Report: Hundreds Forced Into Labor, Sex in Ohio

[steven johnson]

Source: Associated Press

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: February 10, 2010
Filed at 11:54 p.m. ET

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- About 1,000 American-born children are forced into the sex trade in Ohio every year and about 800 immigrants are sexually exploited and pushed into sweatshop-type jobs, a new report on human trafficking in the state said Wednesday.

Ohio's weak laws on human trafficking, its growing demand for cheap labor and its proximity to the Canadian border are key contributors to the illegal activity, according to a report by the Trafficking in Persons Study Commission.

''Ohio is not only a destination place for foreign-born trafficking victims, but it's also a recruitment place,'' said Celia Williamson, an associate professor at the University of Toledo who led the research.

From 1990 to 2000, Ohio's foreign-born population increased 30 percent, and the state has a growing pool of legal and illegal immigrants who draw victims or hide victims, Williamson said. These networks are highly organized, with brothels fronting as legitimate businesses.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/02/10/us/AP-US-Human-Trafficking.html?_r=1&ref=news

[Suji to Seoul]

1. Ohio now has something in common with Burma, Laos, Zimbabwe and every other

military and humanitarian challenged country in the world. . .forced sex trafficking.

WAY TO GO!!! And you thought you could only buy and 11 year old boy to sleep with on the streets of Rangoon and Bangkok.

Sickening.

[Frosty cupcake]

10. don't miss this part near the end

of the article:

"Ohio is quick to label child prostitutes as delinquents and to incarcerate them, rarely looking further at the adults involved."

[Shallah Kali]

53. In Georgia Christian groups are opposing a bill that would put kids in rehab instead of jail

Every state should be helping these children instead of jailing them for prostitution.

Georgia’s Christian right comes out against bills aimed at child prostitution
http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim-galloway/2010/02/01/georgias-christian-right-comes-out-against-bills-aimed-at-child-prostitution/?cxntfid=blogs_political_insider_jim_galloway

The weight of the state’s Christian right movement just came down in opposition to a pair of bills that would steer young girls under the age of 16 into diversionary programs instead of arresting them on charges of prostitution.

The press conference came just hours after several hundred people turned out to support the measures. (My AJC colleague Ernie Suggs has more details here http://blogs.ajc.com/gold-dome-live/2010/02/01/senate-bill-to-protect-young-prostitutes-gains-momentum/ .)

Senate bill to protect young prostitutes gains momentum
http://blogs.ajc.com/gold-dome-live/2010/02/01/senate-bill-to-protect-young-prostitutes-gains-momentum/

The bill introduced by Sen. Renee Unterman (R-Buford), would steer girls under the age of 16 into diversionary programs instead of arresting them as prostitutes.

“This bill makes sure people are aware that young girls are victims,” Unterman said. “A 12-year-old laying on her back don’t know what sex is.”

Unterman – who has championed the rights of young girls – said the bill has been around for at least two years. She said she revisited it because a plan is now in place to rehabilitate the young prostitutes. The age of consent in Georgia is 16.

Unterman said her bill would help create a system of care for the girls while educating the public and those who come in contact with the young girls. It would impact girls getting pimped out on the streets, as well as girls working in massage parlors.

“I don’t think that children who are raped for profit should be prosecuted as criminals,” said Elizabeth LeDuc, a pediatrician, who supports the bill. “We need to make sure kids under 16 will not be tried as prostitutes. Children sent to jail for prostitution are more likely to go back into the streets.”

In Atlanta, trafficking and prostitution has emerged into a major problem. In 2002, for example, the FBI broke up a ring of 14 men pimping girls as young as 10.

[bvar22]

40. You missed something.

Burma, Laos, & Zimbabwe are nations.
Ohio is a state within a nation.

For your comparison to really work, you would have to say:
"The United States now has something in common with Burma, Laos, Zimbabwe and every other
military and humanitarian challenged country in the world. . .forced sex trafficking."

