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Andrea Swanson, the parent of a sex trafficking victim, speaks of her experiences during a Basic High School speaker series at the school’s auditorium in Henderson on Tuesday, October 23, 2012.
By Jackie Valley (contact) 
Published Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012 | 2 a.m.
Updated Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012 | 9:32 a.m.
Sun archives
• First of a two-part series
It wasn’t a phone call she wanted, nor ever anticipated, but when Andrea Swanson realized she had not received a call for help, she broke down in tears.
It was June 2010, and Swanson’s youngest daughter, Mary, then 18 years old, sat in the Clark County Detention Center after being arrested for soliciting a police officer. Mary never called her mother. Instead, Mary spent three days in the county jail.
Meanwhile, Metro Police delivered the news to a frantic Swanson. At the advice of investigators, Swanson played ignorant and continued sending her daughter text messages each morning and night, like she had been doing for months:
“I love you. Please come home.”
Home is where this story begins, where a predator named Kobe Hogue worked his way into the family and stole its youngest member, a junior at Centennial High School in fall 2008 who fell for a boy.
Andrea Swanson gave Hogue food, bus passes, a cellphone and, most crucial of all, a mother’s trust. At the time, it made sense: Hogue’s presence made Swanson’s teenage daughter, a girl wrestling with self-esteem issues, happy for the first time in months.
Nearly two years later, Swanson discovered the young man she welcomed into her home had thrust her daughter into a life of prostitution. Hogue was Mary’s pimp.
And now her daughter was in jail.
How it’s happening
Metro Police say Hogue appeared to be an unsophisticated pimp trying to establish himself in the underworld of sex trafficking. By all accounts, Mary was the only girl Hogue prostituted, a situation that leads authorities to believe Mary would have become Hogue’s “bottom,” slang for a pimp’s most-prized girl.
"He was an opportunist,” said Lt. Karen Hughes, who oversees Metro’s vice section. “That’s how a lot of them start off — looking for an opportunity to make money.”
By the time police arrested Mary for soliciting prostitution, she already was 18 years old. But she met her pimp as a juvenile, a situation law enforcement officials say has long been a problem in Las Vegas that’s just now getting more attention.
“It’s a deep, dark secret that no one wants out of the closet,” said Rashell Zerbe, a detective in Metro’s vice unit who investigates child prostitution cases.
Last year, Metro investigated 131 juvenile-prostitution cases, most involving female victims, according to department data. Of those, 74 percent were from Nevada — an increase compared with past years.
Metro has investigated about 2,200 children exploited through sex trafficking in Las Vegas since 1994, the year the department began tracking the issue. The number peaked in 2004 when Metro detectives made contact with 207 children, police said. On average, 50 percent of all juvenile sex-trafficking victims police made contact with were from Nevada.
The youngest victim Zerbe encountered was a 13-year-old girl who was six months pregnant.
Hughes considers Las Vegas ground zero for sex trafficking, a buzz phrase she equates with prostitution. And by prostitution, she means this: often girls and young women manipulated by pimps and “turned out” to work the streets, casinos or hotels.
“You often hear people refer to prostitution as the oldest profession in the world,” she said. “I don’t believe it’s a profession. It’s an exploitation.”
Prostitution is illegal in Las Vegas because Clark County has more than 400,000 residents, but authorities say the city’s sex-infused landscape and anything-goes perception make it a hub for the vice. Look no further than the handbillers congregating at corners along the Las Vegas Strip, advertising the company of a female to nearly anyone who passes. Or browse the Las Vegas adult listings on backpage.com, where one recent post advertised females “20 minutes or less to your hotel room.” Both advertisements are intentionally vague, police say.
“What really goes on behind closed doors is the sexual exploitation of young women and young girls,” Hughes said.
In the end, money drives the sex-trafficking industry. Criminals have realized they can make more money repeatedly selling girls and women compared to a one-time sale of an illicit drug, said Esther Rodriguez Brown, the sexually exploited youth program administrator for Family Court.
“The pimps bring their girls here as part of their circuit because of the conventions and gaming,” Hughes said. “It’s very profitable for them. They can blend in and they can look for clients.”
