| Expert: Porn Industry Paves Way to Sexual Exploitation of Children |
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| 04:04am 23/04/2006 |
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WASHINGTON, April 12, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Concerned Women for America's (CWA's) Chief Counsel Jan LaRue has released the first part in her series, "The Road to Perversion Is Paved With Pornography." LaRue explains that "regular guys" don't jump into having sex with kids without taking steps in the wrong direction.
"Millions of men and boys are falling for the destructive myth that looking at 'adult' porn is normal, healthy and harmless for 'regular guys,'" according to LaRue. "Way too many are finding themselves handcuffed between two cops, under arrest for sexual conduct with a kid."
LaRue addresses the common misconception that pedophiles are the only ones molesting children.
"Not every guy who has sex with a minor is a pedophile. Most aren't. There is a difference between pedophiles who prefer to have sex with children and child molesters who prefer to have sex with adults but will have sex with a child if the situation presents itself. And it presents itself big time on the Internet."
Men are using online pimps to connect with underage prostitutes. "Check his Web log and you'll find he was at the porn sites long before he went to the pimp sites," LaRue says.
LaRue is an expert in pornography law and has covered this issue for 14 years.
Read the full report here:
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/apr/060412a.html |
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| California: 3 arrested on child porn, exploitation charges. |
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| 04:14am 23/04/2006 |
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http://www.theksbwchannel.com/news/8704084/detail.html
TheKSBWChannel.com
3 Arrested On Child Porn, Exploitation Charges
Evidence Of Child Pornography Found In Marina Apartment
POSTED: 2:35 pm PDT April 14, 2006
UPDATED: 4:59 pm PDT April 14, 2006
MARINA, Calif. -- Marina police have arrested three men on charges of unlawful sexual exploitation of children.
Police said officers went to an apartment on Palm Avenue on April 11 to investigate reports of drug activity. While inside the residence, officers found evidence that marijuana was being grown and also discovered evidence of child pornography.
Authorities said officers also learned that two 14-year-old girls were the victim of unlawful sexual exploitation by three men.
Arrested were Michael Gruber, 27, Edwin Nath, 26, and Justin Adams, 19.
Gruber was arrested on a variety of drug charges, as well as charges related to child pornography.
Nath and Adams were also arrested on charges related to child pornography. Adams was also arrested on charges of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.
Marina police ask that anyone with information that might aid in this investigation call (831) 884-1228.
Copyright 2006 by TheKSBWChannel.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritte |
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| Missouri: St. Louis Makes FBI List For Sexual Exploitation Of Children |
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| 04:26am 23/04/2006 |
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http://www.ksdk.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=95256
St. Louis Makes FBI List For Sexual Exploitation Of Children
Last updated: 4/14/2006 10:42:33 PM
St. Louis finds itself on an FBI list of cities where children are likely to be sexually exploited. 13 other American cities are also on that list.
FBI officials say predators are increasingly making their presence known in cities like St. Louis. They are luring naive kids into a life of sex crimes.
With darkness comes the grim reality about the streets of St. Louis. They are shelter for homeless include men and women forced to survive, the best they know how.
A fast growing homeless population involves runaway children. One of the difficulties in helping children is that they are rarely visible on the streets. Experts say the end result for many children is a life of crime, drugs and sexual exploitation.
The FBI says an alarmingly number of kids are being lured into prostitution. Even more frightening is where it's happening. Among the 14 major cities identified by the FBI as sexual exploitation centers-- St. Louis, Chicago and the nation's capital.
Michael Meehan is the associate executive director of Epworth. It is a St. Louis area facility where children and teens find hope out of bad situations. The problem is, many kids never make it to get help.
Meehan says, "It is not something we as professionals like to think about, but it happens. And that is why we continue to be so vigilant and passionate about what we do because we know the consequence."
The FBI says the average age of sex crime victims are 9 and 11 years old. Many come from middle class homes. Estimates suggest more than 100 thousand children are victims of sex trafficking.
For now, police focus on finding the predators, while places like Epworth try desperately to find help for potential victims. The FBI says there are many similarities among the 14 sex centers. Among them, adult prostitutes actively recruiting kids. |
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| Georgia USA: State to focus on human trafficking. |
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| 05:41am 23/04/2006 |
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State to focus on human trafficking
By MARY LOU PICKEL
Email: mpickel@ajc.com
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/15/06
A bill awaiting Gov. Sonny Perdue's signature and two special task forces set up with funds from the federal government are adding muscle to Georgia's efforts to crack down on human trafficking.