I would agree.

[Hubert Flottz]

2. K&R

[undergroundpanther]

3. I ask

Who are the sorts of people that PAY for sex with enslaved victims. Who creates the demand for sex slavery? (porn is very profitable BUSINESS.There are countless unregulated porn websites run from private homes.. Truth is the"consumer" of porn can never really know if the person in a picture or on a website is a slave or underage or not.(Either way there is a demand for it, and profit is being made by this exploitation)If it was not so damn PROFITABLE to exploit children for sex or slave labor,would traffickers bother with it? So who are these consumers creating such demand for young people's bodies and sex,labor and servitude?

[booley]

13. Disagree with one point

Not to take away from this serious problem but you got something wrong...

There are countless unregulated porn websites run from private homes.. Truth is the"consumer" of porn can never really know if the person in a picture or on a website is a slave or underage or not.

There are lots of porn sites run from someone's home. But that doesn't make them unregulated. Adult web sites are regulated regardless of whether they are run out of someone's home or not. They all have to keep 2257 compliant for each model and be able to show this to any FBI agent that asks (along with info on where the documents are kept and when they can be accessed). The regulations became even tighter under Bush.

There's a whole section of the Justice dept who's job to look at porn sites. An american based site that had lots of pics or apparently underage models who couldn't prove they weren't underage would send up red flags right away.

There probably are sites that have underage models in the world. But they are based in other countries.

This is a serious enough problem without adding untrue information to the mix.

[undergroundpanther]

43. then tell me HOW

hundreds of minors end up in slavery in OHIO? Regulated ? yeah,the sites they KNOW about are 'regulated'.The ones they don't what about them? The sheer VOLUME of demand for this shit ,overwhelms the police out there,so shit go on'under the radar'.It's the less careful traffickers the 'cocky' ones ,or operations too big to hide so easy that get busted. How many more go on for YEARS before anyone notices.Case in point,the catholic church,hiding pedophiles in plain sight. Secondly you overlooked the consumer demand issue in my post conveinently.

[femrap]

48. There is HUGE money

in human trafficking...more than drugs. Once a drug is sold, it's sold. But with women and children, they can be sold over and over.

I'm not surprised it's in Ohio...and I wouldn't be surprised if the authorities/police aren't getting $$ to look the other way.

Our culture hates women...just something to be used and sold or tossed away.

I live in Ohio and I bug our legislature about this. It's pathetic.

[Maraya1969]

47. I ended up on a site where a girl's picture was there and I swear she looked 12

And when I reported it I was really afraid that they would think I was looking for these things, (I'd like to know the laws about reporting such things). Anyway I ended up there from a site I clicked on from DU that was about James Gannon so I ended up taking the police officer, (I was on the phone) through this website, (DU) and every click I made to get to this picture. When we got to the picture he was very thankful and said he would get to work on it.

I had a friend who's husband was surfing and found a picture of children in a sex act and she just told him to click it off. I think that was wrong but I bet it happens a lot because we always here about people who were arrested for having child porn on their computers.

Does anyone know about reporting this things? I probably was just being paranoid but I really did not want the police to think I was looking for child porn, (I know it doesn't make sense since I was reporting it). Either way I believe it would be a good thing if some public service ad was made to tell people to report these even if are looking for porn on the internet. I'm sure people would at least be embarrassed to report such things and would have a tendency to just click it off without telling anyone.

[electricray]

54. Sex slavery is not the same as porn

To tie the two together seems to condemn porn consumers as pedophiles and sex abusers. We can debate the merits and detriments of porn and we can talk about whether or not consentual employment of workers in the sex trade is "right" or "wrong" but not it seems out of place in this thread.

As for who creates the demand for sex slaves? I would imagine seriously emotionally wounded people who are in a position to explore the most depraved part of their minds with ease and impunity. How to stop them is a much larger discussion.

