Online Child Prostitution, An Alarming Trend:
This is an article from a Sacramento, CA news station about how child prostitution is proliferating due to the internet…
(CBS 13) SACRAMENTO FBI agents say child prostitution is moving off the streets and onto the information superhighway. Sacramento Special Agent James Harris said sex peddlers have gotten tech savvy.
“They figure if pedophiles can entice online, that’s their business, that’s what they do, said Harris.
Harris says they set up profiles on MySpace or Yahoo to recruit and entice underage girls. Then they advertise them on the internet–through addresses like redbook.com, a bay area erotic services site, or legitimate places like Craigslist, where you can find a car, rent an apartment or an “erotic service.”
“They’re advertised as of age when you look closer they’re not, said Harris.
The face is usually cut out or covered in a way so the age is hard to tell and so that law enforcement can’t track them down. Agent Harris says most turn out to be reported missing and runaways.
The only way to make money is to prostitute. A lot are beginning to see this is a safe way to do it than on the streets, said Harris.
Hundreds pop up on Craigslist every day in Sacramento. Why the capital city? Harris says it’s a crossroads between Seattle, L.A., San Francisco and Reno, where I-5 and I-80 meets.
Agent Harris admits these cases are tough to prosecute. Those who post the listings are hard to track down, in some cases out of the country. But the FBI says as their crime scenes shift, they’re investigating child sex for sale with more mouse than muscle.