FBI sting rescues child prostitutes around country

Miami Herald
Posted on Mon, Feb. 23, 2009

BY DEVLIN BARRETT

The FBI has rescued more than 45 suspected teenage prostitutes, including two in South Florida, in a nationwide sweep to remove kids from the illegal sex trade and punish their accused pimps.
Over a three-night initiative called Operation Cross Country, federal agents working with local law enforcement also arrested more than 50 alleged pimps, according to preliminary bureau data.

Agents in cities from Miami to Chicago to Anchorage took part in the operation. The teenage prostitutes found in the investigation ranged in age from 13 to 17.

Miami, Miami-Dade and Miami Beach police helped local FBI agents in the investigation last weekend, Special Agent Judy Orihuela said. They took a 16- and a 17-year-old sex worker off the streets, and local police filed 28 misdemeanor prostitution charges and one felony drug charge.

Historically, federal authorities rarely play a role in anti-prostitution crackdowns, but the FBI is becoming more involved as it tries to rescue children caught up in the business.

''The goal is to recover kids. We consider them the child victims of prostitution,'' said FBI Deputy Assistant Director Daniel Roberts.

'Unfortunately, the vast majority of these kids are what they term `throwaway kids,' with no family support, no friends. They're kids that nobody wants, they're loners. Many are runaways,'' Roberts said.

Most of the children are put into the custody of local child protection agencies.

The federal effort is also designed to hit pimps with much tougher prison sentences than they would likely get in state criminal courts.

Government prosecutors look to bring racketeering charges or conspiracy charges that can result in decades of jail time.

''Some of these networks of pimps and their organizations are very sophisticated, they're interstate,'' said Roberts, requiring wiretaps and undercover sting operations to bring charges.

The weekend's roundup marked the third such Operation Cross Country, and is part of a broader federal program launched in 2003 to crack down on the sexual exploitation of children.

Miami Herald staff writer Evan S. Benn contributed to this report.

Human Trafficking Conference at St. Thomas University

Join the LL.M./ J.S.D. Program in Intercultural Human Rights & the
Coalition of Catholic Organizations against Human Trafficking

for a conference on:

“Human Trafficking: Global and Local Perspectives”

Thursday, February 12, 2009
9 AM – 5 PM

Moot Court Room
St. Thomas University School of Law
16401 NW 37th Avenue
Miami, FL 33054

The most vulnerable members of our human family, the victims of human trafficking, in their silent pain call for help. Millions of them suffer each year from one of the greatest affronts to human dignity the world has ever seen. This shocking phenomenon now successfully rivals drugs and weapons, becoming one of the most lucrative criminal enterprises in the world.

The community of nations has stood up to face the challenge. The United States continues to be in the forefront of international efforts to combat this horrendous crime. Successes are great, but the challenge even greater. Governed by our duty as civil society members to help shed light on this phenomenon, but also to assess needs, analyze situations, and suggest solutions, academic and religious communities, non-governmental organizations and interested individuals gather to contribute their efforts to defeat this scourge. Through presentations and discussions, questions and answers the conference will play its modest role in battling this 21st century slavery.

Sessions will examine:

• Human Trafficking: A Human Rights or a Criminal Law issue?
• The Necessity of a Victim-Oriented Approach to Human Trafficking
• Trafficking Initiatives in South Florida
• Research and Training Needs in the Field and Incipient Responses

Open to the public. No reservations required.

For more information contact:

Dr. iur. Roza Pati, LL.M.
Executive Director & Adjunct Professor of Law
LL.M./ J.S.D. Program in Intercultural Human Rights
Phone: 305 474 2447
E-Mail: rpati@Stu.edu


Conference Agenda:

8:30 AM – 9: 00 AM --Registration and Continental Breakfast

9: 00 AM – 9: 30 AM --Welcome & Opening Remarks:

Reverend Monsignor Franklyn Casale
President of St. Thomas University

Dean Alfredo Garcia
Professor of Law & Dean, St. Thomas University Law School

Dr. iur. Roza Pati, LL.M.
Executive Director & Adjunct Professor of Law
LL.M./ J.S.D. Program in Intercultural Human Rights

9:30 AM-11AM

Panel I: Human Trafficking: A Human Rights or a Criminal Law issue?