[undergroundpanther]

55. Look

having videos or photographs taken during sex acts and others paying or buying it to see it,or witnessing it is porn. If the people in the videos or pictures are sex slaves it IS still PORN regardless. You gonna quibble over semantics? I guess for people like you,the denial is so deep it all depends on what the definition of is, is..right?

[leftofcool]

4. I guess this means Rush Limbaugh won't have to travel as far?

[Wizard777]

5. I think Rush uses Kiddie Pimp James O'Keefe.

[secondwind]

6. This is a topic I have recently come to embrace. I am very concerned that people

have come to "look the other way" when they are faced with a pedophile, or a pimp, etc.

We should all do whatever it takes to protect youngsters from these monsters!

[Vinca]

7. Not to worry. Now that this is public I'm sure Mr. Boehner will work quickly to clean it up.

On the other hand, he's likely to consider it a jobs program.

[femrap]

49. Good one!

And tax free income for his buddy.

[Capt. America]

8. Way to go Ohio!

[Ohio Metal]

9. This story is old

Sort of. It came out a month ago.

http://www.local12.com/news/state/story/Ohio-urged-to-bolster-human-trafficking-law/ESRRXDoRSEe59YlskfxSzw.cspx

Is there a follow up report?

[SirRevolutionary]

11. Not to fear, I'm sure Boner will be on the case pronto!

[peacetalksforall]

12. Every time I hear slave trade I think of Tom DeLay and the photo of his face beaming

with a smile from the office of the man running the factory in the Mariannas. After reading the background about Made in the USA and Abramoff - and now reading this, I can only think that it's spread to the mainland.

This is all in the hands of the people of Ohio to get this changed? Of is federal?

Where are the girls (and boys?) coming from that are in Ohio?

Will there be outrage? Is it cleaned up in the Mariannas and Palau. Wouldn't that be federal?

Here's a link to the Mariannas story on Delay. I think Palau was used, also.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/05/09/real.delay/

http://www.salon.com/news/1999/02/04news.html

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5492833

How rotten can this country get?

[On the Road]

14. This Article Seems to be

saying that the same victims are sexual exploited and forced to work in sweatshop jobs. I don't think that is what's happening. Here's a somewhat better article on the subject:

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060620/NEWS03/606200410/-1/NEWS

Apparently a lot of the domestic trafficking is from runaways. Toledo is a major center of this kind of thing, surpassed only by Miami, Portland, and Las Vegas. But perhaps Toledo is just likely to categorize any organized prostitution as human trafficking.

There are a couple of individual stories in these links:

http://www.thelantern.com/campus/sex-trafficking-hits-close-to-home-60-90-women-affected-in-franklin-county-1.890395
http://www.thetoledojournal.com/news/Article/Article.asp?NewsID=101002&sID=4&ItemSource=L

I have to say my first reflex of these reports is that some of it sounds sensationalistic and the numbers seem soft. National numbers are reported to be from 15,000 to 50,000 and then qualified by saying hard numbers are difficult to come by. There is a lot of prostitution in my neighborhood, and I come into contact with a ton of lurid stories, but this is a new scenario. As they say, perhaps nobody talks about it.

[tomp]

15. third world, i tell ya.

corruption everywhere you look. the situation is direand the democratic party is not the solution.

[Doremus]

34. Ohio's been under the dirty thumb of repukes for about 20 years.

We finally got a Dem gov a few years ago but the Senate is still controlled by pukes.

You can't accurately throw this into the lap of Ohio Dems.

[tomp]

59. i didn't say or mean ohio democrats in particular...

i mean, kucinich is an ohio democrat and i contribute to him regularly.

what i'm saying is both parties, IN GENERAL, are thoroughly corrupt. find me a state that is run by democrats without corruption, that is a state that puts the interests of people over politics.

what i'm saying is, barack obama is acting like bush in many ways.

what i'm saying is the zeitgeist of the country is and has been for many, many years, with dem or repub leadership, on a serious and acute downhill slide into corruption and oligarchy not unlike a third world country.

