Modern Day Slavery in America -- Over 300,000 U.S. Children Fall Prey to Sex Trafficking

By Dan Rather, Huffington Post
Posted on May 19, 2010, Printed on May 23, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/146932/

Child prostitution has become a national problem in this country. Yes, I know that you have trouble believing that. You don't want to believe it, so you tend not to.

"Widespread sex trafficking in children?" you may be saying to yourself. "Sure, it happens overseas in places like Thailand and Moldova, and while there may be some of it here there's not that much of it in our country."

Based on a months-long investigation and some reportorial digging, I'm here to tell you that you are wrong. We all are. We're in denial.

In covering news for more than 60 years, I'd like to think that few stories shock me anymore. But this is one of them. We ran across it late last year and the more we dug, the more disturbing it became.

Eighty-year-old men paying a premium to violate teenage girls, sometimes supplied by former drug gangs now into child sex trafficking big time? You've got to be kidding. Nope. That's happening and a lot more along the same lines.

The business is booming. One of the worst areas for it runs along lines running roughly from Seattle to Portland, to San Francisco and Los Angeles, to Las Vegas. But no place in the country is immune.

To pick just one example among many, Portland, Oregon is without doubt one of the nation's treasures. It has been voted one of the best places to live and work. But according to police, the city and its outlying communities has become a hub for the sexual exploitation of children. In a recent nationwide sting by federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, Portland ranked second in the country for the number of rescued child prostitutes. And according to Doug Justus, the workhorse sergeant in charge of Portland's tiny vice detail, many of the children caught up in this are middle class kids from the area.

The girls, sometimes as young as 12, often 13-16, are lured by a "front man" in his mid-to-late teens. He becomes her "boyfriend," taking her to dinner, buying her nice things, sometimes meeting her parents. The girl eventually moves in with him. Then he says they need money to continue being together. First, she's enticed to sleep with his friends to pay the rent. Soon she's turning tricks for what police say is an endless supply of older men willing to pay top money for sex with very young girls. Other times convincing the young adolescent girls to sell themselves happens very quickly.

"It is an out-of-control problem. It's unbelievable," say Justus. "I've only done this vice-squad job for three years. I've been a cop for 29. If you had told me three years ago that a 14-year-old girl would go to a food court, meet a guy, and three hours later be selling herself, I'd 'a said, no frigging way. It happens every single day, every day."

It is a very lucrative business, according to Justus. "An average pimp with one kid will make between $800 and $l,000 a day. That's seven days a week, 30 days a month," he said. And the pimps usually have a stable of young girls. No wonder so many criminals in the drug trade have turned to it which they have in droves. There's less chance of being caught, less chance of being prosecuted if caught, lighter sentences -- if any -- if convicted.

There is, and has been for a long time, a national "War on Drugs." There isn't one on child prostitution and what amounts to a slave trade. Only feeble efforts at best.

Justus is frustrated that the Portland police have only two full-time vice investigators, compared to dozens of drug investigators.

"I'm not a politician. I'm just a cop. But if I'm a criminal and I got busted for drugs and I had a regional (drug) task force over here. And there's another task force over there, and there, and then I know there's only two vice investigators in the city of Portland, let me think. I think I'll sell women because what are the chances of me being caught?"

The story we've prepared is not about prostitution per se. This is about child abuse. This is also about statutory rape and compelling prostitution among the young. All are difficult to prove. A major reason, according to police, is that it's extremely difficult to convince a young girl to testify against her pimps and johns. They are afraid.

Sgt. Justus told us the story of a 16-year-old girl whom he convinced to "roll" on her pimp. But before she could testify against him she disappeared -- and her pimp walked free. Justus has spent the last year looking for her and fears she's dead.