Police say recruitment of girls and young women into prostitution can start in person — through friends from school, at a party, in a club — or miles away via the Internet. Concerning the latter scenario, Detective Cathy Hui, who is part of Metro’s pandering investigation team, said she has seen more cases recently involving females lured to Las Vegas by the promise of modeling gigs, then met by pimps who coerce them into the sex trade.
“It’s a tough thing for people to understand,” Hui said. “General citizens don’t understand it. They don’t understand how people can be so manipulative to women.”
Often, investigators say the pimp-prostitute relationship starts out on a romantic note: He acts like her boyfriend. She falls for him. He claims they need money and asks her to help by entering the sex trade. He promises her riches and, in the meantime, buys her new clothes and pays for visits to hair and nail salons.
She makes the money; he keeps it. Somewhere along the line, police say, many of the situations turn violent. The victims, though, stay out of fear.
“It’s a slow, gradual process,” Hui said. “He breaks her down and builds her up.”
One family’s journey
In retrospect, the signs were there. Swanson just didn’t recognize them.
Mary, who once wore clothes from Abercrombie and Hollister, began dressing in provocative outfits bought by Hogue, who also paid for Mary to have her hair and nails done. A tattoo — a rose with a heart around it — appeared on Mary’s back, designed by Hogue.
Despite Mary’s hostessing job, she never seemed to have any money. And then there were the occasional bruises.
“We thought we had the most rebellious teenager we could have,” Swanson said. “We didn’t know if you tied the tattoo to him getting her hair and nails done … it points toward prostitution.”
Swanson, a school nurse, and her then-husband, an FBI employee, had tried to give Hogue a chance — even after his stint in prison for stealing vehicles. Their daughter’s counselor said Hogue made Mary happy.
The parents reluctantly gave Hogue one more shot, organizing a list of rules he must abide by to date their daughter, by this time a senior in high school.
“He was sweet as pie for about two weeks,” Swanson said.
A woman walks into an escort call center identified by Metro on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012.
Then Mary’s mood changed abruptly. Simple questions turned into arguments. Being home meant taking a shower before leaving again.
“She ramped up,” Swanson said. “She was verbally abusive. She was never home. At this time, she was 18.”
Swanson immediately suspected drug use. It seemed the only logical fit.
“Usually, parents think drugs are the worst thing that could happen,” she said.
The secret their daughter had been guarding finally unraveled close to her scheduled high school graduation. Her daughter’s old friend wanted to stop by the family’s home while he was in town visiting. When Mary found out, Swanson said Mary “freaked out like a caged animal” and begged to keep the friend away, calling him a liar.
Swanson prodded Mary for a reason — anything to explain her daughter’s bizarre reaction. The answer Swanson received had never entered her realm of possibility:
“He’s going to tell you I’m a prostitute.”
A call to the community
More than two years have passed since Swanson learned her daughter was involved in sex trafficking, specifically working as a prostitute in Strip hotels and along Boulder Highway, and giving her earnings to Hogue.
Police arrested Hogue several weeks later. He pleaded guilty to attempted pandering and is serving time at Three Lakes Valley Conservation Camp, according to court records and the Nevada Department of Corrections.
Swanson and her daughter, who will turn 21 later this month, have started rebuilding their relationship. They eat dinner together on Tuesdays and sometimes go shopping. It’s a slow process, complicated by the fact that Mary intends to be with Hogue — but not work the streets — upon his release from custody.
Swanson said Mary admits to anger and anxiety issues, but she refuses to seek counseling, telling her mother it’s not necessary.
“These girls are almost like addicts,” Swanson said. “Her drug was not drugs; her drug was the attention of a pimp.”
Last week, Swanson shared her daughter’s story with students and parents at Basic High School. It’s now Swanson’s mission to educate the community about the warning signs of sex trafficking, a situation she says exists because of ignorance, denial and inaction by society.
“It was devastating to hear that (sex trafficking) had happened to your daughter,” she said. “I couldn’t let a mother feel that.”
