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=
Amen to you. My husband and I were just talking about this (our kids are too young to be out by themselves, but this is our plan). I moved home after college for a year while in law school and my parents waited up for me every night I was out (and I was engaged). I was 22 and I had a curfew! They said if I lived there I lived by their rules. They weren’t going to go to bed until I was home, so I had to be home early enough not to ruin their sleep.
Now as a parent of two girls, I see their point!
Well, since we’re all making up statistics, I’ll aver that 99.99% of Playboy readers do not molest children, and I expect I would be correct on that statistic. Conflating the viewing of men’s magazine centerfolds with child porn/molestation is also disgusting.
Now, if the article’s author had focused on whether consumption of child porn leads to child molestation, perhaps a geniune corelation (and maybe even causation) could be found. But the author had a broader agenda.
I’m a biker who travels all summer, stopping at truck stops all over the US. Most of them aren’t big enough to support even one hooker.
Most of the others are not hooker friendly. The ones I have seen that do have hookers, do not have under age hookers. The ladies are somewhat less than lovely.
While truck stop hookers are not uncommon, I’ve never seen one who looked to be remotely close to underage, much less a slave.
OK. Good to know.
I just wonder how much money the former congress critter makes doing this.
On top of that I wonder if the taxpayers are funding this to her benifit.
Is there any way to determine if they git federal or state moneys.
My 15 yr old daughter has GPS tracking in her cell phone. I can see where she (or, at least her cell phone) is anytime of any day. When she starts driving next month, she will have a full GPS-tracking device in her vehicle so that I can see everywhere the vehicle goes, where it has been, and how fast it went, etc. While she chafes a little at this, she also has demonstrated that it makes her feel more secure knowing that her parents are watching over her for her safety.
I moved back in with my parents for a short time after college. No curfew here, but they wanted to know where I was.
I didn't think it too intrusive. Just polite to tell them "Going out, I'll be home by midnight" or "Spending the night at so-and-so's". So they wouldn't worry. I expected the same courtesy from them. :-)
Stopped reading there. I find that very hard to believe.
LOL!
Yes, I have considered that.
But if your right on that, then when both parents are told, you should be able to see some concern on one or the others face.
If mom or dad is using the pc in the 10 year old girls bedroom to look at porn, the problem is worse than even I am suggesting don’t you think?
I am sure you are correct in some cases. But I know, when the kid has the pc password protected on their own login, that the Porn on their login is their own. Especially when the parents have to ask the kid for the password, so I can do my job.
If you don’t believe porn is targeting kids of 10 to 13 years old actively these days, well I am sorry to say you have your head in the sand.
I’ve got two girls as well and the 14-year-old can already see it coming! I moved back home during law school as well, but spent most of my time studying. Stop laughing. No, really!
Colonel, USAFR
Even if it is only 1 child it’s a crisis. Sex trafficking is slavery and the buying and selling of even one child is a symptom of the moral crisis in this nation.
Not to mention the never-ending crisis for the child who has been enslaved and abused. Where to they go to get their soul back?
Ha ha. Who studied in law school?/s Those were the days: when I could actually live on 3 hours of sleep and gallons of coffee!
Man, my children know NOT to ever fall for a person trying to offer a lift or a favor that sounds too good to be true but after reading this, they will get a conversation from me tonight just in case....
And do you think these kids would be allowed to keep their cell phones with them? Or be given access to a phone they could use to make a long-distance call? What are you thinking of?
Telephone: 215-898-5531. E-Mail: restes@ssw.upenn.edu
I think you’re confusing me with someone else.
That was exactly my point. The journalist's statement ("Pimps often move their human cargo across the country, making it difficult for girls to contact their families.") made absolutely no sense.
If a kidnapper has somebody locked up, it really doesn't matter if they're ten miles away or a thousand. Taking a victim across the country has almost zero effect on their ability to contact their family.
A lot of what has changed is the 24/7/365 fearmongering by the MSM.
You beat me to it.
...one of the worst things about civilization is, that anybody that gits a letter with trouble in it comes and tells you all about it and makes you feel bad, and the newspapers fetches you the troubles of everybody all over the world, and keeps you downhearted and dismal most all the time, and it's such a heavy load for a person.
-- Mark Twain
Wonder what Mark would have to say about today's state of the media?
"My mother...tells me that any child seen wandering in a truck stop at night will set drivers talking to find out who the kid belongs to and cops will be called if there is no parent present."
My point was that children who have been trafficked for sexual use would not be "wandering around" --- they'd be confined somewhere by force. It's not the same as freelance streetwalking prostitutes. It's very secretive and also brutally coercive.
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