human trafficking

Man Faces Federal Charges in a Sex Ring in Minnesota:
41-year-old Liqing Liu, a Chinese national living in Minnesota, is facing federal charges of transporting women across state lines to engage in prostitution. He ran several massage parlors, some of which that advertised on craigslist, with women that were basically slaves to him…

Sgt. Grant Snyder of the Minneapolis Police Department, a lead investigator, said the women, all Chinese or Korean, were prohibited from leaving the place of business, kept under video surveillance, and had their passports and other forms of identification confiscated.

The women’s poverty, language barriers and immigration status were used against them, Sergeant Snyder said, and the authorities said they were treating the women as crime victims and not criminals.

The authorities described the patrons as mostly white upper-middle class men between 35 and 55, including doctors and business owners. They usually paid $80 a session, which the prostitutes were obligated to hand over to Mr. Liu, the police said.

The women could negotiate with customers for more money, the police said, but their earnings were marginal at best; one illegal South Korean immigrant mentioned in the criminal complaint had to pay Mr. Liu $40 a day for room and board. He booked her airfare, later deducting it from her prostitution wages, the police said.

Even if prostitution was legal there would still be scumbags like Liu forcing women like these into sex slavery.

Web driving human trafficking:
Our favorite website has been mentioned in the same breath as human trafficking once again.

There was a human trafficking conference in Minnesota and this is what someone in the know had to say.

Heather Weyker, a 10-year veteran of the St. Paul Police Department had this to say.

“We’re on Craig’s List constantly, looking for girls who look young,” Weyker said at the conference, describing the popular online classifieds site. “They always have captors. How many 13-year-old girls think, ‘Hey, I think I’ll put myself on Craig’s List.”‘

And this is what you’re supporting when you use a craigslist or any other kind of prostitute.

They don’t have the option to quit their “work” without suffering physical or sexual punishment, conference participants said. They can’t even walk out the door unaccompanied by one of their captors.

“We’re not just talking about illegal aliens or about people who are disadvantaged,” said U.S. Attorney Rachel Paulose. “These are also girls from the suburbs. It can affect anyone.”

Victimless crime my ass.

Modern Slavery Expert Speaks at Westmont:
Human trafficking expert and author of “Not for Sale” David Batstone spoke at Westmont College in California. This is what he had to say about craigslist…

Delving further into the world of slavery within US borders, Batstone began doing research with the aid of his students. Combing through all kinds of different information—even ads on Craigslist.org—they found that certain key phrases led to people who were doing illegal things. One such Craigslist ad led Batstone and his team of volunteers to a brothel in the heart of San Francisco which specialized in the peddling of teenage prostitutes. Batstone decided to act. Armed with a hidden video camera and a suit, he entered the brothel pretending to be a wealthy businessman in search of a good time. He said that his goal was to get the proprietors to allow him to take a group of the underage girls back to his “hotel” with him, but he had to settle for gathering evidence of the transaction with his camera onsite.

Yet people would have you believe it’s a victimless crime and that police should focus their resources elsewhere.