The story of Swanson’s daughter led to training — focusing on how to spot warning signs — for Clark County School District Police officers during the summer, step one of the district’s plan to increase awareness and prevention, CCSD Police Chief James Ketsaa said. Training of school staff members will follow, he said.
School police also have continued “aggressive” enforcement against loitering around campus buildings, a means to prevent possible pimps from accessing students, Ketsaa said. In addition, he wants to examine any correlation between truancy and teenage prostitution — in other words, data that could explain the scope of the problem.
“I think it’s a problem, I do,” he said. “I’d like to see some stats of exactly how many of these are our students.”
Efforts within the school system are one part of what authorities say is a broader campaign needed locally and across the state.
In October, Metro received a federal grant just shy of $500,000 from the Bureau of Justice Assistance to combat human trafficking, Hughes said. The department plans to hire a director for the Southern Nevada Human Trafficking Task Force who, in part, can corral a community coalition to spread awareness, Hughes said.
“My vision is that the interfaith community comes together as a unified group,” she said.
Two churches in opposite parts of the Las Vegas Valley are among several that already have heeded the call on their own volition.
A plaza on Industrial Road with both an escort call center and massage parlor identified by Metro seen on Tuesday, October 30, 2012.
Aaron Hansel, lead pastor of the Dream Center in West Las Vegas, calls sex trafficking “an uncomfortable reality that needs to be addressed by parents.” After learning about the issue more than a year ago, his church has been involved in a dozen events to raise awareness in the community. He and his wife, Danita, also recently started a side business, Be A Voice, with the same goal in mind.
“Up until a few years ago, we were kind of naive about the subject,” Danita Hansel said. “We’re just now jumping into it, really.”
In Henderson, members of New Song Church plan to meet with nearby schools, hospitals and other service providers to spread information about sex trafficking and see where they can help, said the Rev. Marta Poling-Goldenne.
Poling-Goldenne, who believes sex trafficking has reached a “tipping point” worldwide, envisions partnering with other organizations or faith-based communities, thus eliminating the duplication of efforts in Southern Nevada.
“God is orchestrating all of us,” she said. “This is not an accident.”
In the process, there’s one group Barb Brents, a sociology professor at UNLV, hopes is not excluded from the community conversation: the sex workers, some of whom she believes willingly participate in prostitution.
“There needs to be more community attention to it as long as we get a variety of people into the dialogue,” said Brents, who has researched the sex industry and Nevada brothels. “This is a tough issue, and there are good arguments from both sides.”
The healing aspect
Eventually, Hughes hopes the community wrangles enough support to build a safe house for sex-trafficking victims — a vulnerable population that’s prone to returning to the prostitution lifestyle.
It’s a vision shared by Family Court Judge William Voy, who has long advocated building such a place to help girls recover emotionally without what many refer to as revictimization in juvenile detention facilities. So far, it remains in the idea stage, as law enforcement and community members debate the right way to proceed and how to obtain funding.
“There has to be an opportunity for us to keep (a victim) out of the clutches and control and the manipulation of the pimp while we work with her to get her healthy,” Hughes said.
Zerbe, one of six Metro detectives on the Child Exploitation Task Force, favors a safe house that’s locked down, meaning victims could not come and go as they please.
“It’s almost like tough love,” she said. “Without locking them down a bit … it’s not safe for them.”
Last year, Courage Worldwide, an international nonprofit, opened in Northern California a place called Courage House, a safe home on 50 acres of property for female victims of sex trafficking, ages 11-17. According to the nonprofit’s website, Courage House is at an undisclosed, rural location.
Although familiar with Courage House, Hughes said she thought an eventual safe house must be specific to Clark County and not a mirror image of an existing model.
“We have to find a place that would give the victims the ability to see a different life without the neon and glitter lights,” she said.
In the meantime, early next year, Family Court officials hope to open a center where sex-trafficking victims can access a variety of services: mentoring, psychological counseling, education services and basics such as clothing for job interviews, Rodriguez Brown said.
The goal is to provide victims with a more holistic approach to their emotional recovery while giving them a one-stop shop for their needs, Rodriguez Brown said.
