by sam » Fri Feb 17, 2006 5:37 pm
Young Lives for Sale
Why more kids are getting into the sex trade--and how the feds are fighting back
By Bay Fang
U.S. News and World Report
10/24/05
The younger they are, the more they're worth on the street. "There is a greater and greater demand for younger and younger kids," says Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
On the "strolls" of Sunset Boulevard and Figueroa, in South-Central Los Angeles, girls step out from the shadows in tiny skirts and stiletto heels. Detective Keith Haight sizes them up. He doesn't bother stopping unless they look underage, but it's hard to tell nowadays. Haight has been working these streets for 25 years and has seen the girls getting younger. This drop in age is due both to the rise of the Internet, which provides ready access to child pornography, and to the fear of HIV/AIDS. "Back then, if you found a 15- or 16-year-old, that was a big deal. But now, they're 11 or 12," he says.
Tom O'Brien, the criminal division chief of the Los Angeles U.S. attorney's office, describes a conversation he had with one 14-year-old prostitute who was testifying against her pimp. "I told her, 'When I was your age, I thought I'd live forever.' She looked me in the eye and said, 'Mr. O'Brien, I'll be dead before I'm 21.' "
Last edited by
sam on Thu Jul 20, 2006 9:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.