Speakers:

Professor Dr. Ryszard Piotrowicz
University of Aberystwyth, Department of Law and Criminology
Wales, United Kingdom

Ann Marie Villafana, Esq.
Assistant U.S. Attorney, Southern District of Florida

Mark Kielsgard, Esq. LL.M., J.S.D. Candidate
Human Rights Expert

Karlyn J. Hunter, Esq.
Assistant U. S. Attorney, Southern District of Florida

11:00 AM-12:30 PM

Panel II: The Necessity of a Victim-Oriented Approach to Human Trafficking

Speakers:

Professor Dr. Federico Lenzerini
University of Siena School of Law, Siena, Italy

Ana Isabel Vallejo, Esq., LL.M., J.S.D. Candidate
Supervising Attorney, Lucha: A Women’s Legal Project
Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center

Jasna Vujin, Esq., LL.M.
Human Trafficking Expert, Serbia

Kara Franker
Legal Fellow
Shared Hope International


12:30 PM-1:30 PM Lunch


1:30 PM- 3:15 PM

Panel III: Trafficking Initiatives in South Florida

Speakers:

Regina Bernadin
Program Manager, International Rescue Committee
Florida Freedom Partnership

Maria Jose Fletcher
Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center

Martha Mino
Case Manager, Awareness Campaign & Victims Specialist
Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking

Janette Mendoza
Program Specialist, Unaccompanied Refugee Minors Program,
Catholic Charities, Archdiocese of Miami

Sandy Skelaney
Program Manager
Kristi House


3:15 PM- 4:30 PM

Panel IV: Research and Training Needs in the Field and Incipient Responses
Speakers:

Dr. Elzbieta M. Gozdziak
Research Director & Editor, International Migration
Institute for the Study of International Migration, Washington D.C.

Professor Dr. Johnny McGaha
Director, Esperanza Project
Florida Gulf Coast University

Professor Dr. iur. Siegfried Wiessner, LL.M.
Director, LL.M. /J.S.D. Program in Intercultural Human Rights
St. Thomas University School of Law

4:30 Wine & Cheese Reception

Very Young Girls final dates on Showtime

The GEMS documentary Very Young Girls only has 4 more airdates, starting tomorrow Feb 5th at 7pm on SH3. Please tune in if you haven't seen it, and please tell your friends to watch it. More info is below...

And again, thank you for getting involved and invested!
************************************************

Very Young Girls, a powerful film that tells the heart-breaking and ultimately inspiring stories of barely adolescent girls who have been seduced, abused, and sold on New York's streets.

Broadcast throughout the country to living rooms, schools, community organizations, and public institutions, Very Young Girls has awakened viewers to the brutal reality of commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking. Experience this compelling film for yourself, then join GEMS in its heroic efforts to empower sexually exploited girls.

Turn viewing into action

Watch Very Young Girls live or set your DVR.
Check the schedule at right for upcoming airdates on Showtime and its networks, including the next broadcast on Thursday Feb 5th at 7:00 PM on Showtime 3

View anytime on demand. Very Young Girls is available on Showtime anytime now through March 3, 2009.

Host a screening party for friends and family. Register your party with GEMS and our RSVP system will help coordinate your guest list; complete a short post-screening evaluation and receive a free copy of Very Young Girls along with other gifts from GEMS. Visit gems.memberlodge.org to register your event.

Get involved! Visit the GEMS website to donate and learn how you can help end the commercial sexual exploitation of our youth.

CSEC Working Group Meeting

Wednesday
Feb. 11th
2:30pm - 4pm
Kristi House

Please RSVP to sandys@kristihouse.org

Coalition in Tampa to track sex traffickers over Super Bowl weekend

When I do trainings, people often raise their eyebrows when I tell them that in places where there is a large number of transient males, there will be a flourishing adult sex industry and children being exploited in prostitution and pornography. Transient men include tourists, business travelers, attendees at special events such as the Super Bowl, migrant workers, truck drivers and others. I suppose they never considered the connection, but it's quite simple really: "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" or in the case below "What happens in Tampa, stays in Tampa." We may behave and care for our own communities because we live there, but when we go somewhere else, we leave the watchful eyes of our neighbors and exploit the land, resources and people of a place to which we don't have a personal / emotional connection or incentive to maintain the integrity of. "We don't sh*! where we sleep", but we will certainly do it where other people sleep and then go home to our nice clean beds the next day. So the connection is clear. Anytime you find yourself in a place that attracts transient men, even if you don't openly see the child exploitation, you can assume that it exists and flourishes, because that's what research across the globe has taught us over the years. Sad fact. I'm happy to hear that FCAHT will be addressing this issue in Tampa. We need to get on board and start planning to do something for the Superbowl in Miami 2010.