“Right now, the girls have to go all around the valley to get these services,” she said. “These girls often don’t have transportation.”
Rodriguez Brown said the center, the location of which has not been disclosed, would be a key resource, especially in the absence of a safe house, which she hasn’t given up hope about seeing come to fruition.
“I wish we already had a safe house, but it will happen,” she said.
CORRECTION: The story has been updated to correct the spelling of Barb Brents' name. | (November 1, 2012)
These young girls need counseling and help. They do not need prison sentences. This is a well written article about a serious social problem in many cities.
Steve Sisolak aids accused human traffickers to set up business in Clark County after Texas sues to shut them down. Sisolak reports directly to their attorney and circumvents County Code to issue an illegal sexually oriented liquor license to those accused of being involved in underage prostitution and human trafficking.
http://ronenews92fm.files.wordpress.com/...
https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-truth...
I applaud the efforts to address this problem-about a decade too late!
We tried telling the administration at the LVMPD that the problem was bad a long time ago. Even the Vice detective that writes books (for personal profit?)said that there were 'thousands' of pimps in Las Vegas when he was interviewed by Jim Rogers. He is one of Lt. Hughes' favorites.
Rather than learning from Vice supervisors who had several DECADES of Vice experience, Lt. Hughes ran several of them out of the unit (at least 3 left in about a one year span of time). She has now taken over and promotes herself as the 'savior' to our children and girls.
There are some 'dark secrets' that are not being revealed to the media...like the careers she has sabotaged...and the 'dark secrets' that help to keep her (and others) in power.
Lt. Hughes-can you please send me an application for the new job? Those of us who truly did CARE about stopping the massive prostitution problem on the Strip and in Las Vegas will work as a TEAM, share information, and fight this problem...and expose the D.A.'s office when they don't do their job to help protect our children.
Attempt pandering and a 'conservation camp'? Is this piece of human garbage planting trees or flowers at 'camp'. It can only add to the horror for a parent to find out that their daughter has been deflowered only to see the predator and slave-holder get treated with kid-gloves. Was this a David Roger case or a Wolfson prosecution? What about statutory rape. coercion, and kidnapping?
I'm impressed with the extensive story on this topic...keep digging and exposing the facts to the public.
Pimps are pure scum. They should be sentenced to life in prison or death. THey destroy the lives of many women with no fear of consequences because sentences are light.
How can anyone take Metro, City of LV, County of Clark and State of Nevada Serious on this issue?
For years, the powers including Oscar G - have allowed the undocumented "hooker-card flipping mafia" and various in your face advertisers - (call them print-pimps) - to maximize the sex trade in Las Vegas AND then shed the fake tears when there's a camera nearby.
This is the Broken Window concept...If you allow a broken window to remain...next you have graffiti...then you have auto burglary...then drug sales and there goes the neighborhood! This fight needs to be on all fronts...not just the self serving side.
The population threshold cited in this article for the legality of prostitution in Clark County is outdated -- it was changed from 400,000 to 700,000 during the last legislative session.
While this did not change the effect of prostitution being illegal in Clark County, the law change's effect was to not prohibit it in Washoe County by state law, as Washoe's population exceeded 400,000 by the last census. (Washoe County does prohibit prostitution, though, by county ordinance.)
Andrea missed the signs big time. First off when you have a "boy" and you're giving him a cell phone, food, bus passes, etc...you better do some checking and find out the "boys" background and why he's in this situation. Secondly, how was this "boy" suddenly buying your daughter clothes, tattoos, nail salon visits? Where did he work?
Then after this loser gets arrested for stealing cars...at what age? You go and say "let's give him another chance".
I mean come on lady. Your husband was with the FBI. He should know first hand. This sounds like a case of 2 parents who are much too gullible.
Great article, except I hope that Professor Barb Brents (correct spelling) was misquoted- or that she said something that made more sense that the reporter chose not to print. This article is about the horrific exploitation of underage youth. What minor can freely consent to prostitution, especially in a county like Clark where that is illegal at any age? And what professor with any speck of honesty can defend it?
