Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Media Coverage



















Craigslist Sued For Promoting Prostitution
An Illinois sheriff says the classified ads Web site should stop allowing erotic services ads and reimburse law enforcement agencies for the costs of policing prostitution-related crime. "Advocacy groups confirm the popularity of Craigslist's erotic services," the complaint states. "The Polaris Project, a group against human sexual trafficking, believes Craigslist is now the single largest source of prostitution, including child exploitation, in the country." It also cites another group, Love 146, which reports that Craigslist is used for child prostitution.
The complaint claims that authorities across the country have reported Craigslist's role in facilitating sex trafficking. "In one such instance, the FBI uncovered a sex ring involving child prostitutes in which the pimps 'posted over 2,800 advertisements on Craigslist.org,' " the complaint states. This is not the first time Craigslist has been confronted with such claims. Sheriff Dart says that he has sent five separate letters to Craigslist asking the site to close its erotic services section, to no avail. In March 2008, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal sent a letter to Craigslist's attorney demanding that Craigslist police its users' postings.




Anti-Prostitution Initiative Taken to D.C. Schools


The scope of the problem is difficult to measure. The D.C. Human Trafficking Task Force, which investigates adult and child prostitution, found 32 cases in the past year of teenage girls being coerced into sex for money by older men. Fewer than a dozen of those cases resulted in full-scale criminal investigations, authorities say.
Anecdotal evidence from police, prosecutors and groups that deal with troubled youths suggests a larger problem in the District. A national study funded by the U.S. Justice Department in 2001 estimated that as many as 300,000 runaways and otherwise homeless youths under 18 were sexually exploited.
That's one reason the Fair Fund has taken its message about trafficking and abusive relationships to District classes for the second school year.
The group typically works in Serbia, Bosnia, Russia and Kenya. But last year it signed an agreement with school officials to go into six high schools: Bell Multicultural, McKinley Tech, Woodson, Coolidge, School Without Walls and Anacostia. The schools were chosen, in part, based on police reports of family and domestic violence in neighborhoods that funnel students to the schools, said Andrea Powell, Fair Fund's executive director. This year, the program is continuing informally.
Powell founded Fair Fund five years ago and has developed a curriculum that warns students about human trafficking. Since November 2007, Powell and three other workers have reached 820 students, trained dozens of teachers and received 56 notes from students, many of them anonymous, seeking help. Some said they were raped by their fathers or know of teenagers involved in prostitution. A few said they were homeless.
Police and advocates say some juveniles trade sex for a place to stay or food.






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