Comments on: Justice Department Opposes Strengthened Anti-Slavery Proposal

By: Christa Hillstrom

Christa Hillstrom — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 04:52:04 +0000

There are some people who willfully work in prostitution in the U.S. and, although some would argue that any form of prostitution is necessarily exploitative and coercive, there are prostitutes who exercise some measure of control over their lives and work. However, studies have shown that the vast majority of women who end up in the sex trade have been coerced through violence and other forms of manipulation. The average age of entry into prostitution hovers around 14 years old in major cities, and many women are thoroughly entrenched in cycles of coercion and manipulation by the time they reach an age where they would be legally able to make such decisions. I am a journalist in Chicago and just spent a few months reporting on the situation of prostitutes in Chicago and was completely disturbed by the realities I discovered. If you’d like to read more about what’s called “domestic human trafficking” in Chicago, you can read this article: http://humangoods.net/2008/07/10/spotlight-on-trafficking-in-the-us/

By: Billy Buchanan

Billy Buchanan — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 02:58:14 +0000

Prostitutes in America. is simply that. I can’t put in a category of human trafficking. I mean they are working in the oldest profession, and in america don’t they have a choice?

By: Michele Wright

Michele Wright — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:08:58 +0000

John Miller’s OP-ED piece in the New York Times today brings up some strong arguments about prostitution that I had never considered before. The amount of physical and emotional abuse these women, many extremely young, deal with on a daily basis in intolerable. To ever support the argument that these women “choose” this lifestyle seems to be blind ignorance at best. The waste of a human life and their potential is tragic, profiting off this while engaging in extreme physical and emotional abuse is something our society should never tolerate. We need strong federal laws, and citizens need to be educated about the facts of human trafficking. We should all be contacting our senators to put the “anti-human traficking bill on the senate floor, especially after it passed so overwhelming in the house.