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<p>CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Women and girls as young as 16 were smuggled into this country from Mexico and brought to Charlotte to work as prostitutes. For $25 and $30, authorities said, they performed sex acts — sometimes with 20 men a day.</p>

Bethan, 56, lives in southern England on the same street as best friend Allie, 64. They are on their first holiday to Kenya, a country they say is "just full of big young boys who like us older girls." Hard figures are difficult to come by, but local people on the coast estimate that as many as one in five single women visiting from rich countries are in search of sex. Allie and Bethan -- who both declined to give their full names -- said they planned to spend a whole month touring Kenya's palm-fringed beaches. They would do well...

Large ring kept up to 120 women in virtual slavery The picture, with its implicit threat, was all it took. It was taken just before Christmas 2004. She had been thinking about running away from the windowless bar on Houston's northwest side, where he kept her and other women, forcing some of them into prostitution while they paid off their "debts." But Maximino "Chimino" Mondragon knew of her plans. Carrying a camera and Christmas presents for the woman's daughter, he had appeared unannounced at her family's home in El Salvador. The woman, who was not identified by authorities, told investigators...

(CBS/AP) PHILADELPHIA -- Seven years ago, Russian courts convicted a wealthy American motel owner of molesting children and sent him to prison, but later decided to just expel him. The experience did little to keep Anthony "Mark" Bianchi stateside. Over the next few years, he traveled to Moldova, Romania, Cambodia and Cuba -- trips all designed, U.S. officials say, to recruit destitute boys for sexual trysts. Bianchi, 44, of North Wildwood, N.J., is scheduled to go on trial Monday on charges he assaulted nearly a dozen minors on foreign soil. And this time -- under a largely untested 2003 law...

T.O. announces campaign to attract gay tourists toronto.ctv.ca Tourism Toronto said Friday that it plans to launch an advertising campaign aimed at making the city a top destination for gay travellers from the U.S. The campaign will focus on four major cities - New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. It will include ads in gay restaurants, bars and local publications, as well as event sponsorships and other promotional activities. "Toronto has things to offer all year round--we've got a number of festivals outside of Pride that we can market," said Bruce MacDonald of the Canadian Gay & Lesbian...

Police say she passed out cards that offered the teen girls for sex A 16-year-old girl endured being sold into prostitution by her mother but finally went to Houston police after seeing her younger sister also forced to perform sex acts, investigators said Wednesday. The teenager had complied with her mother — who even distributed business cards offering her daughters for sex — but feared that her 14-year-old sister would be hurt, officers said. Nelsi Yolanda Latuda and her boyfriend, Pedro Espinoza-Escama, both of the 5500 block of Antoine, are charged with two counts each of compelling prostitution of a...

June 7, 2007ICE Operation Predator arrests of child exploiters top 10,000In four years, initiative has removed more than 5,500 child exploiters from the U.S. WASHINGTON - Just four years after the Department of Homeland Security launched Operation Predator, an initiative aimed at those who sexually exploit children, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced today that its arrests had topped 10,000. "Operation Predator is a great example of how our transnational partnerships and wide-ranging legal authorities can work to protect children," said Julie L. Myers, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for ICE. "In the course of this highly successful...

U.S. 'Top 10' fugitive arrested in Montreal Updated Sun. May. 13 2007 9:29 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff A U.S. fugitive on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" list will appear in a Montreal court on Monday charged with immigration violations. Richard Steve Goldberg, 61, was arrested early Saturday in suburban Montreal by a police tactical team. He is being held under the Immigration and Detention Act. Richard Goldberg is taken into custody early Saturday morning May 12, 2007 by a police SWAT team in Montreal. Canadian authorities will seek to keep Goldberg, who is on the FBI's 10 Most...

