Criminal Networks Prey on Teen Prostitutes

(CBS)  "This is something that I can't take back," said Jessica. "This is something that I am going to regret for the rest of my life."

Jessica is a straight-A student who didn't want to be identified. She was afraid she'd have to drop out of college when her father lost his job in the auto industry. As she confided to a friend on this Michigan campus, someone was listening.

"A man approached me and offered me, you know pretty much a way to pay for school," she said.

Earning $400 a trick. She said yes.

"You come from a nice family. With good values. Was there something about it that made you think, gosh things aren't that bad that I have to prostitute myself?" CBS News anchor Katie Couric asked.

"There was that voice in the back of my head saying, 'Oh, you know, things aren't this bad off.' And then you get the school bill," she said. "And you'd be like, we'll I'm not going to be able to get $14,000 any other way."

In 10 days, she earned $2,500.

"How did you feel afterwards?" Couric asked.

"I always felt dirty," Jessica said. "I would always go home and shower just a couple of times. And you know, you just feel scummy."

For Rosita, it wasn't about the money. It was a way to cope with her father's death from cancer. When she was 15 years old, a man walked up to her outside her middle school in Columbus, Ohio, and told her how pretty she was, and that he wanted to be her boyfriend. He turned out to be a pimp.

"He would take me to this office space that someone was leasing out to him and he would set up dates," Rosita said.

She spent the next three years averaging eight customers a day - $150 a piece - all of it went to her pimp.

"I just felt like I was put out to die," Rosita said.

"This is not the kind of problem America thinks it is," said Ernie Allen, with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Allen said prostitutes in this country are younger than ever, and they no longer all come from impoverished or broken homes.

"What we are seeing now is an increasing number of middle class kids and up - many of whom do it originally on a dare, or because they think it is interesting or different. And then find themselves trapped," Allen said.

In the last several years, a federal initiative to save girls from the street, called "Innocence Lost" has conducted thousands of sting operations in more than 30 cities - 700 victims rescued and 400 pimps locked up.

CBS News went inside a sting operation in Washington, D.C., where agents were searching for underage girls on Internet sites.

"They look young, and also the photographs are from a playground," Couric said.

All part of a booming billion-dollar business that's becoming increasingly high-tech and underground.

An undercover officer arranges a date with a young girl in an ad.

"Hey, how are you doing?" the officer asked. "I was just scanning the Internet, and I'd like to meet up with you."

A short while later, in room 1141, they agreed to a price.

"How much is two hours?" the officer asked.

"He wants to know how much it will be for two hours … $480," the girl responded.

"$480? OK, yeah I got that," the officer said.

A 17-year-old in the business since she was 15 was arrested. An officer said she would be interviewed to see if she wanted to get out of "the lifestyle."

The parents of thousands of these girls are flooding hotlines, looking for help.

Clint Lacy's daughter was 16 when she became a prostitute.

"It never entered my mind that the opportunity for her to go down this road would be there," Lacy said.

Living with her mother in Atlanta after he parents divorced, she ran away, and was lured by a pimp who showered her with gifts and attention.

"I went to great lengths to stay in contact with her," Lacy said. "In finding websites. And doing whatever I had to do to get a phone number for her."

Trying to get his daughter off the streets has cost him $30,000, but nothing has worked. He's desperate to have her home.

"I'd love to have her," Lacy said. "I'd love to have her walking through the door."

Rosita was rescued from the streets just in time. She's earned her GED and is now living in a group home.

"I feel loved," Rosita said. "And they do care. It's about helping to see who I am and helping me to get to know myself and showing me that I'm worth it."

Jessica said the best thing that ever happened to her was getting caught in this FBI sting, along with her pimp.

"You must have been pretty scared," Couric said.

"I was shocked," Couric said. "You kind of reflect and go, 'How did I end up here?'"

A first offender, she was released. Now she's taking a few semesters off, working two jobs and saving money.

"Do you think you'd every go back to doing this again?" Couric asked.

"No, you know, now that I've really thought about it, I'm just mortified that I did it in the first place," Jessica said.

For more information:

National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

Alternatives for Girls

Shared Hope International

National Human Trafficking Resource Center

Children of the Night

Girls Educational & Mentoring Services (GEMS)

Wake Up Youth

Second Chance Toledo

[PleaseHelpMissingChildren]

If young women were raised to believe that they are worthy of love, worthwhile, important and vital people, I believe we wouldn't see so many reaching out in attempts to validate themselves in physical ways.
Through neglect, abuse, degredation, sex oriented promotion of products and movies, and more.. we've created a society where women are turned into victimes and men believe that it's ok to pray on the vulnerable. NOT every woman and NOT every man. But OBVIOUSLY far too many of both.
This being said, I applaud Ms. Couric for her determination to bring to light a horrendous practice.
I can't help but wonder how much longer the people within our societies will permit each facet of the creation of people taking part in this insidious practice.

