Selling sex online: “fresh and innocent” means underage

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi.

Thanks to DFL’er Grace Kelly for calling my attention to this issue.

The Twin Cities metro area is taking the lead in Minn. to stop the exploitation of youth by pimps and other varieties of sexual predators, online or otherwise. And our officials are making clear the difference between criminals and victims of sex crimes. In an article titled Teen prostitutes get new status, the Minneapolis StarTribune’s Pat Pfieffer and Jim Anderson report:

County prosecutors from across the metro said Friday they are overhauling their policies to ensure that juvenile prostitutes are treated as crime victims instead of criminals, even as some regions of the state see an uptick in teen prostitution cases.

The article continues:

"These kids are 14 going on 43 sometimes," said Pete Orput, Washington County attorney. "It's important to send them the message that they're going to be treated as crime victims."

Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom, a national leader in the field of juvenile justice issues, said protecting children is one of the most important tasks for prosecutors.

"In many ways, it's reached epidemic levels," aided by the Internet and social network websites, he said. Victim advocates say when online ads selling sex tout "fresh" and "innocent," what they mean is underage.

And get this:

Joy Friedman, a case worker for Breaking Free, a St. Paul-based outreach and recovery group for prostituted women and girls, said the average age that a girl enters prostitution is 13. More and more, she said, she is seeing girls recruited by other juveniles. "We had an 11-year-old who was recruited by a 12-year-old," she said.

 Strange, isn't it, how we Americans continue to preach to other nations about human rights while situations like the above continue to exist in our own society, even out here in the Midwest.