Women are being sold into prostitution in modern day "slave auctions" at Britain's airports, it emerged yesterday. The illegal immigrants are sold to the highest bidder for up to £8,000 a time. They are then forced to work in brothels where they can earn up to £800 a day for their "owner". The chilling reality of human trafficking was spelled out yesterday by senior police officers at Scotland Yard. Detective Superintendent Mark Ponting, of the Metropolitan Police, said young women from all over the world are trafficked into Britain after being promised well-paid work in bars or cafes. But within...

SAN FRANCISCO — Many of San Francisco's Asian massage parlors — long an established part of the city's sexually permissive culture — have degenerated into something much more sinister: international sex-slave shops. Once limited to infamous locales such as Bombay and Bangkok, sex trafficking is now an $8 billion international business, with San Francisco among its largest commercial centers. San Francisco's liberal attitude toward sex, the city's history of arresting prostitutes instead of pimps, and its large immigrant population have made it one of the top American cities for international sex traffickers to do business undetected, according to Donna Hughes,...

ICE & FBI agents arrest 31Korean nationals throughout the Northeastern United States in federal human trafficking case Korean women were smuggled to U.S. work as prostitutes in brothels NEW YORK, NY -- Michael J. Garcia, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Roslynn R. Mauskopf, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Julie L. Myers, Assistant Secretary, United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Mark J. Mehrson, Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office, today announced that 31 individuals were arrested yesterday and charged in a wide-ranging human trafficking ring...

Terrorism and Human Smuggling Rings in South and Central America By Thomas Davidson The road to the “American Dream” for many illegal immigrants usually leads from home countries through Mexico and then into the U.S. Although almost all of these illegal immigrants are merely looking for a better life for themselves and their families, world-wide human trafficking routes provide ample opportunity for those wishing harm to the U.S. easy access into America. In spite of international efforts in the Americas to break up these human smuggling routes, there are still a number of avenues available whereby the potential terrorist can...

AUSTIN (AP) - Brothels in the Austin area and Oklahoma City that used immigrant women and catered mostly to undocumented workers were part of a multistate prostitution ring federal agents have partially broken up, court documents say. Women from Mexico and Central and South American countries worked in the prostitution houses and in some cases reported being held against their will, documents show. The brothel near Austin was the second in that area run by the same man, officials allege. Juan Balderas-Orosco, 34, escaped capture when authorities raided the first one four years ago, but he was arrested June 29...

WOMEN are being sold off in "slave auctions" in the arrivals lounges of British airports, say authorities desperate to crack down on the burgeoning trade in trafficking humans. The Crown Prosecution Service said foreign women were being sold as sex workers as soon as they arrived, and police are appealing to men who frequent brothels to contact them in confidence if they believe the prostitutes may be there against their will. In one instance a slave auction took place outside a coffee shop in the arrivals hall of London-Gatwick airport, and it is believed similar auctions have taken place at...

Santa Ana - A Southern California woman was in custody in Texas Wednesday on charges of operating brothels in Dallas and the Los Angeles area using women smuggled into the country from South Korea and Mexico. Jong Ock Mao, 47, of West Covina was arrested Tuesday in Madisonville, Texas after a 40-count indictment was unsealed in Santa Ana federal court accusing her and three others of conspiracy, money laundering and violating the Travel Act, a federal law that prohibits the use of interstate facilities to conduct illegal business. Federal agents raided six businesses, including tanning salons, chiropractic offices and spas,...

MEMPHIS— We're out looking for hookers. This great big bulldog of a man, George Kuykendall, leans over the wheel, eyes leveled at the street. He's a tall guy with big hands and a round, ruddy face. We're in the ugly part of Memphis, near the airport: all gray and brown and dried-up in the mid-winter afternoon. Carol Wiley is in the backseat. She's a small woman with the humblest little head of dark brown hair. She doesn't look mean. She looks like a preacher's wife, because she is. "Tell him what we're looking for," Mrs. Wiley says. Mr. Kuykendall takes...

On September 2003, President George W. Bush started something of a sexual revolution. Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly, the president, known more popularly by left-wing groups as the man who would "turn back the clock on women's rights," challenged his fellow leaders to crack down on the sex trade in their countries, promising to lead by example at home. George W. Bush is waging a war on modern-day slavery with a winning plan for success, involving an essential ingredient: building coalitions. And what was once under most of our radars is now a fight that so many are...