[sheilaaver]

By Michelle Mondo - San Antonio Express-News:
Children who are forced into prostitution are often being arrested for a multitude of offenses and sent through the juvenile justice system instead of being treated as victims, according to a nationwide report that looked at data from cities around the country, including San Antonio.

Shared Hope International, a nonprofit group that works to ?rescue and restore? women and children who are victims of sexual exploitation and violence, conducted the study that was released Tuesday to a packed room at a congressional hearing on human trafficking. It comes as Texas attempts to create statewide groups to tackle the issue.

The offense is referred to as domestic minor sex trafficking, or DMST. Experts claim U.S. minors are being forced into prostitution but often are arrested on offenses for drugs, theft or running away and then being labeled as delinquents and criminals instead of victims. The nonprofit found that here, as in other cities, there are few resources available for victims and a prevailing notion that trafficking victims usually are foreign.

Linda Smith, CEO of Shared Hope International, spoke in front of Congress and has said repeatedly that there needs to be a change of perception about the victims.

?I think when I showed the video of pimps selling girls on the streets, I think it was shocking,? she said about the reaction to the presentation. ?Seeing a pimp and a girl in a room, I think there was a lot of reality they had never seen before and it put it in perspective.?

Smith and others hope to reach a point where runaways and possible child prostitutes are provided with shelter and counseling before they are arrested.

Dallas is considered a model because of its police department's anti-trafficking and child exploitation unit and the partnerships it has to provide shelter for runaways in a variety of places, including the Letot Center run by Dallas County.

Creating partnerships to find those resources is a goal of a new statewide nonprofit organization called the Texas Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Child Sexual Exploitation Coalition. It will work to create a network of agencies from the local, state and national levels to provide services and shelter for minors, said Chris Burchell, who is spearheading the effort.

Also, in the 2009 legislative session, there was approval to create an anti-trafficking task force headed by the attorney general's office that will work as a law enforcement unit. However, no funding was appropriated.

Smith said that is a recurring problem. She pointed to federal laws that called for shelters to be created for trafficking victims, but those same laws provided no funding for cash-strapped states.

?You need to deal with the issue,? she said about lawmakers. ?You can't say you are for protecting children and not fund homes to protect those children.?

[sheilaaver]

By Michelle Mondo - San Antonio Express-News:
Children who are forced into prostitution are often being arrested for a multitude of offenses and sent through the juvenile justice system instead of being treated as victims, according to a nationwide report that looked at data from cities around the country, including San Antonio.

Shared Hope International, a nonprofit group that works to ?rescue and restore? women and children who are victims of sexual exploitation and violence, conducted the study that was released Tuesday to a packed room at a congressional hearing on human trafficking. It comes as Texas attempts to create statewide groups to tackle the issue.

The offense is referred to as domestic minor sex trafficking, or DMST. Experts claim U.S. minors are being forced into prostitution but often are arrested on offenses for drugs, theft or running away and then being labeled as delinquents and criminals instead of victims. The nonprofit found that here, as in other cities, there are few resources available for victims and a prevailing notion that trafficking victims usually are foreign.

Linda Smith, CEO of Shared Hope International, spoke in front of Congress and has said repeatedly that there needs to be a change of perception about the victims.

?I think when I showed the video of pimps selling girls on the streets, I think it was shocking,? she said about the reaction to the presentation. ?Seeing a pimp and a girl in a room, I think there was a lot of reality they had never seen before and it put it in perspective.?

Smith and others hope to reach a point where runaways and possible child prostitutes are provided with shelter and counseling before they are arrested.

Dallas is considered a model because of its police department's anti-trafficking and child exploitation unit and the partnerships it has to provide shelter for runaways in a variety of places, including the Letot Center run by Dallas County.

Creating partnerships to find those resources is a goal of a new statewide nonprofit organization called the Texas Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Child Sexual Exploitation Coalition. It will work to create a network of agencies from the local, state and national levels to provide services and shelter for minors, said Chris Burchell, who is spearheading the effort.

Also, in the 2009 legislative session, there was approval to create an anti-trafficking task force headed by the attorney general's office that will work as a law enforcement unit. However, no funding was appropriated.

Smith said that is a recurring problem. She pointed to federal laws that called for shelters to be created for trafficking victims, but those same laws provided no funding for cash-strapped states.

?You need to deal with the issue,? she said about lawmakers. ?You can't say you are for protecting children and not fund homes to protect those children.?

[gunownerdan]

We can easily solve this problem once and for all.

It's time to LEGALIZE and REGULATE PROSTITUTION!

[proud_churchgoer]

They should have turned to Jesus and they would not have done these dirty acts.

[AttentionDeficit]

No, they would have been voluntary slaves like you

[longtree-2009]

legalize prostitution like NV. prostitutes could be monitored for STDs, provided protection under the law, revenue could be taxes. it's working in NV so why not other states? legal prostitution might reduce sex crimes against women, men, children across the nation. if we can legalize same sex marriages, have legal marijuana in some states then why not legalize prostitution.

[Michelle48188]

Obama in the British Media

Here is an interesting editorial from someone outside our country as to what is going on!


