Be careful..

Reading an article about an underage trafficking bust and noticed this.. Tragic, but be careful those who do outcalls in hotels.


People often speak about prostitution as a “victimless” crime. Try telling that to a 12-year-old whose body was traded to a stranger.

Nationally and across the Midlands, hundreds of girls and women, boys and men are coerced into lives of forced employment, often sexual slavery. Most of this “human trafficking” is illegal under federal law.

States such as Nebraska also have stepped up and passed their own anti-trafficking laws to give state and local police more tools to help. Nebraska in recent years increased penalties for pimps and johns and made trafficking in underage prostitutes a form of child abuse.

In recent days, Nebraskans got another reminder of why the hard work against trafficking continues. Two victims were rescued and 21 Omaha-area people arrested as part of a federal sting against trafficking children for the sex trade.

Nationwide, 149 underage trafficking victims were rescued and 153 pimps arrested in the week-long federal, state and locally policed Operation Cross Country IX, the Justice Department announced. That’s a lot of lives saved.
U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch is correct when she describes human trafficking as “a monstrous and devastating crime that steals lives and degrades our nation.” It does exactly that.

It’s not always the runaway child or drug addict who gets snapped up into the world of sex slavery. Some people, for a myriad of reasons, get pulled into that orbit, then won’t or can’t get out.

Theirs is a world that’s dangerous to leave. That’s why the Justice Department works so hard to help victims get their lives back together, helping them find food, clothing and shelter.

The work is deeper than a one-off investigation. Earlier this month, the Justice Department announced a $600,000 grant to help Nebraska set up its own specialized team within the State Attorney General’s Office to help train hotel and other workers who might encounter trafficking. The grant also helps train local law enforcement.

The Nebraska State Patrol already has a separate team of investigators in place, dedicated to each region of the state. These new positions will offer some needed support.

That’s a lot of good people our governments have working to stop a supposedly victimless crime. So how victimless is it, really?
The youngest victim of Nebraska’s part of the latest federal sting was 12 years old. Too young to give consent. That, alone, is a great reason to police prostitution.

http://www.omaha.com/opinion/world-h...c8dbdac41.html


Granted, I doubt anyone here has to worry about trafficking but it means hotel workers eyes WILL be watching for any type of activity...

it means hotel workers eyes WILL be watching for any type of activity

Got that right. The other problem is they won't stop at defining trafficking as underage girls, they'll include adult providers as well. Anytime there's a federal gravy train pulling out the local cops are going be falling over themselves to get on board.

Elizabeth Nolan Brown with Reason Magazine wrote a great piece attacking the straw man arguments for continued criminalization of prostitution found in this article. (https://reason.com/blog/2015/10/03/s...s-prostitution) She argues that slavery is abhorrent in all of its forms, from sex trafficking, to forced labor in New York nail salons, to the plantation system in the antebellum south, yet no one wants to ban manicures or agriculture, only prostitution. She further claims that the criminalization of consensual prostitution actually makes it more difficult to prosecute sex-traffickers, since sex-workers and their clients are less likely to report suspected cases of trafficking out of fear of having criminal action pursued against them for their own activities.

There is a ton of great journalism coming out of the Reason Foundation on topics related to sex work, from coverage of the closure of rentboy.com by the Department of Homeland Security, to organized attempts by sex-worker advocacy groups to legalize prostitution. I advise all escorts and their clients to check it out and educate themselves regarding these important issues of interest to the community. I believe that education on these topics is more important now than ever, because the political climate has never been riper for reform than it is today.

In the majority opinion of the 2003 Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas, which overturned state statutes criminalizing homosexual acts, Justice Kennedy argued, “The petitioners [Lawrence and Garner] are entitled to respect for their private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime.” It would seem that this same privacy logic should also apply to all sex acts among consenting adults, including prostitution. However, Justice Kennedy went on to explicitly state,

“The present case does not involve minors. It does not involve persons who might be injured or coerced or who are situated in relationships where consent might not easily be refused. It does not involve public conduct or prostitution. It does not involve whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter”

Twelve years later, in Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark decision on gay marriage, the court ruled on the last point arguing that the right of homosexuals to marry is protected by the due process clause and the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. Perhaps a future court will argue that the right of consenting adults to engage in their choice of consensual sexual behavior is an unenumerated right protected by the 9th Amendment.

However, change does not begin in the courts. Change begins in conversations and debates at the dinner table and around the water cooler. Lawrence v. Texas did not become the law of the land until well after a majority of Americans opposed sodomy bans. The same is true of Obergefell v. Hodges and support for same-sex marriage.

That is why it is so critically important that we, as a community, rally against the logical fallacies contained in this article which are regularly trotted out to argue for the continued criminalization of prostitution. We need to make clear to people that prostitution among consenting adults has no more in common with sex trafficking than agriculture has with slavery. If we can change enough hearts and minds, perhaps we can create an environment in which we can achieve real change through the judicial system.

It is important to remember that legalizing prostitution is about so much more than my right to bust a sweet nut and the right of providers to earn a quick buck. It is about the rights of sex workers to justice against their unscrupulous customers who assault them, steal from them, rape them, and even kill them. It is about enabling sex workers and their clients to report suspected instances of trafficking without fear of legal reprisal. It is about the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Moved to proper forum for discussion.

Well said Natetron.

The same goes for recreational drug use. We throw these human behaviors into the darkness and then wonder why things only get darker.

BTW, thanks for the post Arianna. You rock!