-Sandy

****

By WINK News
Jan 29, 2009 at 10:27 PM EST

A local organization is in Tampa trying to track down sex traffickers over Super Bowl weekend.

The Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking assists police by pointing them toward potential prostitution rings. The group is also handing out fliers to party-goers, hoping to send a message that human trafficking is alive and real right here in the U.S.

"Every time we have a big event like Super Bowl, you have pimps that move people across the nation to where there is a large activity and a quicker way to make a lot of money," Anna Rodriguez, the non-profit's founder, says.

Leaders and volunteers with the Naples-based organization plan to stay through the Super Bowl weekend.

Tampa authorities report busting 20 people involved in prostitution already this week.

Find this article at:
http://www.winknews.com/news/local/38677447.html

Sex Trafficking Summit draws 150 people

TCPALM.com
Thursday, January 22, 2009

By Monique Mattiace

STUART — About 150 people from agencies across the Treasure Coast gathered at the Treasure Coast Hospice Mayes Center in Stuart for a Sex Trafficking Summit hosted by the Soroptimist International of Stuart Thursday evening to raise awareness for the issue.

The group hopes a task force of some sort will form, said Margaret Richebourg, chair of the Soroptimist International of Stuart.

A 10 minute video of undercover footage of buying and selling young girls in the U.S. kicked off the meeting before the two guest speakers took the stage.

“All of you who reluctantly came here saying it doesn’t happen here, get over it,” said Nola Theiss, guest speaker, former mayor of Sanibel, and executive director of Human Trafficking Awareness Partnerships Inc.

Theiss started her comments with media reports on the arrest of a Port St. Lucie man for trying to swap children for sexual acts - proving that sex trafficking is happening in the area.

“People don’t know it’s around them until they look for it and know what to look for,” Theiss said. “My goal is to inform and desensitize the community so they can do something about it.”

Theiss gave countless accounts where law enforcement agencies have overlooked dozens of sex trafficking victims because they weren’t trained to look for the signs.

“Learning the red flags and recognizing them and demanding local law enforcement to get involved is what needs to be done,” she said.

Guest speaker Linda Smith, former congresswoman and founder of Shared Hope, started fighting sex trafficking after she took a trip to India and saw hundreds of caged girls who were sold to men for sex 40 times a night.

“The undercover videos I found in the U.S. shocked me more than anything I saw around the world,” Smith said.

Smith shared the story of two girls who were tricked into trafficking by the promise of a safe place to live, clothes, freedom, money and more.

One of the girls was taken from her grandmother after the trafficker followed her for months; he sold her for four years around the U.S., took her to truck stops, hotels and forced her to walk the streets for hours. She was arrested over 14 times by law enforcement and was never looked at as a victim, but instead was labeled as a prostitute.

The goal is to communicate with the community. To make law enforcement get trained on how to spot sex traffickers and the victims so the victims don’t get lost in the system, Smith said.

“If you knew a little girl today who was being raped, could you go to sleep tonight? So do something about it,” said Smith.

For more information, about joining a local task force to fight sex trafficking contact the Soroptimist International of Stuart at call (772) 288-9955.

Human Trafficking:

Human trafficking is modern day slavery - forced labor and sex in any form.

Traffickers use force, fraud or coercion to control their victims.

Florida has the second-highest incidence of human trafficking in the country.

The average age of entry into prostitution is 12 to 14.

Underage girls are the bulk of victims in commercial sex markets – pornography, stripping, escort services and prostitution.

Close to a million people a year are trafficked across borders.

About half of all missing children and runaways may be trafficked.

Human trafficking is a $9 billion to $17 billion international crime second to drug trafficking.

About 400 potential victims of minor sex trafficking has passed through the hands of various agencies.

Rest in Peace: Norma Hotaling 1951-2008

With all my respect and gratitude for the knowledge and tools you gave us to expand our work with commercially sexually exploited children throughout the United States. You have been a true pioneer. - Sandy


Norma Hotaling, founder and Executive Director of the SAGE Project in San Francisco died on December 16, 2008 following a short illness.