If al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the rest of the Looney Tunes brigade want to kick America to death, they had better move in quickly and grab a piece of the action before Barack Obama finishes the job himself. Never in the history of the United States has a president worked so actively against the interests of his own people - not even Jimmy Carter.

Obama's problem is that he does not know who the enemy is. To him, the enemy does not squat in caves in Waziristan, clutching automatic weapons and reciting the more militant verses from the Koran: instead, it sits around at tea parties in Kentucky quoting from the US Constitution. Obama is not at war with terrorists, but with his Republican fellow citizens. He has never abandoned the campaign trail.

That is why he opened Pandora's Box by publishing the Justice Department's legal opinions on waterboarding and other hardline interrogation techniques. He cynically subordinated the national interest to his partisan desire to embarrass the Republicans. Then he had to rush to Langley, Virginia to try to reassure a demoralised CIA that had just discovered the President of the United States was an even more formidable foe than al-Qaeda..

"Don't be discouraged by what's happened the last few weeks," he told intelligence officers. Is he kidding? Thanks to him, al-Qaeda knows the private interrogation techniques available to the US intelligence agencies and can train its operatives to withstand them - or would do so, if they had not already been outlawed.

So, next time a senior al-Qaeda hood is captured, all the CIA can do is ask him nicely if he would care to reveal when a major population centre is due to be hit by a terror spectacular, or which American city is about to be irradiated by a dirty bomb. Your view of this situation will be dictated by one simple criterion: whether or not you watched the people jumping from the twin towers...

President Pantywaist's recent world tour, cozying up to all the bad guys, excited the ambitions of America's enemies. Here, they realised, is a sucker they can really take to the cleaners.

His only enemies are fellow Americans.

Which prompts the question: why does President Pantywaist hate America so badly?

[tmittelstaed]

There's a huge difference between kids and adults engaged in the sex trade. Kids legally cannot give consent. And morally, they can't give consent either - since they haven't had any life experience to judge what they are getting into. And I count many 18 year olds as "kids" from this respect - even though legally they may be able to give consent, morally they cannot.

No kid can sell themselves - selling themselves implies they can enter into a legal transaction, which they simply cannot, not morally not legally. So claiming that 16 year olds can sell themselves is flat out nonsense.

The unfortunate problem with this story is that CBS is mixing outright prostitution - Jessica, the college student who chose to go into prostitution - with pedophilia, the Rosita story. The two issues are completely different. The college student wasn't a kid. She made a conscious choice to GET involved, then a choice to STAY involved, and she and her pimp were just as bad as each other. She got caught, so she's going to blame the pimp - because she doesn't want to face the fact that she, herself, chose this. Rosita, by contrast, was an exploited sex slave who was completely the victim.

Most people would be surprised by the number of college girls out there willingly engaged in the sex trade. The majority of them are doing nude dancing or working in topless bars or doing photo layouts, or some such, and never go beyond that. The majority of them are also doing this perfectly legally. And why wouldn't they be doing this? College costs are sky-high and the only answer anyone has is for these kids to go so deep in debt to pay for college that unless they are getting a MBA, they will never pay off the loan for the rest of their lives.

As Jessica said: "And then you get the school bill," she said. "And you'd be like, we'll I'm not going to be able to get $14,000 any other way." So, what exactly does anyone expect? Why does anyone think it is at all reasonable to saddle an 18 year old with a $14,000 bill for college expenses for a couple terms of college? What does anyone really expect these students to do? When they can make so much money for so little time and effort? They don't HAVE the time to work at much more than this - they have to spend most of their time studying! So, they go and do photo spreads, or dance, or wait tables in bars, and the rest of society pretends that they are paying for their educations with school loans, and 4 years later when they graduate with their degree in Art history and no college debt, nobody asks any questions, and we all pretend that they paid for their education working summers at the local burger barn. Sure, sure!!

[wtcmedic911]

lack of morals and television shows. paris hilton, lohan and all the others.

[sharoncalla]

I think for the welfare of boys and girls, we need craft barns to teach the girls how to sew, can, bake breads, paint a room, make small xmas gifts, even wreaths. For the boys house building skills, simple mechanics, light car repairs, body shop work, simple electrical skills, window pane repair, plumbing skills, in other words fill their minds with useful things and in this respect keeps them off of drugs, sex/crime thoughts, and other filthy things like robbing banks, stealing from others, to get ahead. Kids live what they learn, and kids need to know and learn how to be self efficient right along with Algebra, Biology, and Calculus. Also, kids need to do chores at home "voluntairly" and stay off the streets and out of harms way. A real clean up now may represent the next generation. It's called clean and organized living. Being accountable for your time instead of just lazing around. There was a quote and no I don't know who wrote it, "An idle mind is the devils workshop". Stay so busy your left hand doesn't know what your right hand is doing. I hope at least one young person reads this. Then pass it on.

[wtcmedic911]

smartest thing ive read in ages here. my daugher is 16 and its all horses 24/7 and teaching handicaped kids to ride. the other country gals are also this way not into selling themselves.