How many children are being peddled on the streets of Portland and in other cities and towns, to say nothing of the Internet? (Justus and other law enforcement people say Craigslist, along with other Internet sites, are major factors in the spread of child prostitution.) (Editor's note: Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster has previously highlighted Craigslist's efforts to fight sex trafficking, including collaborating with law enforcement and instituting moderation strategies for purging ads for illegal sex acts from the site). 

Hard to know the real numbers. The most conservative estimates are that at least 100,000 American children are being victimized. Many experts say they believe it's closer to 300,000 or more.

Whatever the number, it is a national outrage and disgrace. And the problem is growing, not diminishing.

Based on our investigation, we've prepared an hour-long program on this problem. We've spoken with parents who never dreamed their young daughter would be caught up in underage prostitution. We've also interviewed several girls who lived to tell about their experiences of being sold. Tuesday night at 8pm Eastern time on HDNet, via satellite and cable.

Watch a segment of the program.

 

© 2010 Huffington Post All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/146932/

________________________________

COMMENT

Bill_Perdue

Forced prostitution is a particular problem for young GLBT folks, gays and lesbians dumped on the streets or forced out of their homes by homohating christian parents.http://www.endhomelessness.org/ 

A January 30, 2007 report from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in collaboration with the National Coalition for the Homeless said that of the estimated 1.6 million homeless American youth, up to 42 percent identify as lesbian or gay, and a disproportionate number identify as bisexual or transgender. If under 10% are LGBT then that disproportion illustrates the huge problems facing young gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered folks. 

"Why do LGBT youth become homeless? In one study, 26 percent of gay teens who came out to their parents/guardians were told they must leave home. LGBT youth also leave home due to physical, sexual and emotional abuse. LGBT youth report they are threatened, belittled and abused at genpop shelters by staff as well as other residents." http://www.safeschoolscoalition.org/RG-homeless...

For the last three years already inadequate social spending has been slashed by draconian cuts by Obama, Congress, states, local governments and by ngo charity organizations. It's due to the long, global recession, loss of state and local tax revenue, mass unemployment, holding steady at about 17% (BLS U6 table of unemployment -http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm) and the rise of homelessness.

Unable to work because of their age and mass unemployment many GLBT youth end up being forced into street prostitution and becoming dependent on alcohol and other drugs. Many are beaten and raped repeatedly by johns, pimps and the police. For too many the last we hear of them is in a coroner's report. 

Since Carter and Reagan began the attack on the standards of living of working people 35 or so years ago, an attack sustained and intensified by the Bushes, Clinton and Obama, US society has significantly devolved. 

And children, LGBT and straight, are being made to pay the price - all too often it's the ultimate price. When the time comes when we reverse these last few decades and make fundamental changes there will be no forgiveness for what the looter class and the twin parties have done to our children. 

None whatsoever.

 

 

Drones and Democracy

Sunday 23 May 2010

by: Kathy Kelly and Joshua Brollier,

t r u t h o u t | Report

(Image: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: hyperion327)

Islamabad - On May 12, the day after a US drone strike killed 24 people in Pakistan's North Waziristan, two men from the area agreed to tell us their perspective as eyewitnesses of previous drone strikes.

One is a journalist, Safdar Dawar, general secretary of the Tribal Union of Journalists. Journalists are operating under very difficult circumstances in the area, pressured by both militant groups and the Pakistani government. Six of his colleagues have been killed while reporting in North and South Waziristan. The other man, who asked us not to disclose his name, is from Miranshah city, the epicenter of North Waziristan. He works with the locally based Waziristan Relief Agency, a group of people committed to helping the victims of drone attacks and military actions. "If people need blood or medicine or have to go to Peshawar or some other hospital," said the social worker, "I'm known for helping them. I also try to arrange funds and contributions."

Both men emphasized that Pakistan's government has only a trivial presence in the area. Survivors of drone attacks receive no compensation, and neither the military nor the government investigate consequences of the drone attacks.

Dawar added that when he phoned the local political representative regarding the May 12 drone attack, the man couldn't tell him anything. "If you get any new information," said the political representative, "please let me know."

