Underage Sex Trafficking -- The Myths, The Meeting

By Chuck Strouse Tue., Feb. 1 2011 at 9:25 AM

If you believe the Other Voices column published in the Miami Herald Sunday, Village Voice Media is a big bad monster. After all, we own Backpage.com, which is the "market leader in online sex ads." And those ads allegedly traffic millions of underage girls -- particularly this week, when the Super Bowl is taking place in Dallas.

Problem is, as former Cleveland Scene editor and my buddy Pete Kotz points out in a story that went up on our website today. The Super Bowl tie is a bunch of baloney.

Moreover, there are 18 safeguards that stop underage prostitutes from advertising -- or being advertised -- on Backpage. And as Jerry Markon of the Washington Post wrote back in 2007, the phenomenon of human trafficking is vastly overblown. It certainly exists -- just like teen prostitution -- but the numbers are nowhere near what opponents would have you think.

But hey, that ain't stopping the Women's Fund of Miami-Dade County and the Women's Funding Network from setting up a meeting tomorrow morning at the Riviera Theater in Coral Gables to protest our nefarious deeds. They want to bring together elected officials and others to pressure federal authoriies and others to stop this kind of advertising.

Just hope they do their research first.

Tags:

backpage.com, sex trafficking, women's funding network

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thetruth

Sex trafficking is illegal and the pentities are very severe. It is very difficult to force someone to be a prostitute, 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 and not have the customers turn the traffickers in to the police. 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. They would need to prevent the general public from reporting them into 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. And do you actually think that there is a long line of people who want to have a career as a sex slave kidnapping pimp? Here are some good websites about sex trafficking: http://bebopper76.wordpress.com http://sextraffickingtruths.blogspot.com/ http://www.villagevoice.com/sex-trafficking/ http://www.melonfarmers.co.uk/thread...cking_hype.htm

EqualityRocks

The important part of the article is not about The Backpage. It is about the exploitation of children. I would have added this note: If you don't understand that sex with underage girls for money is sick; do us alll a favor and ask someone to explain it to you.

DirtSquirrel

I'm more concerned with street hooking.

It boggles my mind why cops can't do anything about something as obvious as a pimp on a bike riding behind his prostitute down Biscayne Blvd. Time to clean house on those hotels. The area needs it.