Many of these, though legal, are also fronts for underage exploitation. Shared Hope estimates that the average age of minors used as prostitutes in the U.S. is 13.
“More and more, the people looking to buy sex are looking for younger and younger kids,” said Janice Crouse, president of Concerned Women for America.
Elesia Lopez is a survivor of the child sex-trafficking system in Portland.
Her mother was a prostitute who ran a “massage parlor,” a front for illegal sex trade. At Elesia’s 13th birthday party, her mother sold her to a man for $5,000 to feed a drug habit. Elesia was given to the man as his personal sex slave.
“He took what he thought he owned and raped me multiple times,” Miss Lopez said.
She escaped, pregnant and scared. She gave up her baby for adoption and spent time in foster care before running away again. This time she was on the streets, and after eight months at a shelter for the homeless, she was recruited by her first pimp.
They traveled along the West Coast corridor, with her pimp making a rich profit off of her in Anaheim, Calif., Portland and Seattle. She wanted to escape, but she knew he would kill her if she left.
When she became pregnant again at 15, with twins, she knew she had to escape. After running again, she was stopped by a police officer who asked her what she was doing on the street.
“I really don’t know what I’m doing,” she told him.
It was a turning point in her life: She had grown up in a world where it was normal to be a prostitute or a pimp, but she finally realized that she had to try to leave it behind forever.
“I had to get to that point where I was pregnant and I didn’t want my baby to die — this was another human life,” she said.
The policeman helped get her case to court, but without secure shelter, she was still on her own. One night during the trial, her pimp found her and beat her with a baseball bat. She was 6½ months pregnant. One of her babies died; the other was born three weeks later.
Her pimp was caught and convicted, and Miss Lopez left the world of prostitution. Today she is an advocate for the Sexual Assault Resource Center, where she helps rescue girls from the streets.
“God works good out of all of this,” she said.
Stopping child sex trafficking is particularly difficult in Portland.
View Entire Story© Copyright 2013 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
Michal Elseth is an intern with the National Journalism Center working in commentary and national news for the summer. She graduated in May with a Bachelor of Arts in English from Hillsdale College. Michal loves D.C. and life as a graduate, but she is actually from the other Washington and hopes to work in journalism there.
By Andrew P. Napolitano
The president's men trash the Constitution to pursue antagonists
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
First over-the-counter column approved for fast and effective relief from even your worst media-induced headache.
Opinion, analysis, and musings on politics, pop culture, reinvention, and the resultant flotsam and jetsam floating around the right-of-center quadrant of the Left Coast.
Consummate traveler Todd DeFeo explores the unique stories that make destinations worth going to.
We welcome you to the intimate and personal thoughts on the news and events we, as editors, watch, read, and discuss with our writers every day.
Benghazi: The anatomy of a scandal
13 Photos
Vietnam Memorial adds four names
18 Photos
Cinco de Mayo on the Mall
11 Photos
NRA kicks off annual convention
8 Photos