In US newspapers, reports on drone attacks often amount to about a dozen words, naming the place and an estimated number of militants killed. The journalist and social worker from North Waziristan asked us why people in the US don't ask to know more.

It's hard to slow down and look at horrifying realities. Jane Mayer, writing for The New Yorker, ("The Predator War," October 26, 2009), quoted a former CIA official's description of a drone attack:

"People who have seen an air strike live on a monitor described it as both awe-inspiring and horrifying. 'You could see these little figures scurrying, and the explosion going off, and when the smoke cleared there was just rubble and charred stuff,' a former CIA officer who was based in Afghanistan after September 11th says of one attack."

"Human beings running for cover are such a common sight," Jane Mayer continued, "that they have inspired a slang term: 'squirters.'"

Just Rubble and Charred Stuff ...

The social worker recalled arriving at a home that was hit, in Miranshah, at about 9:00 PM, close to one year ago. The house was beside a matchbox factory, near the degree college. The drone strike had killed three people. Their bodies, carbonized, were fully burned. They could only be identified by their legs and hands. One body was still on fire when he reached there. Then he learned that the charred and mutilated corpses were relatives of his who lived in his village, two men and a boy aged seven or eight. They couldn't pick up the charred parts in one piece. Finding scraps of plastic, they transported the body parts away from the site. Three to four others joined in to help cover the bodies in plastic and carry them to the morgue.

But these volunteers and nearby onlookers were attacked by another drone strike, 15 minutes after the initial one. Six more people died. One of them was the brother of the man killed in the initial strike.

The social worker said that people are now afraid to help when a drone strike occurs because they fear a similar fate from a second attack. People will wait several hours after an attack just to be sure. Meanwhile, some lives will be lost that possibly could have been saved.

The social worker also told us that pressure from the explosion when a drone-fired missile or bomb hits can send bystanders flying through the air. Some are injured when their bodies hit walls or stone, causing fractures and brain injuries.

The social worker described four more cases in which he had been involved with immediate relief work following a drone attack. He didn't supply us with exact dates, and we weren't able to find news articles on the Internet which exactly matched his accounts. Riaz Khan, an AP reporter covering a drone strike on May 15, noted differences in details reported by witnesses and official sources. "Such discrepancies are common and are rarely reconciled," according to Khan (May 15 , "Officials: US missiles kill 5 in NW Pakistan").

Exasperated by the neglect and indifference people in Waziristan face, especially those who say they have nowhere to hide, the journalist and social worker began firing questions at us.

"If the US had good intelligence and they hit their targets with the first strike," Dawar asked, "why would the second one be necessary? If you already hit the supposed militant target, then why fire again?"

"Who has given the license to kill and in what court? Who has declared that they can hit anyone they like?"

"How many 'high level targets' could there possibly be?"

"What kind of democracy is America," Dawar asked, "where people do not ask these questions?"

Reliance on robotic warfare has escalated, from the Bush to the Obama administrations, with very little significant public debate. More than ever before, it is true that the US doesn't want our bodies to be part of warfare; there's also not much interest in our consent. All that is required is our money.

But you get what you pay for in the USA. The social worker and the journalist assured us that all of the survivors feel hatred toward the United States. "It is a real problem," said Dawar, "this rising hatred."

Nigerian Spills Make Valdez Look Like Drop in Bucket

by Chanan Tigay

 

(May 23) -- Now a month old, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill still dominates the headlines, with politicians, pundits and ordinary people debating who's to blame and wondering if it will eclipse the Exxon Valdez as the worst spill in U.S. history.

Meanwhile, Nigeria reportedly leaks as much oil as the Valdez -- which spewed nearly 11 million gallons of crude into Alaskan waters in 1989 -- every year, with little attention paid.

A top 10 oil exporter with proven reserves of 36 billion barrels, Nigeria today also ranks among the world's worst in petroleum safety. According to reports, last year alone the West African nation had more than 2,000 active spills.

