Polaris Project sent me this article from ctpost.com from Connecticut.
"News item: Stamford police raided a so-called massage parlor masquerading as a brothel last week.
Big deal, you might say. Happens all the time.
Perhaps. And that's the problem.
Every community around here has or has had one or more of these places lurking just beneath our day-to-day notice. We usually choose to ignore them.
It's odd. You'd think slavery would get more of a rise out of people.
Hyperbole? Not even close.
Every day, all over the nation, including Fairfield County, young women are forced into having sex with strangers for money -- usually under threat to themselves and their families.
Stamford police believe the massage parlor they raided Friday was a front for a place where illegal immigrants possibly worked as sex slaves.
The methodology is roughly the same for all: Recruiters bait impoverished women in their home countries with promises of riches to be had in the United States. They get the women here, provide them with false immigration documents and then inform them that they owe a huge debt for services rendered. You can figure out the rest.
It's fashionable today to call prostitution a victimless crime, one that should be legalized. Try telling that to the women caught in these monstrous operations.
The state legislature must take this problem more seriously, and change how we address it.
The first step actually should be decriminalization -- but only for the prostitutes themselves. Too often, it's the women forced to work in the local brothels who face the harshest legal penalties. They already are living lives of desperation. We should be helping them to escape their circumstances rather than making those circumstances worse with an arrest.
Next: The johns, who create the market for prostitution, often receive lesser charges than the prostitutes. Reverse that equation. Make the penalty for perpetuating the enslavement of others fit the crime.
Perhaps the specter of a few months in prison would reduce the client base. Too harsh? It's a cakewalk compared to the destroyed lives these men are funding with their dollars.
For the people who operate these rings, who force women into these lives, they're straight evil. Throw away the key.
Finally, crack down on landlords. Owners of properties used as brothels have to be pretty dense to not know what's going on there. The law currently holds them accountable, but barely. It's a misdemeanor to know prostitution is occurring on your property and not make a "reasonable effort" to stop it. That means any penalty won't even amount to a month's rent.
The only way to stop it is to force those who are guilty of those behaviors to change them.
To do less is an affront to everything we stand for, as people, as a state, as a nation."
"News item: Stamford police raided a so-called massage parlor masquerading as a brothel last week.
Big deal, you might say. Happens all the time.
Perhaps. And that's the problem.
Every community around here has or has had one or more of these places lurking just beneath our day-to-day notice. We usually choose to ignore them.
It's odd. You'd think slavery would get more of a rise out of people.
Hyperbole? Not even close.
Every day, all over the nation, including Fairfield County, young women are forced into having sex with strangers for money -- usually under threat to themselves and their families.
Stamford police believe the massage parlor they raided Friday was a front for a place where illegal immigrants possibly worked as sex slaves.
The methodology is roughly the same for all: Recruiters bait impoverished women in their home countries with promises of riches to be had in the United States. They get the women here, provide them with false immigration documents and then inform them that they owe a huge debt for services rendered. You can figure out the rest.
It's fashionable today to call prostitution a victimless crime, one that should be legalized. Try telling that to the women caught in these monstrous operations.
The state legislature must take this problem more seriously, and change how we address it.
The first step actually should be decriminalization -- but only for the prostitutes themselves. Too often, it's the women forced to work in the local brothels who face the harshest legal penalties. They already are living lives of desperation. We should be helping them to escape their circumstances rather than making those circumstances worse with an arrest.
Next: The johns, who create the market for prostitution, often receive lesser charges than the prostitutes. Reverse that equation. Make the penalty for perpetuating the enslavement of others fit the crime.
Perhaps the specter of a few months in prison would reduce the client base. Too harsh? It's a cakewalk compared to the destroyed lives these men are funding with their dollars.
For the people who operate these rings, who force women into these lives, they're straight evil. Throw away the key.
Finally, crack down on landlords. Owners of properties used as brothels have to be pretty dense to not know what's going on there. The law currently holds them accountable, but barely. It's a misdemeanor to know prostitution is occurring on your property and not make a "reasonable effort" to stop it. That means any penalty won't even amount to a month's rent.
The only way to stop it is to force those who are guilty of those behaviors to change them.
To do less is an affront to everything we stand for, as people, as a state, as a nation."
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