Now I can understand why UNLV would employ professors who have to argue that gambling is nothing but goodness and light for Vegas - I think UNR is the only other university in the country which does, also for obvious reasons - but UNLV should not be employing professors who attempt on some weird pseudo-ethical plane to defend illegal activity involving minors.
Prostituion is referred to as the world's oldest profession for a reason -- it's been around forever and it's almost everywhere. Prohibition doesn't work, especially in a high transent area like CC, and we see the evidence of that every day. About all our efforts do is provide the police some good photo ops and perpetuates the comforting illusion for the public that the problem is being addressed (it isn't, but we like to pretend we're "doing something"). It would make more more sense for CC to legalize brothels and associated out-call services, wresting control from the pimps & gangs that control prostitution here now, and focus our resources on helping & protecting children and those forced/coerced into it (and hammering those who're profiting from or using them). It's not a "profession" most people would ever recommend, but it is a reality, and we would all be better off by treating it as such.
a powerful presentation by the mother and by the newspaper
"What really goes on behind closed doors is the sexual exploitation of young women and young girls," Hughes said."
Valley -- you're usually better than repackaging this tripe for its proponents. This seems to be mainly propaganda to justify the proponents' budgets. Since Nevada's age of consent is 16, your 18-year-old is no child victim.
"Pimps are pure scum. They should be sentenced to life in prison or death. THey destroy the lives of many women with no fear of consequences because sentences are light."
Sinatra -- try thinking for yourself instead of swallowing this propaganda whole. Under Nevada law consensual sex from age 16 on is completely legal. Given the lying and manipulating common with adolescents, especially on blaming someone else when they think they're in trouble, don't believe everything you read or hear.
Let the flaming begin
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." -- Eric Blair, aka George Orwell
Well the answer is legalize prostitution in Vegas. Its that simple.
This article is not propaganda. Regardless of the law, a 16 year old is still a child. How many 16 year kids can take care of themselves and make adult decisions? There are a lot of grown men who would love to be with a child and I'm sure these perverts love the 16 year old consent age.
We still mourn for the "runaways" that were forced into prostitution in the 1970's, 80's, 90's.....
Clearly, we must go after the Johns buying this black-market service. Name names and publicize when the Johns get arrested regardless of the age of the victims.
A "secret"? Really? The secret is that all the authorities and politicians have known that the problem has existed for years, and because the solution takes money, they choose to ignore the problem.
Keep signing those no-tax pledges . . . but keep your daughters under lock & key.
Right on poppaD. And how many of the homicide victims were stolen into prostitution but wouldn't or couldn't perform? Kids don't make good choices BECAUSE their brains are not matured--strictly biological / physical thing. As with any crime, does the age of the victim matter when the victim is limited, handicapped, underage, overage, challenged......?
Raising the age of consent would help for investigations and prosecutions.
I also think our equal property law should be changed in this state. Not for accountability, for corruption. You dont even have to be married, the first thing the police say is if you were in a relationship with someone they can basically steal from you, it was equal property, they just ate all the cake. I'm sure that would be another badged justification for he gets the money she does the work.
Just another Jack and Diane story.
Legalize and regulate and tax prostitution in Las Vegas.
That is about the only realistic solution to this problem.
We already have legalized and taxed prostitution in Nevada people, this is already doable...
"We still mourn for the "runaways" that were forced into prostitution in the 1970's, 80's, 90's.....Clearly, we must go after the Johns buying this black-market service."
Roslenda -- if any of them are actually forced, that's an entirely different thing. But making all men suspect because a young woman offers herself for rent is quite another. That seems to be what you're suggesting.
"Raising the age of consent would help for investigations and prosecutions."
Ashley -- your entire post is intriguing, but I disagree with this point. It's not within the state's Constituted authority to dictate any person's age of consent with an arbitrary number. Every person has the freedom to decide for himself when to break out of childhood restrictions, including the deeply personal right of declaring one's own sexual liberty. What gets messy is how they do it, and to be sure it's done responsibly. A young person in heat has a biological imperative forced on him or her, and that's hopefully where parents come in. For sure the biggest mess is what we see in Valley's article, when the public authorities get involved and dictate crimes based solely on ages, not reality. Finally, loved your "badged justification" -- what an excellent way to put what the state does to all of us!
