Child prostitutes sell themselves on Craigslist

[kiva]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/06/27/child.prostitution/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

SACRAMENTO, California (CNN) -- For more than two years, undercover cops on the Sacramento Police Department's vice squad have been working one of the most draining beats: trying to crack down on online child prostitution.
Girl arrest

Sacramento police have nabbed nearly 70 underage girls for child prostitution since 2005.


Police have nabbed nearly 70 girls under the age of 18 since 2005. Most of the girls were released to foster or group homes. Those are just the official figures; investigators think there are many more child prostitutes out there.

It is no easy task.

"We're asking these girls to do a big thing ... which is to stop what they're doing," said Sgt. Pam Seyffert of the Sacramento Police Department. "Stop what's working for them. Surviving is basically what they're doing."

Sacramento police are working with the FBI as part of a nationwide campaign to combat underage prostitution called Innocence Lost. The goal of the program, which is now in almost 30 U.S. cities, is to decriminalize the girls and concentrate on catching the pimps who control them.

"It really makes me angry," Seyffert said. "I think everybody on the team has different reactions to it, but I just flat out get really angry that some guy thinks he can take this girl and basically deprive her of her freedom."

One teenager, when asked why she'd begun selling herself at the age of 11, said "I wanted to feel loved. ... I wanted to feel important." So very sad. :cry:

[Schema Thing]

1. 'But in the end, all I felt was republicans'.

[kiva]

2. I think the most telling thing is the comment by Sgt Seyffert

saying, "We're asking these girls to do a big thing ... which is to stop what they're doing...Stop what's working for them. Surviving is basically what they're doing." In this country, we have young girls who feel they have to sell their bodies to survive. :mad:

[sam sarrha]

4. 1 in 3 children are abused in some way incest can drive them to the streets and pimps for protection

[regnaD kciN]

3. Ain't America great!

God bless George W. Bush and the Republican Party for promoting the unfettered free-enterprise system, and thus encouraging our young women to show initiative and adopt an entrepreurial approach to life! It's a hard world out there, and the sooner these girls learn that no one's going to give them a free ride, and that they need to figure out their assets in the world of supply and demand, and market them to help themselves thrive, the sooner they'll stop being a drain on society (like so many of their compatriots in the 0-18 age group) and become productive businesswomen.

:sarcasm: <-- as if that's really necessary