A Detroit-area law enforcement officer talks with a young victim during an international crackdown on child trafficking in October. (FBI) During a presidential campaign soured by sexual misconduct allegations, the FBI reminds us just how bad sexual abuse can get. A coordinated international crackdown on child sex trafficking rescued 82 children, who were provided social services, and arrested 239 suspected pimps and fellow reprobates in the United States, according to the FBI. Five boys were among the victims and the average age was just under 16. Foster children are particularly vulnerable. The four-day, mid-October assault, called Operation Cross Country X for the 10th iteration of the campaign, included law enforcement action by local authorities and officials in Canada, Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines, where 25 children, including a 2-year-old girl, were rescued. The first operation was in 2008. Sometimes there is more than one operation a year. “Child sex trafficking is a global problem and we must throw every resource we can at combating it,” John Clark, president and chief executive of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said at a San Diego news conference last week. The crackdown demonstrates that prostitution is more insidious and oppressive than images of street hookers and high-priced call girls indicate. Children are forced into prostitution, sometimes by parents. The FBI reported these tragedies: FBI agents in Milwaukee found two sisters, 16 and 17 years old, allegedly being pimped out by their mother, who also rented their brother’s room to a registered sex offender. Detroit-area law enforcement officials recovered a 17-year-old for the second time in two years. She led them to another girl. Both were trafficked by “the same female suspect. The two girls lived at home with one of their mothers and the female suspect.” Atlanta authorities arrested a suspected pimp and prostitute on charges of murder, child trafficking and procuring of a minor for prostitution, among other charges. Along with two other suspects, they allegedly forced two girls, 14 and 15 years old, into prostitution and provided them with drugs. “The 14-year-old was later found dead of an overdose.” Thai police arrested an American, a registered sex offender who “is alleged to have coerced five juvenile Filipino females, ages 14 to 16, to take illicit photos of themselves and send them to him via the Internet.” Filipino officials arrested five adults and recovered two boys, 5 and 11, and a 2-year-old girl. The adults allegedly “ran a web-streaming service for individuals who would pay for access to live-streaming sexual abuse, as well as access to the children for the purpose of illegal sexual acts.” Some folks “don’t want to believe children are being sold for sex. Not in this country,” Clark said, but the operation “provides irrefutable evidence that they are.” |
