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Human trafficking scope is unknown
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published 11:30 pm, Saturday, January 12, 2013
( link )
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published 11:30 pm, Saturday, January 12, 2013
( link )
"Over the last decade, Congress has failed to conduct the oversight necessary to ensure the programs and agencies tasked with fighting these terrible crimes are operating in an efficient and effective manner," the report said.
Information problems stunt state-level programs, too. Programs in Georgia focus on underage girls sold for sex, leaving boys nowhere to turn.
The Georgia Care Connection Office, the state's anti-child prostitution program, served no male clients in its first two years. Researchers who surfed Craigslist for the state's count of minors who were sex trafficking victims did not search for boys.
Had researchers looked, they might have seen the Craigslist ads by a Douglasville man pimping a slender teenage boy for $160.
Steven Donald Lemery lured troubled gay teen runaways to his home and forced them to peddle sex online. Some of their sex ads would receive hundreds of responses.
[...]
Kaffie McCullough, a longtime trafficking opponent, said that this may be advocates' fault. "We thought, maybe wrongly, that there were more female victims instead of male victims," McCullough said.
Whether Georgia is overlooking scores of boys sold for sex is anyone's guess.
[...]
Trafficking is a hidden crime. Gay runaways duck police to avoid being sent home. Girls confuse investigators by calling pimps their "boyfriends." Foreign victims stay in the shadows because they fear deportation.
"There really isn't any concrete information," said Meredith Dank, an Urban Institute researcher who studies domestic and foreign trafficking.
Information problems stunt state-level programs, too. Programs in Georgia focus on underage girls sold for sex, leaving boys nowhere to turn.
The Georgia Care Connection Office, the state's anti-child prostitution program, served no male clients in its first two years. Researchers who surfed Craigslist for the state's count of minors who were sex trafficking victims did not search for boys.
Had researchers looked, they might have seen the Craigslist ads by a Douglasville man pimping a slender teenage boy for $160.
Steven Donald Lemery lured troubled gay teen runaways to his home and forced them to peddle sex online. Some of their sex ads would receive hundreds of responses.
[...]
Kaffie McCullough, a longtime trafficking opponent, said that this may be advocates' fault. "We thought, maybe wrongly, that there were more female victims instead of male victims," McCullough said.
Whether Georgia is overlooking scores of boys sold for sex is anyone's guess.
[...]
Trafficking is a hidden crime. Gay runaways duck police to avoid being sent home. Girls confuse investigators by calling pimps their "boyfriends." Foreign victims stay in the shadows because they fear deportation.
"There really isn't any concrete information," said Meredith Dank, an Urban Institute researcher who studies domestic and foreign trafficking.