George Osodi, AP

Nigerians evacuate their homes as an oil pipeline burns in 2005. Nigeria reportedly leaks as much oil as the Exxon Valdez did in 1989 every year.

Indeed, a half century of oil exploration -- and, experts say, exploitation -- has earned the Niger Delta a dubious distinction: Environmentalists call it the most polluted ecosystem on Earth.

Concerns about offshore drilling have intensified in light of the Gulf Coast spill, with President Barack Obama ordering a slow-down in new drilling while the accident's causes are investigated. Sensing an opening, a group of environmental and human rights activists this week released a hoax announcement claiming that Shell Oil had ordered a halt to its offshore operations in Nigeria.

Members of the Nigerian Justice League said their prank, timed to coincide with Shell's annual general meeting in the Hague, was meant to shine a light on Big Oil's role in damaging the Niger Delta region -- and triggering an increasingly violent atmosphere on the ground.

"Shell's operations in the delta have helped transform that area into the world's most polluted ecosystem, which has in turn resulted in a human rights catastrophe," said Christopher Francis, one of the Nigerian Justice League organizers.

No Hands Are Clean

Experts say that while Big Oil is not blameless, Nigeria's abysmal petroleum record in fact stems from an explosive mix of politics, weak regulation and corruption.

Oil production in Nigeria began in earnest during the 1950s, when the British discovered reserves in the delta, near Port Harcourt. Initially profits were split 50-50 between the colonial government and Shell, which the government had awarded a monopoly on mineral recovery. By the 1960s, though, a number of other oil companies had arrived on the scene, including Gulf, Mobil and Texaco.

Decades of messy oil exploration have since despoiled the delta environment, depriving the local population of its traditional livelihood: fishing. Experts say this has prompted the migration of many locals into surrounding communities populated by other ethnic groups, where they inevitably compete for land and resources, destabilizing the political landscape.

Matters were further complicated by the lengthy illness of Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua, who died earlier this month. He had launched a peaceful campaign to rein in a delta insurgency, aimed at oil infrastructure, that sprang up in the late 1990s. Efforts to curb the violence -- which has included bombings, kidnappings, and battles with government troops -- crumbled during Yar'Adua's sickness, however, and rebel attacks eventually slashed the region's oil production by more than half, clearing the way for Angola to overtake Nigeria as Africa's leading oil exporter.

Moreover, the oil companies have secured local approval for their operations using methods that "have not worked very well," according to former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria John Campbell.

"These methods often involved paying fees to traditional rulers," Campbell, now a senior fellow for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, told AOL News. "But either the 'traditional rulers' weren't traditional rulers, or they kept the money for themselves."

Patronage, often based on ethnic affiliations, has fed intertribal tensions, leading to violence between groups eager to maintain footholds in the oil-rich region, observers say.

For its part, Shell Oil says its critics ignore the challenging context in which the company operates.

"Shell shares concern about the environment and welfare of communities in the Niger Delta, but often the reality and complexity of operating in the delta is not recognized," a Shell spokesman told AOL news. "The vast majority of spills, for example, are the result of sabotage, but Shell cleans up the spills regardless of their cause."

One engineer who has worked on a U.S. oil company's offshore rig outside of the Democratic Republic of the Congo confirms Campbell's account of corruption in the region.

"For me to go offshore, I had to have a special card that would let me fly out there," he said, speaking to AOL News on condition of anonymity. "The card was a form of payment, so that some guy in the government could get a little extra money. So the company I was working for would pay him, and I had this little yellow piece of paper so that I could get on the helicopter.

"The people don't see the revenue that the oil company is paying the government," he said, adding that according to his colleagues who worked on rigs in Nigeria, "Nigeria's worse."

An Uncertain Future

By way of comparison to Nigeria's reported 2,000 active spills last year, a report prepared for the National Council for Science and the Environment says U.S. coastal waters saw 263 spills of 100 barrels or more a year, on average, between 2002 and 2004 (the last period for which complete data are available).

