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"This to me is something that I can't ignore as a person who spent my career, my life upholding the Constitution, defending the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness of Americans and people around the world," says Lasky, 54. But these special missions, which figure to last weeks or even months, cost money. So, on Saturday, in Dana Point, Lasky will speak at a rally for Stop Child Trafficking Now, a New York City-based nonprofit created last year with the goal of stamping out the demand side of the child sex slave industry.

EL SALVADOR (Tier 2) El Salvador is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. Salvadorans are trafficked to Guatemala, Mexico, and the United States. Salvadoran women and girls are also trafficked internally from rural to urban areas of the country. The majority of foreign victims trafficked to El Salvador are women and children from Nicaragua and Honduras trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation. The Government of El Salvador does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do...

Oversight: As the Senate votes to de-fund Acorn, add pimping, tax evasion and human trafficking to voter fraud paid for with taxpayer dollars and you have an organized criminal enterprise. It's time to investigate.After Acorn workers were caught on tape in three cities allegedly abetting what they believed was a fraudulent-mortgage and sex-trafficking scheme, the Senate has voted overwhelmingly to strip the group of funding in the Transportation/Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill. The amendment, offered by Nebraska Republican Sen. Mike Johanns, passed by an 83-to-7 margin and marked the third time this year that Republicans have tried to block...

Two more ACORN officials were fired Friday after a second video surfaced showing staffers in the community organizers' Washington office offering to help a man and woman posing as a pimp and prostitute acquire illegal home loans that would help them set up a brothel. The firings came less than 24 hours after another pair of ACORN officials from the group's Baltimore office were canned for instructing the "pimp" and "prostitute" how to falsify tax forms and seek illegal benefits for 13 "very young" girls from El Salvador that pair said they wanted to import to work as child prostitutes....

BALTIMORE, MD—U.S. District Judge William D. Quarles, Jr. sentenced Deborah Gail Frock, age 40, of Westminster, Maryland, today to 10 years in prison, followed by supervised release for life, for sex trafficking of a minor, announced United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein. Judge Quarles also ordered that Frock must register as a sex offender upon her release from prison. According to her plea agreement, Frock met the victim when the girl was in high school. Frock recognized the victim's last name and realized that they were distantly related. Frock befriended the victim and they began...

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - The global recession is pushing workers to become more vulnerable to human trafficking, and employers to seek cheaper and/or forced labor. Trafficking, which affects 12.3 million people worldwide, includes forms of involuntary labor that don't involve the physical transport of victims such as the illegal trade of human organs. "The last year was marked also by the onset of a global financial crisis, which has raised the specter of increased human trafficking around the world," the State Department said in its annual Trafficking in Persons Report. "As a result of the crisis, two concurrent trends-a shrinking...

WASHINGTON—The Justice Department today announced that a federal grand jury in the District of Hawaii has indicted Rodney D. King, 43, and Sharon-Mae Nishimura, 30, both of Honolulu, on multiple counts of federal sex trafficking of adult women and minor female victims. The charges include allegations of sex trafficking of three adult victims. Specifically, the indictment alleges that from periods within April 2006 through June 2007, King used force, fraud and coercion to engage two adult women in commercial sex and that he did so for his own financial benefit. The indictment also alleges that King attempted to engage a...

OMAHA, Neb. — Nebraska officials have taken custody of an 18-month-old after the child's mother tried sell the boy online at Craigslist. Sarpy County Attorney Lee Polikov says charges have not yet been filed against the mother. But state officials took the child into foster care late Friday to make sure the boy's safe.

WASHINGTON – More than 600 adults have been arrested and 47 children were rescued in a three-day roundup targeting people who force children into prostitution. The FBI said the roundup by federal, state and local law enforcement took place in 29 cities, adding that the raids dismantled 12 large-scale prostitution operations run through call services, truck stops casinos and Web sites. At a news conference announcing the results of Operation Cross Country II, FBI Deputy Director John Pistole said the arrests were made possible by intelligence gathered during a similar series of raids in June. “Sex trafficking of children remains...

LEBANON: Sex trafficking remains a hidden crime | Babylon & Beyond ...22 Oct 2008 ... According to the report, Lebanon appears to be a destination for potential victims of human trafficking, especially for sex-related purposes ...