Salome Simon doesn't have much. A one-room shack she rents in Majengo, a slum on the edge of Nairobi. A couple of kangas, the bright print wraps she wears as skirts, and a couple of blouses. A transistor radio, some aluminum pots and one little luxury, a gilded bottle of spicy perfume. It isn't much to show for 23 years of hard work, on the job from 7 in the morning to 7 in the evening, every day but Sunday, when she goes to church, and once a year when she visits her family in Tanzania for a few weeks....

Police on Friday arrested a man suspected of leading what authorities described as an Orange County prostitution ring linked to a national operation using Asian women smuggled into the United States. Investigators with the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force arrested Duc Tuan Dinh, 34, of Santa Ana on suspicion of pimping and pandering. Dinh is suspected of running about 10 brothels across Orange County. "This is how human trafficking translates to the local level," said Westminster police Sgt. Tom Findley. Five prostitution suspects, two people suspected of being customers, and a man believed to be working with Dinh were...

Authorities want to rein in the prostitution that's rampant in resort areas ACAPULCO, MEXICO - On a sweltering afternoon in this glitzy tourist resort, Alex Fernandez laughed and joked with a group of his fellow homeless teenagers until the subject of prostitution came up. Then his smile disappeared, and the face of the skinny 14-year-old turned to a cold, unblinking stare as he described how grown men, sometimes Mexicans and sometimes foreign tourists, regularly take him to hotels and pay to have sex with him. "Yes, they buy me. The business gets me food. It gets me clothes," said Fernandez,...

Dec. 1, 2005 -- Earlier this year, Toronto police took an extraordinary step in their search for a little girl who was being subjected to the worst kind of abuse imaginable. She was the subject of pictures that had been showing up in the hands of pedophiles. They showed her tied up and raped repeatedly, and police could see her growing older in the photos. They feared the abuse was still going on.

Illegal Immigration, Human Trafficking, and Organized Crime Raimo Väyrynen* Abstract It is important to make a careful distinction between illegal immigration, human smuggling, and human trafficking which are nested, but yet different concepts. This distinction is relevant because these different categories of the illegal movement of people across borders have quite different legal and political consequences. Human smuggling and trafficking have become a world-wide industry that ‘employs’ every year millions of people and leads to the annual turnover of billions of dollars. Many of the routes and enclaves used by the smugglers have become institutionalized; for instance, from Mexico and...

Hidden below a shelf in the corridor of a run-down motel, a sharp-eyed police officer spots what appears to be a trap-door. When he and his colleagues go down the concrete steps, shining their torches into the dark, damp cellar, they are scarcely able to believe what they encounter. A police video shows girls emerging from a dank cellar Cowering against a crumbling wall are eight terrified young women. Strewn on the bare floor are stained mattresses, a pile of discarded clothes and a few empty boxes. There is no heating, no light. The women, aged 18 to 24, are...

Young women are being imprisoned as sex slaves in secret underground bunkers before being trafficked to Britain, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal. Our investigation uncovered shocking evidence in eastern Europe, including video footage, of groups of women locked in squalid cellars below motels. A police video shows young girls being released from a cellar The victims - found by police in a series of raids - were allowed out of the cramped bunkers only to "service" clients in nearby rooms before being taken straight back underground. The "cellar girls" were among thousands of young women lured to Macedonia from their...

BUCHAREST -- In a back street in central Bucharest at 3 a.m., a surly Romanian orders a young woman to open her coat and twirl around. "You see, she is beautiful," he says in a cold monotone. "Health good, skin good -- no marks. We get doctor's papers. You want see body?" "No, it's okay," I reply. "I can see she is in good condition." She is slim, dark-haired and attractive but is cowed and passive in front of her dead-eyed controllers -- two men in their twenties wearing designer jackets. The next day in a smoky cafe, we agree...