[soarsboard2]

16. Holy Toledo!

(City where I live)

I have not heard about this.

[FedUpWithIt All]

22. Welcome to DU soarsboard2

:hi:

[du_grad]

46. Toledo Blade investigated this in 2006/link included

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100211/NEWS16/2110353

According to today's paper, the new investigation fell back on a lot of the Blade's investigation into this:

"Toledo received unwelcome national attention when a 2005 federal investigation into a child prostitution ring in Harrisburg, Pa., revealed that nine area girls had been sold as slaves and that at least 12 of 31 people charged had ties to the city.

The new study used as one of its sources a 2006 series by The Blade, “Lost Youth: Teenage Sex Trade,” which brought to light the little-known fact of teenage prostitution and Toledo's emergence as a major recruitment hub at the hands of pimps."

http://www.global-sisterhood-network.org/content/view/1293/76/ - here is reprint of all three of the original Blade articles.

[BolivarianHero]

17. No surprise there...

Tons of fundies in Ohio. And where's there is fundamentalism, there are also some of the most disgusting humanitarian abuses the world has to offer.

[ensho]

23. kick

nt

[BlancheSplanchnik]

45. agreed. n/t

[mochajava666]

60. Very good point

I know that the prostitutes do much, much better at GOP conventions than Democratic conventions.

[lonestarnot]

18. GOP yessers.

Yes to slave labor! True face of evil.

[gmoney]

19. who knew...

that there is a "growing demand for cheap labor" in Ohio?

Speaking as a resident, I find THAT part of the story difficult to believe -- that there is a growing demand for ANY sort of labor in Ohio. :sarcasm:

Seriously though, since it's a report on a State of Ohio sponsored study, the OP does not address how Ohio compares to other states, just the reference to the "weak laws on human trafficking". Of course, ANY amount of human trafficking is too much, but some reactions to this story have been as if Ohio was singled out as the WORST place for this kind of activity. I'm guessing things are just as bad or worse in many other states.

On edit: Read the articles someone else linked to from the Blade and the Lantern, and while the situation doesn't sound good, the assertions being made aren't backed up with much actual data. One assertion is that Toledo is the 4th worst place in the country for trafficking, but doesn't cite anything. One of them is a report on a movie made by a ministry that dramatizes the problem, and while their attempt to raise awareness and caution young people regarding these dangers is commendable, it's a movie review, not a news report. One of the other stories was from 2006 regarding a case in Harrisburg, PA, which is a lot closer to Philadelphia than it is Ohio.

Yes, it's a terrible crime that is growing out of control world-wide. I'd just like to see this discussed in the context of actual nationwide data, not anecdotal reports and dramatizations, before branding Ohio as the new sex slave capital of the world.

[madmom]

20. I've been hearing about this for quite a few years now. Part of the problem

(and I am not blaming here) is we have a LOT of migrant workers. They are afraid to report anything, we have been run by the repug party for so long, it's another thing that will take years to fix. One of the many reasons I HATE this state.

[WriteDown]

28. I hear that wanted bank robbers won't report when they see another robbery in progress either...

They're strange that way.

[Flaneur]

41. Migrant workers are like bank robbers. Right.

[WriteDown]

42. I think you mean illegal aliens....

And most law breakers are less prone to report crime, not just bank robbers.

[AllyCat]

21. WTF???

Lots of things come to mind:

"This is America!" (but I know this happnes here)
"Who on earth would pay for this?" (but I know people have their fetishes)

But lastly, WHY ON EARTH IS OHIO TOLERATING THIS?????

What have we become?

[midnight]

24. Is the jobless recovery act harnessed on the backs of forced labor...

[JPZenger]

25. Large no. of prostitutes in central PA came from Ohio

About 3 years ago, a newspaper in the Harrisburg PA area did an investigative report about prostitution in local truck stops. It turned out almost all of the prostitutes who were arrested were from Ohio (I think Akron specifically).