Norma Hotaling transformed her own experiences in prostitution into a mission of social justice for her sisters and brothers who had also been trafficked and exploited in prostitution. As a direct result of Ms. Hotaling’s life work, many now have a profound understanding of the harm of prostitution and the responsibility of buyers for that harm. Through Ms. Hotaling the voices of survivors of commercial sexual exploitation reached the forefront of the global movement against human trafficking. Her life and her work dissolved myths about prostitution, proving it to be the world's oldest oppression rather than a victimless crime. She was a beacon of courage and an extraordinarily effective champion of victimized and marginalized women,children, men and transgendered people.

At the SAGE Project, Ms. Hotaling created a service agency for all survivors of sexual exploitation. SAGE especially welcomed those who had been prostituted and trafficked. Her model of peer-led services offered by those who had “been there, done that” as she explained, inspired people in prostitution who felt that they previously had no hope. Many survivors of prostitution who arrived at the doors of SAGE are emphatic that their lives were saved by the example of Ms. Hotaling’s life and her affection for them as people who she deeply cared for.

Ms. Hotaling founded The First Offender Program , a prostitution diversion program run jointly by SAGE and the San Francisco District Attorney’s office. Informally referred to as the "johns’ school,” the First Offender Program continues to offer educational programs to men arrested for soliciting prostitution, teaching them about prostitution’s harms to women, the community, and to their own health. Hotaling's model of the "johns’ school" is now used throughout the United States and in Canada, South Korea, and England.

Ms. Hotaling led The SAGE Project's staff while she also frequently spoke at conferences and provided counsel to public policy experts. She frequently testified for the United States Congress and the California legislature about the harms of prostitution and the needs of those in it. Although based in San Francisco, Ms. Hotaling’s work took her around the world where she worked with governmental leaders and agencies. She worked tirelessly with journalists in the print and broadcast media to help create a comprehensive picture of prostitution.

Ms. Hotaling was a board member and leader of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW), one of the many organizations she worked with. She received numerous awards for her work. In 1998, SAGE and the First Offender Prostitution Program were recognized as one of the best examples of innovation from among more than 1,800 nominated programs. The programs were given the Innovations in American Government Award jointly from the Ford Foundation, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and the Council for Excellence in Government.

In 2000 SAGE’s peer education program was celebrated with the Peter F. Drucker Foundation Award for Nonprofit Innovation.

In 2001, Ms. Hotaling was honored with an Oprah’s Angel: Use Your Life Award which brought national recognition to SAGE. Ms. Hotaling accepted the award on behalf of SAGE on the Oprah Winfrey show.

In October 2008, Ms. Hotaling was most recently honored by the Center for Young Women’s Development who gave her the Cheyenne Bell Award honoring her work with young women escaping San Francisco street prostitution.

When she spoke, Norma Hotaling used experiences from her own prostitution that moved her audience to tears while educating them about the cruelty of prostitution. She made it clear that almost everyone in prostitution had a burning desire to get out. Yet when Hotaling herself was struggling to escape prostitution, the only available services were inside jails.

At a San Francisco Health Department hearing on harm reduction Ms. Hotaling described the time in her life when she was turning tricks, was addicted to heroin and was prostituting for a pimp who frequently beat her but to whom she was attached. She described having approached a San Francisco health department program to ask for help and they told her she should resolve her heroin addiction. In the meeting, Ms Hotaling said, "You don't understand, I said I need help."

Norma Hotaling dedicated her life to what is called harm elimination in today’s public health language: providing women, men, and the transgendered in prostitution not only condoms and emotional support but services informed by an understanding of the multitraumatic nature of prostitution. Rather than assuming that exit from prostitution was impossible, as some allege, Ms. Hotaling fought for the right of those in prostitution to the same quality of life that others in society have.

Ms. Hotaling’s legacy is that the help she herself sought is now far better understood by public health agencies, even if budgets are not yet offering those services to the thousands of people in prostitution who seek to escape it. Her pioneering work lives on in the expansion of services for trafficked and prostituted people, and in the requirement of accountability for those who buy and sell human beings. The loss of Ms. Hotaling is felt and mourned by the thousands of people she touched in her too brief life.

Born July 21, 1951 and raised in Palm Beach Florida, Ms. Hotaling attended San Francisco State University. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in Health Education. She is survived by her mother, Norma Louise Hotaling, her brother James Hotaling, and her beloved companion dog Emma. A public memorial will be announced for January. In lieu of flowers, donations are requested to SAGE Project, 1275 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94103, in honor of her life and work.

-written by Melissa Farley, with help from friends of Norma Hotaling.