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. estimates that some 650,000 gallons of oil are spilled in 300 separate incidents each year. But conservative assessments from a World Bank study indicate that the figure is in fact a great deal higher. The Associated Press reported that Shell alone spilled nearly 4.5 million gallons of oil into the Niger Delta last year.

Insiders say that unlike the United States, a good number of Nigeria's spills are not the result of operational accidents but sabotage -- chiefly, "bunkering" operations in which mom-and-pop oil shops induce spills while attempting to tap pipelines.

Still, slim rays of hope are breaking through. Nigeria's new president, Goodluck Jonathan, has pledged to fight corruption and make peace in the Niger Delta a priority.

"The federal government, strictly aware of the need for a properly coordinated amnesty program, has achieved the much-desired peace in the Niger Delta region," Jonathan, a former environmental official with a degree in zoology, was recently quoted as saying by United Press International.

He was referring to a program in which thousands of former rebels put down their arms last year in exchange for promises of clemency, cash and employment. The initiative has bred a state of relative calm in the area.

"We will consolidate on the gains of the amnesty program and do all that is humanely possible to prevent the Niger Delta from once again descending into a nightmare," Jonathan said.

Meanwhile, a much-delayed measure known as the Petroleum Industry Bill now awaits action in the National Assembly. The so-called PIB, which has been the subject of long and sometimes difficult negotiations between the government and the oil industry, is an attempt at comprehensive reform of Nigeria's oil and gas industries. Among other things, it would boost the government's take in new offshore developments and improve community programs in the Niger Delta.

Many analysts, however, say the bill, at least in its current form, is unlikely to pass -- in large part because of strong opposition from the oil companies, which fear the measure would diminish their profits and could jeopardize billions of dollars in investments.

Concerned onlookers also worry that Big Oil has a big ally in Nigeria's new oil minister, Diezani Allison-Madueke. The daughter of a Shell employee, she spent close to 15 years working for the company's Nigerian joint venture.

For now, at least, it appears increasingly likely that the Gulf of Mexico spill will lead to a moratorium on offshore drilling in the United States. And while such a move would be cheered by environmentalists, some analysts warn that it may not be good news for Nigeria.

Writing in a New York Times op-ed, New America Foundation scholar Lisa Margonelli noted: "All oil comes from someone's backyard, and when we don't reduce the amount of oil we consume, and refuse to drill at home, we end up getting people to drill for us in Kazakhstan, Angola and Nigeria -- places without America's strong environmental safeguards or the resources to enforce them."

Jay-Z Performance on Saturday Night Live – Mini Concert of Hits!!

Posted by Dove in TV Junkie on 05/09/10 | no comments

Aaaaah yes! If you were fortunate enough to catch Betty White and Jay-Z on Saturday Night Live tonight (May 8), then you already know how epic it really was. Jay-Z ripped it with his medley of hits, while Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph and others reunited for the most LOL’s I’ve had in a long time!

Shouts to MrWorldPremiere.net!

South African Rappers Engage in Social Struggle

 

Story by: Simon Taylor

 

City: Cape Town

 

>via: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4dr0Y8emMU&feature=player_embedded

Creative Works Competition

The Aesthetica Creative Works Competition is internationally recognised for identifying new artists and writers and bringing them to international attention. Previous finalists have achieved success and recognition with accolades including: writing commissions from Channel 4, selection to represent Australia in the Florence Biennale, exhibitions at DACS (London), John Martin Gallery (London), Flores Fine Art Gallery (New York), inclusion in the International Drawing Competition exhibition (Poland) and the National Geographic International Photographic exhibition. The Aesthetica Creative Works Competition represents the scope of creative activity today, and provides an opportunity for both new and established artists to nurture their reputations on an international scale.

