Doctor accused in sex case put on house arrest

A Sioux Falls doctor accused of buying sex from underage girls through a Tea-based sex-trafficking ring will be on house arrest until his trial.

Joshua Payer, 35, is a former emergency-room doctor and Webster native. He is the only customer charged thus far in the case of Brandon Quincy Thompson, 27, a Chicago native accused of running an online prostitution ring from his home in Tea.

Payer is charged with sex trafficking of a child, aiding and abetting sex trafficking of a child, conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance and distribution of a controlled substance. He has been in jail since his Aug. 5 arrest. A trial date has not been set.

Payer will be required to wear an electronic monitoring device, check in twice a day with probation officers in Sioux Falls, turn over his passport and cease to practice medicine until the case is resolved.

Prosecutors had called Payer a flight risk, and on Wednesday a jailer from Yankton showed a letter Payer sent to his wife this month that appeared to have a map of Mexico with marked locations.
Defense lawyer Mike Butler said Payer never fled the city despite knowing for months that he was under investigation. Payer also voluntarily suspended his medical license in South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota and gave up his passport.

Girls lured to Games for work sold to brothels

CHILD sex-trafficking has become the latest scourge of the Commonwealth Games.
There are reports of an alarming rise in the number of under-aged girls being lured to Delhi for work, only to be sold into prostitution.

The Indian Home Ministry issued an alert this month expressing “deep concern” at increasing reports that girls from some of India’s poorest tribal states, such as West Bengal, Orissa and Jharkhand, were being lured to Delhi with false promises of work at the Commonwealth Games.

The departmental advisory, issued to seven state governments and obtained by The Australian, says: “The victims are mostly those who are promised work in Delhi ahead of the Commonwealth Games by fraudulent placement agencies but instead are likely to be trafficked. Minor girls are the main target. Strict action is urgently required against those involved in such trafficking, both in the source, transit and destination areas.”

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Hundreds of young girls from poverty-stricken rural states are believed to have been successfully trafficked into the city’s burgeoning number of brothels, massage parlours and escort agencies.

Kailash Pathak fears his daughter is among them.

The Australian accompanied the frantic father from rural West Bengal this week as he searched seedy GB Road red-light-district brothels for any sign of 13-year-old Khushbu, while the trafficker who confessed to taking his daughter but denied she left against her will, languished in a police cell 200m away.

Known as Pappu Bagel, he confessed to The Australian that he had accompanied Khushbu out of the state, but said she had gone willingly. He no longer knew where she was.

Mr Pathak said he had tracked down and reported to police Pappu Bagel, who had been visiting a neighbour in his West Bengal village and had left at the time his daughter disappeared. “I rang him and said, ‘Have you taken my girl?’ And he said, ‘What if I have? What can you do about it?’

“I am absolutely helpless. I have no clue about how she’s being kept, what has been done to her. I have been on the (police) search team from one corner to the other and she’s not here.”

Delhi’s illegal but thriving prostitution racket has been gearing up for several months for the Commonwealth Games. Several establishments have reportedly been running basic English classes for their workers and renovating premises for foreign visitors.

Inside one GB Road brothel, The Australian saw a large flat-screen television fitted to the wall. “It’s so we can watch the Commonwealth Games,”a middle-aged female worker explained as two men worked on renovations in one of the adjacent tiled and toilet-sized rooms in which women ply their trade.

The woman said she had no under-aged workers in the brothel and did not tolerate traffickers peddling young girls.

Outside another nearby brothel, where a 16-year-old girl trafficked from Nepal was rescued by police just two days earlier, The Australian counted more than 100 men in the space of just 10 minutes descending the dingy, narrow stairs in packs of 20 or more.

One exiting client said the brothel had been renovated and was “first-class”.

Delhi police have raided a number of the city’s notorious GB Road red-light district in recent weeks. Under-aged girls from poor Indian states and as far away as Nepal – a notorious trafficking source country – have been placed under government care until they can be repatriated.

