets of Las Vegas last year researching the extent of child sex trafficking, she saw men openly handing out cards featuring young girls in sexual poses and a telephone number to call if they wanted a child delivered to their hotel. She saw “Little girls draped over men who were old enough to be their grandfathers at 4 A.M.” — clearly trafficking victims. “Everyone from cops to hotel concierges, to truck stop security guards, to those who deliver room service, to taxi drivers who know they’re delivering little girls to their abusers know what’s going on” but turn a blind eye, Smith told me grimly. “We call it the culture of tolerance.”
It’s partly a problem of perception. Society tends to view prostitutes, even child prostitutes, as whores, Smith says. “The reason good people can ignore these girls is because in their minds, she’s not a rape victim, or a lost child, but a ‘bad girl.’” As for those who exploit them — the attitude is typically “boys will be boys;” cops often don’t arrest buyers because they don’t want to get them into trouble.
What drives the sexual enslavement of America’s children? Pornography. Child porn has increased exponentially in both volume and violence since digital cameras and the Internet have made it easy to create and distribute it, according to Shared Hope. “Eighty-five percent of those arrested for sex crimes say ‘I started with porn,” Smith notes.
The sex industry “needs a new generation of buyers,” which is why so much Internet porn is directed at young boys: It’s intended to create more product demand. (Think the “Joe Camel” campaign, with addiction to children, not cigarettes, the intended goal.) The U.S. Senate last Friday (January 11) “Human Trafficking Awareness Day” with the goal of educating Americans regarding the extent of this human crisis and the need to find creative ways to stop the buying and selling of children locally.
To help Americans do this, Shared Hope has created The Defenders USA, a network of men, now more than 1,500-strong, who sign a pledge committing themselves to abstaining from porn and protecting their families and communities against sexual exploitation. Beginning on Father’s Day, 2007, in an effort to humanize the victims, the Defenders ran public service announcements and hit the nation’s truck stops in a campaign called “She Has A Name — And It Is Not Lot Lizard,” asking truck drivers to join them in protecting young women against sexual predators. They tack up posters, pass out law enforcement phone numbers and call police themselves if they see someone who appears to be a trafficking victim. Shared Hope also works with dozens of human trafficking task forces across the country, partnering with the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Their goal: To combat sex trafficking of domestic children through more aggressive arrest and prosecution of pimps and the child abusers with whom they do business.
The DOJ has created materials to train first responders — law enforcement officers, child protective services, 911 operators — to recognize trafficking victims, Smith says. Girls who escape sexual bondage desperately need medical care, long-term counseling, and a place to live. To help meet this need, Shared Hope provides grants to shelters and youth outreach organizations specifically for trafficking victims.
Sadly, official efforts will never be enough to prevent the buying and selling of our children. This is a war in which millions of ordinary Americans “need to be willing to get their hands bloodied in battle,” Smith maintains. We all need to learn how to recognize a trafficked child, and be willing to contact authorities if we encounter one.
Cara and Stacy are recovering from their ordeal. But for hundreds of thousands of other all-American girls caught in the web of sexual slavery, the nightmare continues. “They are in every city,” Smith says. “They are being sold at truck stops, strip joints, massage parlors and often out of homes, marketed online or on the streets. But they are our little girls. And they need our help.”
— Anne Morse is a senior writer at BreakPoint, a division of Prison Fellowship. She contributes to “The Point,” a blog devoted to the discussion of culture, politics and religion.
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National Review Online - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MDYwODc0Y2QzYWI2ZmMyNjNlMGMzZTNkMDY3ZDkxZGE=
I agree.
Didn’t say it should be outlawed, I just said it does lead some people to do ugly, unspeakable things that hurt not just them, but others as well. It has no redeeming social value (and no, self-gratification is not a social value, it is by it’s very nature a non-social value).
Colonel, USAFR
Having said that, I would also say that the 100,000 figure does not strike me offhand as being orders-of-magnitude unrealistic. We're talking truck stops, massage parlors, strip joints, and the street --- right?
There are over 150,000 truck stops in the USA (Source, truck stop numbers)
If only a small minority --- say 35% of them --- prove to be venues for underage prostitutes, but each one which has prostitutes has 2 on the premises who are underage, that's 100,000 right there.
Does that make a reasonable ballpark figure?--- speak up, truckers ---
And ---since we haven't even added in massage parlots, strip joints, bus stations, train stations, and the street--- does it in fact seem a conservative ballpark figure?
I’ll say this, there may be a bad apple or two, but I’ve developed a healthy respect for truckers over the years, including (and perhaps especially) during my time as a cop. Despite the fact that some cops see 18 wheelers as ATM machines for their departments (a real pet peeve of mine), the OTR drivers I’ve met have been almost universally courteous and professional.