When Susana Trimarco's daughter Marita Veron was 23, she vanished from their hometown in Argentina, a suspected victim of a human trafficking and prostitution ring with links throughout Latin America and Europe. Marita Veron, who is missing, hugs her daughter Micaela. Police believe Marita was forced into sexual slavery. 1 of 3 Trimarco, 54, has spent the last 6 ½ years searching for her daughter, often putting herself at risk. While chasing down leads on Marita's whereabouts, she's entered into dark and dangerous brothels and confronted pimps and politicians who, she says, are complicit in her daughter's disappearance. She has...

LOS ANGELES - Nine Guatemalans were indicted for their roles in an alleged sex trafficking ring that lured young women to the United States with promises of good jobs and then forced them into prostitution, according to federal court records. ADVERTISEMENT Four of the defendants pleaded not guilty in January to sex trafficking charges in the case. A superseding indictment, unsealed Thursday, includes more serious allegations that five of the 12 victims were minors. According to the new 50-count indictment, the defendants at times sold Guatemalan women and girls to one another like slaves and allegedly brought the victims to...

A Nevada man who'd brought two teenagers across state lines to work as prostitutes in Oakland, San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles has been sentenced to life in federal prison without parole, prosecutors said. Juan Rico Doss, 38, of Reno, Nev., was sentenced Monday by a federal judge in Riverside. A federal jury convicted Doss on June 26, 2006, of two counts of sex trafficking of children, three counts of transporting minors into prostitution, one count of conspiracy, and two counts of witness tampering. Prosecutors said the trial evidence showed that in May 2005, Doss conspired with his wife, Jacquay...

As criminal gangs run amuck in Iraq, hundreds of girls have gone missing. Are they being sold for sex? ___ The man on the phone with the 14-year-old Iraqi girl called himself Sa'ad. He was calling long distance from Dubai and telling her wonderful things about the place. He was also about to buy her. Safah, the teenager, was well aware of the impending transaction. In the weeks after she was kidnapped and imprisoned in a dark house in Baghdad's middle-class Karada district, Safah heard her captors haggling with Sa'ad over her price. It was finally settled at $10,000. Staring...

International Sex Trafficking Is a Well-Known Problem, But It Happens Here as Well Feb. 9, 2006 — - Fifteen-year-old "Debbie" is the middle child in a close-knit Air Force family from suburban Phoenix, and a straight-A student -- the last person most of us would expect to be forced into the seamy world of sex trafficking. But Debbie, which is not her real name, is one of thousands of young American girls who authorities say have been abducted or lured from their normal lives and made into sex slaves. While many Americans have heard of human trafficking in other parts...

WASHINGTON -- Prostitution rings from New York to Hawaii forced more than 30 children as young as 12 to have sex at truck stops, hotels and brothels, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Friday, announcing a government crackdown. Nineteen people have been arrested among 31 who have been indicted for sexual trafficking in children, taking minors across state lines for prostitution and other crimes, Gonzales said. The indictments, in Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, target the purported operators of four child prostitution rings. Some of the children had been reported missing or had run away because they had been abused at...

The new Government of Albania has improved the legal framework necessary to reduce the flow of trafficked children, but it must develop a national child protection system aimed at combating the poverty that drives exploitation, a United Nations human rights expert said after completing his visit to the Balkan country yesterday. Want, lack of opportunities and social services, stigmatized minorities, discrimination against women, and an inadequate educational system are at the root of the scourge, the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography of the UN Commission on Human Rights, Juan Miguel Petit said. “This...

“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...

Ministry seeks to rescue potential victims of sex trafficking By Craig Bird Baptist Child & Family Services CHISINAU, Moldova--Homeless teenaged girls vulnerable to victimization by the international sex slave trade are the focus of a new ministry of Children's Emergency Relief International. The Chosen for Life Project in Moldova aims to make a difference in the lives of teenage girls who are too old for the state orphanage system and are left homeless, said Steve Davis, executive director of Children's Emergency Relief International, the overseas arm of Baptist Child & Family Services. These girls are prime targets for intentionally deceptive...

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...