A police superintendent from one inner-city district said about 80 young girls had been seized from brothels and traffickers in the past six months.

Last month, Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram called a meeting of police and officials from the tourism, labour and women’s ministries on the rise in trafficking – for prostitution and forced labour – before India’s largest sporting event.

Nishi Kant, from Delhi-based anti-trafficking network Shakhti Vahini, said his organisation had rescued 54 under-aged girls from the red-light district and the nearby New Delhi railway station in the past six weeks.

“The traffickers tell the girls and their families that they can get them good jobs in Delhi for the Commonwealth Games, but once they land here they’re trafficked to various suburbs of Delhi and forced into prostitution,” he said.

“The Commonwealth Games has become a disaster in the context of child-trafficking because we’re seeing a clear rise in the number of cases.

“The poverty in these rural states makes them so vulnerable to trafficking of children. Everybody thinks that if you come to Delhi you will get a job, and these Games are rubbing salt in the wound.”

A spokeswoman for anti-trafficking organisation Apne Aap said there had been a huge rise in the number of classified ads in the weekend papers for brothels, escorts and massage parlours, compared with last year.

China to Execute Child Traffickers

I know that this article does not relate to any U.S cases. However I still wanted to include this as most of the products that are sold in the U.S are made in China. Please take the time to learn more about child labor trafficking as this is an issue that affects many children all over the world, including the U.S.

China will execute two men convicted of child trafficking. Li Diji is accused of trafficking 23 children and Wu Suiquing 17. The going rate according to China Daily, was equivalent to $4 500. Eleven others were on trial at the same time for child trafficking. In this case, children were abducted from Sichuan Province and sold in Fujian.
China is taking a serious approach to what is becoming an increasing problem. They have adopted the UN supplementary protocols to coordinate cross border efforts. The incidence of child abduction has increased in China year over year by 45%. Between 30 000 and 60 000 children are reported missing in China every year so even a small increase is very worrisome.
Various Reasons for Human Trafficking
When we think of human trafficking many of us first think of children and women who are sold as sex slaves, but boys and men are trafficked as well. The International Labor Organization estimates that worldwide about 12 million people are trafficked. The majority are enslaved or indentured for cheap labor, whether it is to make cheap goods, household servants, or construction workers.

An update on the Shaniya Davis Case

FAYETTEVILLE — The Fayetteville mother of murdered 5-year-old Shaniya Davis is expected in court Wednesday. Antoinette Davis is accused of prostituting her daughter. She is charged with human trafficking, felony child abuse, prostitution and filing a false police report.

Last November, Davis reported her daughter missing. The 5-year-old’s body was found a few days later in a ditch in Lee County. Mario McNeill is charged with kidnapping, raping and murdering her.

Tampa-area task force targets child prostitution

By JOSH POLTILOVE and JOSÉ PATIÑO GIRONA

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 27, 2010

vote
nowBuzz up!TAMPA – Sometimes the pimps recruit them on the streets, preying on children from broken homes. Others are found on the Internet.

The pimp nurtures the child, working to gain trust, affection and respect. When the bond is sealed, the juvenile is forced into prostitution.

“They get the promise of love and a life,” Tampa police Detective Mike Victor said. “The only thing they see is the inside of a motel room.”

Roughly five years ago, the FBI started a national initiative to halt juvenile prostitution. Locally, the Tampa Area Crimes Against Children Task Force was formed in 2009.

Comprised of investigators from Tampa police, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI, the task force has rescued 43 youngsters in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties.

They ranged in age from 13 to 17. One was a boy.

About 70 percent of the juveniles were in the state foster care system, FBI Special Agent Greg Christopher said.

“When it comes down to it, they are victims,” he said. “No kid is going to make a conscious effort to become a prostitute. It goes from coercion to full-fledged force.”

To demonstrate his power, the pimp might burn the child with cigarettes, brand her with his name or rape her.