EIGHT SALVADORANS ARRESTED AND CHARGED WITH CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT SEX TRAFFICKING Dozens of Central and South American females forced to work as “bargirls” HOUSTON, Texas — United States Attorney Chuck Rosenberg and Assistant Attorney General Wan Kim, Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, today announced the unsealing of criminal charges against eight persons for their roles in an organization allegedly involved in the sex trafficking of Central and South American females for Houston area bars and restaurants through force, fraud and coercion. The federal criminal complaint, filed under seal on Sun. Nov. 13, alleges that the eight defendants,...

PHOENIX - A couple held a runaway teen captive in a hollow bed frame for weeks and forced her to have sex for money with people they found on the Internet, police said. The 15-year-old girl managed to call family members for help while 18-year-old Matthew Gray and 19-year-old Janelle Butler were sleeping Monday night, authorities said. The two were arrested Tuesday. The girl ran away from her El Mirage home in September and met the couple through a friend about three hours after she disappeared, police Sgt. Andy Hill said. They took her to a park, bound her and...

SAN JOSE – Five Chinese nationals from the South Bay are in custody this afternoon facing federal charges following the execution of search warrants yesterday targeting 10 unlicensed massage parlors that were allegedly being operated as brothels in San Jose, San Mateo, and Santa Clara. The suspects, who are expected to make their initial appearance in federal court here this afternoon, are charged in a criminal complaint with conspiring to conceal and harbor illegal aliens for financial gain. The arrests and searches are the result of a year-long undercover investigation called “Operation Bad Neighbor” that involved U.S. Immigration and Customs...

“Slave traffickers around the world have rediscovered how profitable it is to buy and sell people. Women are lured into modern-day slavery, hoping for a better life. They could all be your sister, or your best friend, or . . . your daughter. . . . Modern slavery exists only because we choose to ignore it.” Now, that probably sounds to you like a quote from Ambassador Miller, who is the director of the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons—but he is not the one who said it. Oscar-winning actress Mira Sorvino did. This isn’t another...

SIX-YEAR-OLD Aisha loves the orange blouse and jeans given to her by the kind woman who rescued her from the chaos of the Kashmir earthquake. She snuggles up to the woman, trying to forget the devastation of her village home and the deaths of her parents 16 days ago. What Aisha does not know is that the woman, Kausar, is a prostitute who has bought her from relatives for 50,000 rupees ($1500) and plans to put her to work in the sex trade as soon as she reaches puberty. Aisha is not alone. According to welfare agencies, many of...

Six-year-old Aisha loves the orange blouse and jeans given to her by the kind woman who rescued her from the chaos of the Kashmir earthquake. She snuggles up to her, trying to forget the devastation of her village home and the deaths of her parents 15 days ago. What Aisha does not know is that the woman, Kausar, is a prostitute who has bought her from relatives for 50,000 rupees (£500) and plans to put her to work in the sex trade as soon as she reaches puberty. Aisha is not alone. According to welfare agencies, many of the hundreds...

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency estimates that 50,000 people are trafficked into or transited through the U.S.A. annually as sex slaves, domestics, garment, and agricultural slaves [iAbolish Fact Sheet] UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT EFFORTS [US State Dept Trafficking in Persons Reports, June 2005] The U.S. Government condemns trafficking in persons and remains firmly committed to fighting this scourge and protecting victims who fall prey to traffickers. Our commitment to eradicate trafficking includes: * Vigorously enforcing U.S. laws against those who traffic in persons; * Raising awareness about human trafficking and how it can be eradicated; * Identifying,...

ICE investigation beginning in Atlanta leads to Minnesota Department of Homeland Security, ICE MINNEAPOLIS—As a result of an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) special agents and local law enforcement agencies, a Burnsville man made an initial appearance in federal court today after being criminally charged for allegedly using prepubescent girls to produce child pornography in his basement. ICE special agents, assisted by Burnsville Police officers, arrested Bruce W. Betcher, 51, of Burnsville, Minn., yesterday morning. He was later charged by the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Minnesota with using a minor to produce sexually explicit...