Sen. Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock) says his intent was to cut down on the flow of illegal workers into Georgia. The Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act would make human trafficking a felony in Georgia with jail sentences up to 20 years.
"The hope was to send a message to coyotes and people who would bring people to Georgia illegally that this is the last state you would bring people to," Rogers said.
The bill also goes after pimps who force people into the commercial sex trade. "As a byproduct of this overall immigration legislation, if we can go after those people as well, I'm all for it," Rogers said.
Human trafficking is about making money off society's most vulnerable people. Between 14,500 and 17,500 people are brought into the United States each year, according to a State Department report, and between 600,000 and 800,000 are trafficked globally.
There is no estimate for the number of Americans who are trafficked, but Fulton County Juvenile Courts alone see 10 to 12 cases per month of minors as young as 9 and 10 years old who are victims of commercial sexual exploitation, said Patricia Crone, project director at the Juvenile Justice Fund.
As part of Washington's heightened efforts to curb the illegal trade in humans, Atlanta Police and the Cobb County Sheriff's Office have set up anti-human-trafficking task forces with three-year federal grants of $450,000 and $360,838, respectively.
As head of the Atlanta Police Department's anti-trafficking unit, Sgt. Donna Chambers is only too well acquainted with the misery of those trapped in this netherworld. She listens day and night to frightened young prostitutes who want to leave their pimps but can't. They tell her they are trapped.
"One of the reasons human trafficking is such a big business is they can resell their merchandise over and over again," Chambers said. "With drugs, they sell it once."
Chambers' unit hits the streets almost every day, following tips from the police department's vice unit and 911 calls.
Any crackdowns on prostitution is welcome news to Yvonne Smith and Flora Tommie, who say prostitution took over their Perkerson Park neighborhood, although it has eased in recent years.
Smith reached her breaking point in the summer of 2001 when she went to the park with her kids and ran into a man having sex with a young girl on a bench.
"I was so angry to know that people care so little about themselves," Smith said. "We had given up the park to pimps and drugs."
Smith, who runs Children's Paradise Academy, made fliers and encouraged volunteers to pick up condoms littering the park. Tommie says officials should do something about the strip clubs and bars close to public schools.
Chambers has found that many of her trafficking victims have been sexually abused at an early age and have never recovered.
"These are little girls and their lives are pretty much ruined," Chambers said. "When they come into adulthood, they feel like they're less."
The cycle won't change until society decides not to penalize what it considers to be "bad victims," said Covenant House Georgia's Alisa Porter. She draws a parallel between tolerance of slavery in the Old South and indifference today toward trafficking victims. Society did not consider black people to be human beings and therefore slavery flourished, Porter said. Today there's not much outcry about trafficking because prostitutes aren't sympathetic victims, she said.
"If we don't see sexually exploited children as victims, we don't have the will to change it," Porter said.
In Cobb County, Carole Morgan, director of the North Central Georgia Law Enforcement Academy, coordinates a countywide task force for the Cobb County Sheriff's Office that has educated police, service providers and translators about human trafficking.
"You've got the dynamics of sexual assault and the dynamics of domestic violence and the dynamics of everything all rolled into one," Morgan said. "The victims are terrified, and in many cases depend on the trafficker."
Cobb law enforcement agencies haven't had many trafficking cases yet, Morgan said. That could be because police are still learning how to identify such victims.
They are not always easy to find.
Take the case of Rosa, who ended up on a South Georgia tomato farm after entering the country illegally from Mexico in 2004. She had paid a coyote $1,600 to smuggle her in, and had hoped to pay off that debt in two months. Instead, after three months of living and working under harsh conditions, she had earned only enough to pay $400 toward her debt.
Rosa later escaped with the help of lawyers from Legal Services of Georgia, but she still sent $800 to the coyote who smuggled her into the country and supervised her on the farm.
If the governor signs Rogers' legislation into law, as expected, it would enable local police and prosecutors to specifically address trafficking cases and likely increase prosecutions. Victims' advocates say any new tool will likely help cut down on trafficking.
Under current Georgia law, prosecutors have to resort to a variety of minor offenses to charge traffickers, including assault and battery and stalking. These are misdemeanors that carry at most a 12-month sentence, said Ann Harris, an assistant district attorney in Cobb County. She helped draft the human trafficking provisions included in the state bill.
"Maybe a woman is beat up because she didn't perform — that is battery," Harris said. "And maybe on Wednesday and Thursday one of the women doesn't do what she's supposed to so she's kept in a locked room for two days. That's false imprisonment," Harris said.
"Having to prosecute these one at a time, you miss the big picture."
Find this article at:
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/0415mettrafficking.html |
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