Since the task force started working cases during the 2009 Super Bowl in Tampa, investigators have arrested 10 to 15 pimps, Christopher said.

In one operation, undercover agents scouring Craigslist found an advertisement for erotic services from someone who appeared underage. After asking for the Super Bowl Special, a detective was quoted a price of $300 for two girls and was met at a Marriott in Tampa by an 18-year-old and a girl who claimed to be 17 but was actually 14.

In another incident in July, a Tampa man was arrested on sex trafficking charges after the task force said he pimped out a 17-year-old girl in a hotel room.

In most cases, the juveniles aren’t prosecuted, Victor said.

But it’s a battle to keep the youngsters from returning to prostitution – they’re intimidated by their pimps and the streets are what they know.

“We consider it a success if we can save one kid’s life out of five,” Christopher said.

The children can be reunited with family or set up with a foster family. Some are sent to the Girls Education and Mentoring Service in New York or the Children of the Night in California, organizations that help young prostitutes seek better lives, Christopher said.

This month, Christopher received the State/Federal Law Enforcement Officer of the Year award in relation to crimes against children.

“It’s a group effort. It’s not just me. We do it as a team,” he said. “For a lot of these kids, they don’t have a voice.”

Reporter Josh Poltilove can be reached at (813) 259-7961.

Craigslist sex trafficker gets 17 years

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A 27-year-old College Park man was sentenced to 17 years in federal prison for selling underage girls as prostitutes on Craigslist.

.Christopher Pressley, also known as “Daddy,” “CP,” “C-Peezy,” “CP the Young Don,” “The Don,” “Super Swag Shawty,” and “Papi,” pleaded guilty to the charges in June.

“This defendant was exploiting underage girls and literally selling them on the internet as adult prostitutes,” U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said.

According to the information presented in court, an undercover officer with the Metro Atlanta Child Exploitation Task Force made a date for sex based upon an ad in the erotic services section of Craigslist in February 2009.

The girl, who appeared nude in the ad and was listed as 19, looked underage. She was arrested after propositioning the officer at a hotel, and investigators subsequently identified her as a 16-year-old.

Authorities said Pressley knew the girl was a minor and had directed someone to put the advertisement online.

In another case, Atlanta police were called to Grady Hospital in September 2008 regarding a 17-year-old female who was there for treatment. An investigation determined that beginning in April 2009, a photo of the girl was posted by Pressley on Craigslist advertising sexual services. She was 17 at the time.

Following his incarceration, Pressley must serve five years of supervised release and undergo drug, alcohol and sexual rehabilitation, U.S. District Judge Richard W. Story ruled. He also must pay $60,400 in restitution to his victims.

Most Pimps Were Trafficked, Abused As Children

A new research study from the DePaul College of Law sheds light on a rarely examined subject: pimps. Researchers interviewed 25 pimps from the Chicago area, and what they found was surprising. Most of the pimps they spoke with were both trafficked into the sex industry as children and trafficked kids themselves as pimps, forming a vicious cycle of exploitation that can span generations.

Researchers Brenda Myers-Powell and Jody Raphael issued a 91 question survey to 25 pimps in the Chicago area. The results, while imperfect by the authors’ own admission, shed some light on how pimps start pimping, how many women they generally control, and what the modern pimping industry looks like. The interviews included both men and women and people from all races. The results are surprising.

Of the pimps interviewed, 76% were sexually abused as children and 68% were sold for sex themselves before pimping. Every single one of the women interviewed were in the commercial sex industry before pimping. The average age of onset into commercial sex was 15, making the majority of pimps interviewed former child sex trafficking victims. Most of them also reported physical abuse, domestic violence, and drug and alcohol abuse in their home while growing up. Nearly half ran away from those abuses, directly contributing to their entry into the commercial sex industry.