President Bush decided Wednesday to waive any financial sanctions on Saudi Arabia, Washington's closest Arab ally in the war on terrorism, for failing to do enough to stop the modern-day slave trade in prostitutes, child sex workers and forced laborers. In June, the State Department listed 14 countries as failing to adequately address trafficking problems, subjecting them all to possible sanctions if they did not crack down. Of those 14, Bush concluded that Bolivia, Jamaica, Qatar, Sudan, Togo and the United Arab Emirates had made enough improvements to avoid any cut in U.S. aid or, in the case of countries...

MADRID — Spain is hoping to sign an agreement with other countries to allow gay couples to adopt children abroad. The move will follow the legalisation of gay marriage in a new law which will also give homosexual couples the right to adopt children. The Spanish secretary of state for social services, Amparo Valcarce, said in an interview with the state television channel TVE, Spain will aim to sign a new deal with countries with which it presently has adoption agreements. She explained Spain will "follow good practice" when dealing with countries where gay marriage or adoption is not legal....

So the breakdown of society in New Orleans was a one-off? Think again: it could happen in many US cities YOU CANNOT SAY the city of New Orleans was unprepared for tragedy. Only last year, when Hurricane Ivan threatened to strike, a Louisiana official admitted the state had prepared in advance: 10,000 body bags were stored and ready to go. Benign neglect is the political term for this pragmatism, coined by Pat Moynihan, the New York Democrat senator. With no idea how to improve a situation, government, instead of assuming responsibility for resolving it, turns a blind eye. In Moynihan’s...

Page 1 EQUALITY NOW New York: 250 West 57 Street, #1527, New York, NY 10107, USA &#9642; Tel:+1 212-586-0906 • Fax:+1 212-586-1611 • Email: info@equalitynow.org London: 6 Buckingham Street, London WC2N 6BU, UK • Phone:+44 (0) 20-7839-5456 • Fax:+44 (0) 20-7839-4012 • Email: ukinfo@equalitynow.org Nairobi: PO Box 2018 KNH 00202, Nairobi, Kenya • Tel: +254 20-2719-832 • Fax: +254 20-2719-868 • Email: equalitynow@kenyaweb.com Sex Tourism: Addressing the Demand for Trafficking Testimony by Jessica Neuwirth, President of Equality Now Thank you for this opportunity to testify before you, and thank you for your interest in and support for efforts to...

A judge has dismissed charges against two New York men accused by state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer of promoting prostitution through "sex tourism" in Asia. Douglas Allen, 59, and Norman Barabash, 58, were indicted last year on felony and misdemeanor counts of promoting prostitution in the operation of Big Apple Oriental Tours. Spitzer accused them of using their tour business -- run from Allen's Poughkeepsie home and Barabash's Queens home -- to solicit customers for prostitution rings operating in the Philippines and Thailand. Dutchess County Court Judge Gerald Hayes dismissed the charges, finding prosecutors failed to provide sufficient evidence that...

A year after a law change designed to get prostitutes off the street, a price war driven by teenage sex workers has flared up on the streets of South Auckland. Market forces appear to be driving street prostitution as teenagers, some as young as 12, compete alongside seasoned sex workers - with tumbling prices the result. Rather than pushing sex workers into legalised brothels, a Weekend Herald inquiry has found the new legislation has done little to discourage street prostitution. This is especially true in pockets of South Auckland, where the Manukau City Council has been forced to shelve plans...

<p>ALBANY, N.Y. — Two operators of a New York travel agency have been indicted for organizing "sex tours" to Southeast Asia, the first such case involving a United States-based company, the state attorney general said Monday.</p> <p>Douglas Allen, 59, and Norman Barabash, 58, were charged with felony and misdemeanor counts of promoting prostitution in their operation of Big Apple Oriental Tours (search), Attorney General Eliot Spitzer (search) said.</p>