Download the poster
Are you as excited as we are? Download the official Creative Works Poster to display in your local area, and spread the word. Click here

The categories
There are three categories: Artwork & Photography, Fiction and Poetry.

 

Winners

• There will be three winners. One from each category.
• Each winner will receive £500.
• Winners will be published in the Aesthetica Creative Works Annual.
• Winners will receive a complimentary copy of the Aesthetica Creative Works Annual.

Finalists

• Finalists will be published in the Aesthetica Creative Works Annual.
• Finalists will receive a complimentary copy of the Aesthetica Creative Works Annual.

Deadline for submissions is 31 August 2010. All winners will be notified by 31 October 2010 and the Aesthetica Creative Works Annual will be published 1 December 2010.

What are you waiting for? Send us your creative works today!

• Click here to see a copy of last year's Creative Works Annual.
• Click here to see the winners and finalists of last year's competiton.
• Click here to see the Frequently Asked Questions page.

Artwork & Photography Guidelines

• Submit up to 2 images.
• All works must be at least 300dpi.
• Please send all images as JPG, TIF or PDF files.
• Please include in the email your name, email address, home address, phone number, your full name, title of your works, and your Order Reference number.
• Please mark your entry in the subject line with 'Aesthetica Creative Works Competition Artwork'.
• No alterations can be made once the submission has been received.

Fiction Guidelines

• Submit up to 2 short stories.
• Word count up to 2000 words per piece.
• Please include in the email your name, email address, home address, phone number, your full name, title of your works, and your Order Reference number.
• Please mark your entry in the subject line with 'Aesthetica Creative Works Competition Fiction'.
• No alterations can be made once the submission has been received.

Poetry Guidelines

• Submit up to 2 poems.
• No more than 40 lines each.
• Please include in the email your name, email address, home address, phone number, your full name, title of your works, and your Order Reference number.
• Please mark your entry in the subject line with 'Aesthetica Creative Works Competition Poetry'.
• No alterations can be made once the submission has been received.

Eligibility

• The competition is open to anyone in the world.
• Creative works should be written in English.
• Please inform us if your work has been published elsewhere.
• You may submit more than once.

Terms & Conditions

• A £10 entry/administration fee is required to enter the Aesthetica Creative Works Competition.
• We reserve the right to be selective; just because you submit you will not automatically be published.
• Deadline for submissions is 31 August 2010.
• You will be notified of the results by 31 October 2010, please do not contact us beforehand.

Frequently Asked Questions
If you have any further enquiries, please visit our Frequently Asked Questions page. Competition FAQs

How to enter:
Click the 'Add to Basket' button to pay the £10 entry/administration fee.

 

 

Upon receipt of payment, an automated Order Reference number is emailed to you. Simply include this number in your submission subject line and email to submissions@aestheticamagazine.com.

Healing the Earthquakes: Jimmy Santiago Baca

-->

 

First Aired: 9/25/2000
28 minutes

Chicano poet, novelist and screenwriter Jimmy Santiago Baca's vivid autobiographical writings reflect the mixed cultural influences of his Southwestern upbringing. Mr. Baca reads selections from his work before an audience at La Jolla's Sherwood Auditorium. (#3002)

General

Jimmy Santiago Baca’s Web site

Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego

 

Five days in the favela: A Hard Day's Work

Despite their lack of opportunities and resources, the hard-working and ingenious people of Favela Mare have created micro-business opportunities and a thriving local economy

• Ben Holman and Michael Tait
• guardian.co.uk,
• Thursday 20 May 2010

• 
  Five days in the favela: 'I know what it feels like to rob because of… (11min 27sec) 21 May 2010
• 
  Five days in the favela: 'The samba is infinite' (10min 21sec) 19 May 2010
• 
  Five days in the favela: Fighting for peace (10min 59sec) 18 May 2010
• 
  Five days in the favela: Welcome to Complexo da Maré (10min 15sec) 17 May 2010

 

Series: Five days in the favela