"Indifference to personal liberty is but the precursor of the State's hostility to it." -- United States v. Penn, 647 F.2d 876 (9th Circuit, 1980), Judge Kennedy dissenting
Please stop the the fingerpointing and blame game. To the mother...you failed. You clearly saw your daughter was hanging out with trash. To the daughter..you failed. You are not a victim of anything except making poor choices. Lets be clear on this....prostitutes are not victims of human trafficking/sex industry. They willingly engage in this lifestyle. My guess is that Mary is probably still in the game.
@ladymcv
I essentially agree. The mother and father both failed badly. What moron counselor is advising them to let their daughter hang out with this creton? The mother says they gave him a second chance after his arrest for stealing cars. Why?. Did the numbskull father with an FBI affiliation make a few calls to his NLV police associates to inquire about this jerk? Kobe likely has an extensive juvenile record. Spare me the "it's sealed" garbage. This is a NLV thug, no job, school drop-out, arrest record. What parent is out there saying "yes, good choice"...While they cannot legally do anything once she reaches adulthood, my feeling is when they had a chance to cut this loser out of her life, they fell asleep.
Dear Jackie:
There's a great deal that's troubling about this piece, but it might not be what you expect.
While the headline makes a clear connection between sexual trafficking and children, your opening vignette involves an 18 year old - hardly a child. You never define trafficking and, in fact, seem to use the words "trafficking" and "prostitution" interchangeably. You never once - not once - tip your hat to the fact that a number of social scientists have problematized the existing data on child trafficking, which conflates a host of distinct numbers and data sets into a misleading aggregate. Thus, it is exceedingly difficult to accurately assess, empirically speaking, the extent to which sexual trafficking - in Vegas and elsewhere - is a concern of the magnitude portrayed here.
What I do know, however, is that a narrative of bad pimps and vulnerable women, of all ages, makes good copy. But good copy is not necessarily accurate copy. I wish more care had been taken in reporting this issue - which is important - as opposed to writing a piece that amounts to little more than propaganda.
Comment removed by moderator. Inappropriate
I believe I read the book written by the vice detective that ICARE mentioned. It was good.
I add mine to the voice of those that say that prostitution will always be with us and the best thing it to legalize and regulate it. Same with marijuana.
As it stands now, criminals are making money and people are being victimized.
You don't see folks selling backyard moonshine much anymore. No money in it for criminals when it's part of the above-ground economy.
"Nearly two years later, Swanson discovered the young man she welcomed into her home had thrust her daughter into a life of prostitution. Hogue was Mary's pimp".
What the newspaper really means is that two years after she picked up a boytoy on the street for her own satisfaction, he dumped her for the younger daughter. It doesn't provide the age of the boytoy so maybe he was underage when she swooped down on him.
Thanks to the Sun and their advertisement for escort and massage services on Industrial way in the corner of the article. I don't have to wait for the van to drive by to get the phone number.
Lets see now, 2012 children were believed to be abused over the last 18 years. That works out to 122 per year on average. This year it has spiked to 131. This in a population of around 2,000,000 in the metro area not counting the millions of tourists. Its obvious that Nevada needs to give 100's of milllions of dollars to correct this problem. Perhaps a 2000 acre ranch would work better than a 50 acre one. Perhaps Hughes valuable ability to pick up Pimps on the street and take them home with her will aid the police in correcting this problem. Throwing money at this problem won't work as long as pimps can make a dollar off it. You don't see anyone selling bootleg booze on the strip, but there's alot of hookers selling something.Making protitution legal wouldn't eliminate the problem intirely but would greatly reduce the involvement of juveniles because of proof of age ect.
The big question for me about this case is.....
How did her father, who worked for the FBI, not know about her PIMP boyfriend...?
....follow up question:
After he found out.....why didn't her father use his FBI juice to make this punk disappear...?!
Killer: Perhaps you don't remember the thousands upon thousands of teen girls that police excused as "runaways" rather than investigate the abductions. Many of these, including a couple I knew, became corpses in the landfill / scenic byways. The sex trade has been around for a long time and you think all those good looking women are there because they wanna be? Because they chose to?
