Any discussion of prostitution must center on a basic fact: Control and exploitation of another person is slavery. Pimps control 80%-95% of all forms of prostitution. Nearly 70% of those in prostitution entered before age 16. In the U.S., the average age of entry is 12. Twelve!
Whether that's totally accurate or a bit of an exaggeration there is some truth in it. Lets assume its totally true. Note that this is what happens in the context of prostitution being illegal in many places, including most of the US, and heavily restricted in most places where it is legal.
Which means legalization doesn't seem to make much difference for most prostitutes.
Legalization creates greater demand for younger girls, who the johns think are less likely to have an STD.
That's a totally unsupported comment, and something that's very unlikely.
You're probably right about the demand comment. This is another area, I don't think legalization would make much difference. Demand will be what it is.
recognizing the reality that black market prostitution causes.
What I got from the article is that most of the realities of prostitution are real for both black market and legal prostitution.
When prostitution is illegal, prostitutes have less protection from law enforcement and the rest of society and are more likely to be abused. Also if its made legal it would be possible to take the resources (or some fraction of them, saving some money for the taxpayer) used to crack down on prostitution and use it to crack down on abuse, trafficking, etc.
Thats the theory. Though I don't see it working that way in real life.
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From this mornings Houston Chronicle - page 1 - no word if he got ACORN housing assistance:
Accused cantina sex ring operator arrested in Mexico
By DANE SCHILLER
Copyright 2010 Houston Chronicle
March 2, 2010, 8:33PM
FBI
Gerardo “El Gallo” Salazar allegedly lured small-town women and teens.
A nearly five-year run from justice is over for the alleged leader of a depraved sex-trafficking ring accused of using beatings, threats and rape to force young immigrant women into slavery in Houston, according to Mexican authorities who captured him.
Gerardo “El Gallo” Salazar, whose nickname is Spanish for The Rooster, was snared in his hometown in the tiny state of Tlaxcala, outside Mexico City.
He was apparently first arrested on counterfeiting charges, but later confessed to being wanted in Houston, according to a news release Monday from Mexico's federal attorney general's office. He also tried to offer Mexican agents a bribe of a house and car not to extradite him, the statement continued.
Salazar, 45, was known to not only hoodwink his victims with lies of love, but mark them as his property with a tattoo of a rooster.
He would later strike them with belts, wooden spoons and cables, according to a federal indictment on file in Houston. In one beating described in the document, he ordered a teenager to get on her knees and beg for forgiveness for defying him.
Pending his positive identification and other hurdles, Salazar will likely be subject to a request for extradition to Houston to face charges including sexual assault of a child and sex trafficking.
“I never thought they'd catch the guy,” said Sgt. Michael Barnett, of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, which was part of the team that broke up the ring that forced victims to work as prostitutes from the back of Houston bars.
“Thanks to the FBI and a lot of their connections, they caught him,” he said.
Years of work done behind the scenes, by people who will never be known publicly, went into taking down Salazar and his associates, Barnett said.
Salazar is accused of running a gang that specialized in using fancy trucks and full wallets to romance small-town women and teenagers in Mexico, then lure them to the United States as girlfriends.
What came next was beyond anything they could have imagined, Barnett said.
“They are not prostitutes. They are somebody's daughter, from another country, who was kidnapped or tricked into coming to this country and forced to have sex by their captor,” he said.
During the day, Salazar and his fellow gangsters kept them locked in apartments and homes, authorities say, and at night, they were taken to Houston cantinas and sold over and over to customers, sometimes for as little as $50.
They were beaten into submission, according to an affidavit filed in court by FBI agent Maritza Conde-Vazquez, and captors knew to keep the bruises in places that would not show.
Among the many allegations against Salazar is an instance in which he told a teenager she had to earn at least $3,000 a week and that if she ever thought about leaving him he would kill her parents back in Mexico.
Jacinto City Police Det. B.J. Silva,, investigated part of Gallo's ring thanks to one victim calling 911 from a cell phone as her captor slept inside a home with boarded windows and burglar bars.
She later described being introduced at a club where a woman used a microphone to announce a “new visitor” in town. The men lined up, Silva said. “That little girl went through a lot.”
Jennifer Solak, senior staff attorney for Children at Risk, a Houston-based research and advocacy organization that among other missions, aims to better the live of sexual slavery victims, said the process can take years.
“It takes a while for them to realize that what they encountered wasn't their fault,” she said.
chron.com |