I agree. And the solution proposed (making regular guys sign a non-porn watching agreement)seems off-base to the extreme.
Why not arrest those actually perpetrating the crime ?
(Yes, boys too. Runaway and throwaway boys have few ways to get a meal and a place to sleep at night without turning tricks. As I was told years ago by a male prostitute who gave me a ride when I was hitching --- and who very protectively berated me for hitching because it was too dangerous --- but that's a different story.)
I think that depends of what kind of "pornography" we're talking about.
If we are talking about explicit images of children, then it would be an obvious conclusion.
If we're talking about seeing the latest centerfold in a men's magazine, or reading the newest bodice-ripper from the library, then I'm not sure the obvious result will be the sexual exploitation of children.
“say 35% of them “
Have you seen any credible evidence that even 2% of truck stops have underage slave prostitutes? Or even underage prostitutes who do it on their own volition?
It is more likely that fewer than 35% of truck stops have any regular prostitutes. Most truck stops have pumps, convenience store and food of some kind.
“Buyer:OK,white is good”
A Ron Paul supporter?
Agree.
I am not buying this ‘crisis’ without substantiation.
Doesn’t pass the smell test.
I'd also wonder how "underage" is defined...under 18? 19? 21? The article was a little vague "Children as young as 12" adds to the picture the author is trying to paint, without adding any factual context. Gun grabbers cite stats like this all the time..."5,000 children killed each year by gun violence" but they only get to that number by including the 4,993 Eighteen and Nineteen year old gang bangers that are killed in drug-related shootings.
IMHO, there's a big difference between a 12 year old girl kidnapped out of her front yard, and a 17-1/2 year old runaway with a meth habit that sells him/herself to support it. The former is a horrible crime, the latter is an avoidable tragedy.
I agree with your posts.
I think what they may be doing with the number is including ANYONE, including ‘lost girls’ under the age of 18 (meaning 17 and 16 also) as part of that number, which is probably a guess or overestimate.
the idea that all of a sudden all the prostitutes you see are unable to escape their lives, in spite of being at truck stops and possibly around people to escape is laughable.
The vast majority of underage prostitutes may indeed have been vulnerable or somehow convinced but that’s because a hell of a lot of them have drug problems or didn’t have a means to generate income being underage and totally without any job skill and having left home.
I don’t think white girls walking around need to be worried about becoming sex slaves (not that it can’t ever happen) as much as avoiding using drugs, staying at home or finding a shelter if they’re abused and avoiding certain foreign countries without a companion.
This is a panic article. There are probably far more Chinese or Ukrainian GROWN WOMEN who are in the sex industry under a constant state of surveillance and coercion because they were brought over under false pretenses or didn’t know how long it would take to pay back the smugglers than there are American white girls.
Why risk multiple life sentences and possible ‘death-while-being-captured’ lol to enslave white American girls (don’t they know they chase HARD after wherever a white girl goes missing) when they can use the Eastern European and Asian women for the same thing?
My brother is a trucker, and while he has his faults (that’s why I call him Grumpy Bachelor Brother- GBB) he’s a totally decent man.
The truckstop aspect of this story bothers me.... Most that I’ve been to are very very very family friendly.
Hey! We maybe we can cut down on organized crime by having 1500 men who aren’t criminals sign an agreement not to watch gangster movies!
When my now 19 yr. old daughter was a few years younger and beginning to have more freedom, I warned her about talking to anyone approaching her in a friendly manner, even women. She was shocked when I told her that very often women are used as lures. Her naive attitude, understandably, was to only be leary of strange males. Parents--be sure to warn your young daughters today about the dangers of women or couples approaching them in a disarming manner. In fact, print this article and show it to your daughter. I plan to. I can feel the "eye roll" already.
Unfortunate phrasing there! But thanks much for the ping. Anne Morse rocks.
“, too, would like to see where they got those figures or how they arrived at them.
In a post above I estimate dthe percent of the population in that age group and came up with 100,000= one in 200.
That seems unreasonable, and yet the article says that 100K is the low end.
I think finding one in fifty of kids 10-15 involved in prostitution or sex slavery is too much.
But, I don’t have hard numbers, and it looks like the author does not either.
Good point. This "100,000" figure seems pretty extreme and I frankly have some difficulty believing that this sort of extreme slavery of girls is anywhere near that. I don't doubt that it happens, but I just don't believe that it's anywhere near commonplace.
The truckers I've met through my life have by and large been the most salt-of-the-earth, good people. They're often fathers themselves and when they see something that's not right, they intervene and do something about it.
Pimping little girls at truck stops? It'd be like trying to be a code-pink hippie at a biker rally. Short lived.
Maybe all this haggling is irrelevant, until we find out how the authors of this article came up with their estimate. They may be right, may be wrong, but they haven;t given us the means to evaluate the numbers.
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