"Killer: Perhaps you don't remember the thousands upon thousands of teen girls that police excused as "runaways" rather than investigate the abductions. Many of these, including a couple I knew, became corpses in the landfill / scenic byways."
Roslenda -- no, I "don't remember" them other than occasional mentions in the news. I don't doubt for the sake of argument this is true. But you're not mentioning anything about how those tragedies have anything to do with this article. I've been with prostitutes when long haul trucking many years ago. Out of that dozen or so I don't recall a single one ever seeming to have been forced to solicit me, even the one who did use a male guardian to take the payment.
My point is you and others are painting this entire topic with far too many presumptions and prejudices.
"This case illustrates that tragic facts make bad law." -- Wyeth v. Levine, 129 S.Ct. 1187 (2009), Justice Alito, with whom The Chief Justice and Justice Scalia join, dissenting.
I urge the writer to do some research instead of accepting Metro's statements as fact. Are you aware that every major city in the USA makes the "ground zero" claim?
Child sex trafficking is mostly an urban legend. The subject of this story is not a child. She is a troubled young woman who was willing to do anything to make her loser, pimp wanna-be boyfriend happy. Amongst young urban men, having a "working girl" for a girlfriend is a status symbol. It proves to everyone that they are living a playa lifestyle. This doesn't mean they are pimping-they are too lazy for that.
The young lady in your story is obviously in an unhealthy relationship with her boyfriend. Her obsession with him, along with her low self esteem, has caused her to use poor judgment. Her mother is clearly in denial about her daughter. Notice how she doesn't question her own judgment or parenting skills but instead enthusiastically takes on a victim identity. She then uses her role as victim to become part of the "rescue industry". It is actually very self-serving and disgusting. In telling her story, she reveals details about her daughter that could seriously harm her in the future.
Human trafficking exists but it mostly consists of young adult males who happen to be illegal immigrants working in factories to pay off "debts" they incurred by being brought to the USA.
Underage prostitutes do exist. If you research you will find that the vast majority are doing sex work VOLUNTARILY and are not being pimped. The average age that these teens enter the world of prostitution is 16--underage but a far cry from being considered a CHILD.
The truth is, law enforcement has grossly exaggerated the role of pimps in sex work of any kind. They frequently arrest men who are associated with prostitutes and charge them with pimping. But usually these men are just the boyfriend/husband or a paid driver.
Please remember that there is a lot of money up for grabs in the rescue industry. The more arrests police make, the more grant money they receive. The non-profit "rescue" groups are scrambling for grant money as well.
Yes there is the issue of money - and it's killing men women and children. Because groups like ours that have been helping these victims for 37 years now are being actively claimed to "not exist" so someone can open up some group and start getting donations and grants to basically re-pimp these victims all over again. If they helped - that's one thing - but they don't. Which is why if you really want to help sex trafficking victims - then you need to be a "buyer beware" just as with any other product you'd buy. If however someone does want help - we help anyone, male or female, child or adult, religious or not - www.traffickingandprostitutionservices.o... and www.sexworkersanonymous.net We also have a radio show at www.blogtalkradio.com/radiorecovery if you want to hear from real victims and real programs doing something about this. - Jody
We are being duped, and the evidence its clear, While Lt. Karen Hughes, who oversees Metro's vice section has insisted for more than two years that she "...considers Las Vegas ground zero for sex trafficking,"
she has never bothered to tell Robin Thompson, senior program director for Florida State University's Center for Advancement of Human Rights. She claims, "Florida is "ground zero" for human trafficking, says " (http://bit.ly/15IhTW3)
But then they haven't been told that Kendra Lee, a professor of public relations at Southern Adventist University insists ...Atlanta IS "GROUND ZERO" for sex trafficking (http://bit.ly/ZBprIl)
There are officials in Seattle, Detroit, Tampa, Denver, Omaha and Union City, NJ just to name a few that each have their own Hughes trying to scare their neighbors by telling them their community is "'ground zero' for child sex trafficking."