Houston's Sex Slave Bars Still Serving

By: Neil Katz
Topics: Daily Blotter

(Niall Carson/PA Wire URN)

Portrait of a young woman is seen as police struggle to shut down a sex trafficking ring in Houston.

Despite a high level police investigation, a bevy of victims, and repeated press coverage, Houston police have been unable to close a group of seedy cantinas at the center of a sex trafficking ring, the Houston Chronicle is reporting today.

In a lengthy investigative report, the Chronicle tells the story of Gerardo Salazar, a Mexican American who allegedly has been running a sex trafficking operation that smuggles young Mexican women into America on false hopes of romance and fortune. Instead, a federal indictment claims, they are imprisoned, beaten and forced to sexually serve clients at his bars.

Salazar calls himself El Gallo, in Spanish, 'The Rooster,' and forces his victims to tattoo an image of one on their bodies. And though he has evaded federal authorities and escaped to Mexico, the cantina sex trade he helped build in Houston continues to flourish.

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by JeffLewis999 February 17, 2011 11:12 PM EST: There is a lot of controversy over the numbers of adult woman who are forced sex slaves. The real factual answer is that no one knows. There is hard evidence that the sex slavery/sex trafficking issue continues to report false information and is greatly exaggerated by politicians, the media, and aid groups, feminist and religious organizations that receive funds from the government, The estimate of adult women who become new sex slaves ranges anywhere from 40 million a year to 5,000 per year all of which appear to be much too high. They have no evidence to back up these numbers, and no one questions them about it. Their sources have no sources, and are made up numbers. In fact if some of these numbers are to believed which have either not changed or have been increased each year for the past twenty years, all woman on earth would currently be sex slaves. Yet, very few real forced against their will sex slaves have been found.

"If media reports on sex trafficking in Nepal are to be believed, there would be no young girls left in Nepal at this time"

It is not easy for criminals to engage in this acitvity:
Sex trafficking is illegal and the pentities are very severe. It is very difficult to force someone to be a sex slave, they would have to have 24 hour guards posted and be watched 365 days a year, 24 hours per day. Have the threat of violence if they refused, and have no one notice and complain to the authorities or police. They would need to hide from the general public yet still manage to see customers from the general public. They would need to provide them with medical care, food, shelter, and have all their basic needs met. They would need to have the sex slaves put on a fake front that they enjoyed what they were doing, act flirtatious and do their job well. They would have to deal with the authorities looking for the missing women, and hide any money they may make, since it comes from illegal activity. They must do all of this while constantly trying to prevent the sex slaves from escaping and reporting them to the police. This is extremely difficult to do, which makes this activity rare. These criminals would be breaking dozens of major laws not just one. Kidnapping itself is a serious crime. There are many laws against sex trafficking, sex slavery, kidnapping, sex abuse, rape, sexual harassment etc. If someone is behind it, they will be breaking many serious laws, be in big trouble, and will go to jail for many long years.
While there are some women who may be true victims. And it is possible for this to happen in rare situations. This is a small rare group of people and that the numbers and scale of this crime is exaggerated. The very nature of someone pulling off a kidnapping and forced sex for profit appears to be very difficult. Since it would be difficult this makes this crime rare. Not impossible, but extremely rare.

A key point is that on the sidelines the prostitutes themselves are not being listened to. They oppose laws against prostitution. But no one wants to listen to the prostitutes themselves. Only to the self appointed experts that make up numbers and stories many of which have never met a real forced sex slave or if they did it was only a few. The media and government never ask the prostitutes themselves what would help them in terms of laws.

Many women in the sex business are independent workers. They don't have a pimp.
They work for themselves, advertise themselves, and keep all the money for themselves. No one forces them, because there isn't anyone to force them. They go out and find their own customers, set their own prices, and arrange everything by themselves. Sometimes they may employ others to help them, but these are not pimps. If for example, she hires an internet web design company to make a website for her, does that make the web design company a pimp? If she pays a phone company for a phone to do business, does this make the phone company a pimp? If she puts an ad in the paper, does this make the editor a pimp? If she puts the money she makes into a bank account does this make the bank a pimp?

A lot of anti prostitution groups would say yes. Everyone and everybody is a pimp.
These groups make up lies, and false statistics that no one bothers to check. A big reason they do this is because it provides high paying jobs for them. They get big donations, and grants from the government, charity, churches, etc. to have these groups, and pay these workers.; Reply to this comment


by mariamami August 21, 2010 5:05 PM EDT: Gerardo Salazar is a riff raff that ruined these young girls/women's lives. He's terrible.; Reply to this comment