But the news wasn’t all sympathetic. The pimps in the study certainly weren’t struggling to make ends meet; they earned between $150,000 and $500,000 a year. To do this, they sold up to 30 women at a given time. To keep their “inventory” fresh, they were constantly rotating women out and looking for new faces and bodies to bring in. And for most of the pimps, that meant finding what the buyers wanted — younger and younger girls. They shared specific strategies for targeting young, vulnerable girls and runaways. Some talked about feeding girls liquor and drugs until they became compliant. Over half of them took all the earnings from at least some of the girls and women they controlled.

This study demonstrates that exploitation in the commercial sex industry is cyclical and sometimes multi-generational, just like domestic violence or child abuse. Therefore, providing care to both male and female victims of child sex trafficking and sexual exploitation not only fulfills an ethical duty to those victims, it will help stop the cycle of exploitation and prevent the next generation of victims from becoming pimps.

Backpage.com Refuses Attorneys General’s Requests to Close Adult Ad Section

I wanted to share this blog that Amanda Kloer recently wrote regarding Backpage.com. I have made reference to this website a couple of times in the last couple of weeks. I know that for the last couple of months everyone has been attacking Craigslist. At this time because of all of the controversy surrounding the site, Craisglist shut down it’s adult services section. However, while everyone focused on one website, who actually cooperated with law enforcement on sex trafficking investigations, another website doing the same thing (or worse in my opinion) was still profiting from the adult services section. Backpage.com is known to not want to cooperate with anyone. And even now that several Attorney’s Generals have requested for Backpage.com to follow in the footsteps of Craigslist, the owners of this site have said “no”.
It’s time to rally up the troops and begin another fight against a website that has advertised victims of sex trafficking on numerous occasions. This fight is going to be a lot tougher that the fight against Craigslist was as the owners of Craisglist actually had a heart. We must not become complacent now that Craigslist shut down it”s adult services section. We may have won a battle but have not won the war against sex trafficking!

Backpage.com Refuses Attorneys General’s Requests to Close Adult Ad Section
by Amanda Kloer September 23, 2010 @ 06:00AM PT Topics: Child Prostitution, Child Trafficking, Sex Trafficking Craigslist may no longer be able to cry “scapegoat,” as the attorneys general from twenty-one state have now asked Backpage.com to shut down their adult services section to prevent human trafficking. But unlike Craigslist, Backpage owners Village Voice Media have flat-out said “no.” Will you ask them to reconsider?

This week, attorneys general from twenty-one states sent a letter to Village Voice Media, saying that if they can’t responsibly monitor their adult ad section to prevent its use by pimps and traffickers, they should remove it. It was four more attorneys general than wrote to Craigslist with the same request just days before the site complied. In addition to feeling the heat from law enforcement agents around the country, Backpage is the target of a lawsuit from a human trafficking survivor and a petition signed by over 4,000 Change.org readers. Their adult ads page has had documented cases of children sold for sex, and some advocates are concerned pimps now banned from Craigslist are moving victims to Backpage.

Backpage’s response? Sucks for you, but not our fault. In one press release, they called the lawsuit filed by a 14-year-old girl who was sold for prostitution on Backpage, “a lie fabricated by a trial lawyer looking for a payday.” They claim law enforcement has only asked them to cooperate in a handful of cases involving underage girls sold on the site, and that they’ve complied. And in a second press release, they “respectfully decline[d] the recent demand by a group of 21 state attorneys general” to shut down their adult ads. They claim that what they’re doing to prevent misuse, which doesn’t include manual screening of ads or transparent cooperation with NGOs or law enforcement, is enough. And of course, they paint asking them to take any more responsibility for the ease with which criminals exploit children on their site as “censorship.”

It took several years of efforts by a vast number of groups before Craigslist made a change. Is Village Voice Media shaping up to be an even tougher foe? How many cases of children being sold on their site, how many lawsuits, how many pleas from law enforcement and anti-trafficking organizations will it take for them the rethink their hard “no?” How many more signatures until they respond? Will yours be the final one needed?

Mark your calendars!

The Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking will host two fun-raisers during the month of October. Come and join The Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking at one of these events:

October 20th Sweet Tomatoes
4678 East Colonial Road
Orlando

October 27th Sweet Tomatoes
Tampa 1902 No. Dale Mabry Hwy. Tampa, FL 33607-2522

It’s simple. Bring in the flyer provided to you by FCAHT staff , present the flyer to the cashier and 20% of your tab goes to F.C.A.H.T!

Please feel free to email fcahtevents@gmail.com for more information!

Thanks for your continued support!

More on the Largest Human Trafficking case in the U.S

In an Ugly Human-Trafficking Case, Hawaii Forgets Itself
By LAWRENCE DOWNES
Published: September 20, 2010
This is a story of two farmers, Laotian immigrant brothers who grow vegetables in Hawaii . People love their onions, melons, Asian cabbage, herbs and sweet corn, and their Halloween pumpkin patch is a popular field trip for schoolchildren all over Oahu . They count local politicians and community leaders among their many friends, and run a charitable foundation.

Though they are relative newcomers, their adopted home is a state that honors its agricultural history, where most longtime locals are descendants of immigrant plantation workers. The brothers fit right in.

But they had an ugly secret. A captive work force: forty-four men, laborers from Thailand who were lured to Hawaii in 2004 with promises of good wages, housing and food. The workers sacrificed dearly to make the trip, mortgaging family land and homes to pay recruiters steep fees of up to $20,000 each.

According to a federal indictment, the workers’ passports were taken away. They were set up in cramped, substandard housing — some lived in a shipping container. Many saw their paychecks chiseled with deductions for food and expenses; some toiled in the fields for no net pay. Workers were told not to complain or be sent home, with no way to repay their unbearable debts.

The news broke last August. The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice filed charges of forced labor and visa fraud. The farm owners agreed to plead guilty in December in Federal District Court to conspiring to commit forced labor. They admitted violating the rules of the H-2A guest worker program, telling the workers that their labor contracts were “just a piece of paper” used to deceive the federal government.

I wish I could say that at this point the case so shocked the Hawaiian public that people rushed to aid the immigrants, who reminded them so much of their parents and grandparents. That funds were raised and justice sought.

But that didn’t happen.

In an astounding display of amnesia and misplaced sympathy, Hawaii rallied around the defendants. After entering their plea deal, the farmers, Michael and Alec Sou of Aloun Farms, orchestrated an outpouring of letters begging the judge for leniency at sentencing. Business leaders, community activists, politicians — even two former governors, Benjamin Cayetano and John Waihee, and top executives at First Hawaiian Bank — joined a parade attesting to the brothers’ goodness.

The men were paragons of diversified agriculture and wise land use, the letter writers said. They had special vegetable knowledge that nobody else had, and were holding the line against genetically modified crops. If they went to prison, evil developers would pave their farmland. Think of the “trickle down impact,” one woman implored the judge. Besides, their produce was delicious.

The friends pleaded for probation, fines, anything but prison. The workers, now scattered to uncertain fates and still in debt, have seen no such empathy.

The Sous were supposed to have been sentenced months ago, but at a hearing in July they made statements that muddled and seemed to contradict their plea agreement. The vexed judge, Susan Oki Mollway, postponed sentencing to Sept. 9, so they could get their story straight. Back in court this month, the men recanted some of their sworn testimony, so the judge threw the plea deal out. Now there will be a trial in November.

Another shocking story emerged in Honolulu this month: a federal grand jury indicted six people on charges of enslaving 400 Thai farm workers on Maui and elsewhere — the largest trafficking case in American history. In Hawaii , no uproar ensued. The pumpkin-patch field trips are still booked.

Hawaii has a state motto: Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono, or the life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness. Hawaiians use “pono” to mean what is just or right, in harmony with nature and with other people. The words hang on huge bronze seals at the State Capitol, and I feel sure that most longtime residents of Hawaii can easily recall and recite them, in Hawaiian and English.

Whether some of them ever think about what the motto means, or care, is another question.