[femrap]

50. You have no idea how bad the

economy is in Ohio.....and how LONG. Our manufacturing base has been decimated and this was done years ago.

I keep writing the Gov. to allow Industrial Hemp...but, I guess that's just too difficult to do around a bunch of Bible thumpers. It sure would create jobs and be sustainable.

But Ohio is backward....I think it was Mark Twain who said something like: If a doctor told him he only had a short time to live, he'd move to Cincinnati since it's 20 years behind the times!

[louis-t]

26. I just watched a program on slavery on the History channel.

I guess nothing much has changed since 1800.

[femrap]

51. More slaves now than

ever in all of history!

[defendandprotect]

27. THIS is what happens when we have a rise of the right . . .

[hayu_lol]

30. In all fairness, the situation is probably the same in all large cities...

across the country or anywhere the national border is located as entrance points.

[defendandprotect]

32. The rise of the right increases inequality, thereby fostering the sex trade ...

whether it is economic hardship -- or human rights -- the rise of the right

increases sexual enslavement.

American labor is now competing with slave labor all over the world --

That's the purpose of the trade agreements -- "to harvest slave labor."

Oppression of women -- the natural protectors of children -- is also a prime goal

of the right.

Dismantling of social safety nets is another --

Tafficking in human beings is basically illegal -- yet we have a "War on Drugs" -- ????

[WriteDown]

33. So women are the "natural" protectors of children?

Are men the natural predators of children?

[louis-t]

52. You're right, I don't think poster meant to single out OH

[WriteDown]

29. I thought no one was harmed in prostitution?

Just waiting for the DU prostitution defenders to show up.

[jberryhill]

35. Good point - Restaurants too!

Same thing with the restaurants. The article also notes that trafficked labor is also made to work in restaurants.

It is the so-called "legitimate" restaurants which provide a cover for the entire underground illicit criminal restaurant economy.

[tonysam]

38. I know. Biggest lie ever told is prostitution is a "victimless" crime

and it should be legalized.

Human rights violations are NEVER okay, no matter if the media tries to glorify them in "reality" shows or on talk shows.

[WriteDown]

39. Haven't you ever seen Pretty Woman?!

It's a glamorous lifestyle. :eyes:

[Scout]

44. they are just earning their law school tuition! n/t

[athenasatanjesus]

31. Things like this would be so much easier to control if not for the wide wealth gap nt

[SoapBox]

36. Vote here for The Hypocrisy Hall of Shame...

Well, this story could not have come at a better time.

Countdown with Keith O, is starting a weekly poll...which Rushpub is the worst hypocrite of the week.
This weeks bozo selection: "PinheadPoindexter" Cantor, Bond, "Old Yeller" Wilson.
Looks like I'll be voting for Pinhead...he makes my blood boil and my skin crawl. Tell your friends.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35338474/ns/msnbc_tv-countdown_with_keith_olbermann

And if so inclined, why not ask "TooBronzed" Boner, eh, Boehner (OH) what's up with the sex business:
http://www.johnboehner.house.gov/Contact/

[tonysam]

37. But, but, but it's a "victimless" crime

:sarcasm:

[Quantess]

56. "Only Miami, Portland, Ore., and Las Vegas had more."

So really, the title is a bit misleading. Obviously it is a big problem in other US cities as well.

[Art_from_Ark]

57. I don't get the Canada connection

With a Canada connection, human traffickers would have to smuggle their victims through the immigration/customs of two different countries to get them to Ohio. Also, the victims would have to have visas for two different countries.

[gtar100]

58. Human, all too human

When will we get past this phase in our evolution and onto something better? This is just sick and typical of what happens under right-wing, conservative leadership. They call liberals deviants but I see the worst problems arise in excess when their policies are in place. They lead to nothing but poverty, lack of opportunity, and injustice for the vast majority of people and the crap that's in this OP is a typical consequence.

But people - when are we going to wake up and stop hurting each other?