United States

Trafficking | Prostitution | Pornography | Organized and Institutionalized Exploitation

"It is a violation of human rights when women are trafficked, bought and sold as prostitutes." (Hillary Clinton, Lviv Opera House, Lviv, Ukraine, "First Lady To Fight Prostitution," AP Online, 18 November 1997)

A woman is attacked every 15 seconds. One third of women admitted to emergency rooms are victims of domestic violence. 47% of men who beat their spouses do so at least three times a year. (United Nations Study, "UN proposes pact on family violence," ALC News Service, 24 July 1998)

Organizations for child molestors have websites that tell them where to make contact with children such as public schools, and have links to websites where children post messages and personal information. ("Prepared Testimony of Officer Anonymous Before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation," Federal News Service, 11 February 1998)

In shopping malls, on subway trains and at amusement parks, men are pointing video cameras under the clothes of unsuspecting women. Upskirt" and "downblouse" tapes often end up on the Internet, where anyone over 18 can legally view and buy them. Since 1996, the number of voyeur Web sites has grown from just a handful to more than 100. (Deborah Hastings, "Peeping Toms Using Video Cameras", Associated Press Online, 9 August, 1998)

The United Nations Special Rappateur on Violence Against Women received very serious allegations of sexual abuse of women prisoners in Florence Crane Women’s Facility, Coldwater, Michigan, Camp Branch Facility for Women, Coldwater, Michigan, and Scott Correctional Facility for Women, Plymouth, Michigan. She also received serious allegations of sexual abuse of women occurring in the security housing unit of the Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, California. (United Nations Press Release, 19 June 1998)

Teenage girls get gonorrhea about 1.5 times as often as teenage boys in the United States. Girls between 10 and 14 have 4 times the rate of gonorrhea, as do boys. The rates were 79.3 girls positive per 100,000 versus 19.4 boys positive per 100,000. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention epidemiologist Amanda Sue Niskar reports statistics from 1992 to 1994, "Girls Get Gonorrhea More Often Than Boys," Washington Times, 18 July 1997)

300,000 children are being sexually abused in the US. (Fernando Toledo, Inter-American Institute for Children)

The North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) has an estimated membership of 1000 ("Boy's murder casts light on fringe advocacy group," Peter S. Canellos, Boston Globe, 9 Oct 1997)

There are 9,484 registered sex offenders of whom 715 are sexual predators in Florida. (Phil Long, "Duval police hunt child molester," Miami Herald, 28 January 1998)

$23 million was paid by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas, Texas to 8 former alter boys who were sexually abused for years by Rudolph Kos, a priest. The RCC has paid $800 million in the 1990s to victims of sexual abuse by priests. (Rene Sanchez, "Dallas diocese in huge abuse settlement," The Providence Journal, 11 July 1998)

More than 200 Roman Catholic priests have been jailed in the 1990s for the sexual abuse of children. As many as 2,000 of the 51,000 priests in the US have been accused of sexual abuse in the last 2 decades. (Rene Sanchez, "Dallas diocese in huge abuse settlement," the Providence Journal, 11 July 1998)

The Rene Guyon Society, the North American Man/Boy Love Association, the Pedophile Information Exchange, the Child Sensuality Circle, the Pedo-Alert Network, and the Lewis Carroll Collector's Guild are groups that advocate heterosexual and homosexual adult-child sex and deciminalization of these acts. (FBI Special Agent Kenneth V. Lanning, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, "Boy's murder casts light on fringe advocacy group," Peter S. Canellos, Boston Globe, 9 Oct 1997)

Victimization of children over the Internet is rapidly increasing according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). ("We must make the Internet safer for our kids," Virginian Pilot Ledger Star, 12 September 1998)

Since 1993, harassment and abuse on the Internet has increased dramatically. For example, in the early 1990s at the University of Michigan, campus police received five or six computer harassment cases a year, n they handle that many a week. Experts say most computer harassment cases are pranks or nuisances, driven by the increase in use of the Internet and because of the anonymity the Internet offers. Most police departments, especially those in smaller communities, have no computer experts to investigate computer harassment. Federal laws govern many computer crimes like those dealing with fraud, child pornography and exploitation, but federal authorities are reluctant to enter the arena of Internet harassment and abuse. Computer crimes are often untraceable, thus it is hard to enforce criminal laws. If police establish that a case of computer harassment is a crime, they generally have to act very quickly to trace the perpetrator because many Internet service providers purge important information between five and 30 days. Most providers will not give authorities information on their clients without a warrant and some -- those based in foreign countries -- won't even do that. Even if the perpetrator can be tracked down, police agencies must decide if the crime is serious enough to pursue. ("Police departments not equipped to deal with cyber stalkers," Detroit News, 16 September 1998)

Juvenile Offender Programs

Girls in San Francisco Bay Area (California) detention halls, are in for such minor crimes as running away or abusing alcohol and drugs, which they often commit to escape being victims of sexual and physical violence at home and abuse by pimps and other predators on the street. Officials in several Bay Area counties would like to invest in detention alternatives -- treatment for physical abuse and addiction, and job skills training -- to help the girls overcome the underlying problems that get them repeatedly locked up. The emotional trauma that fuels girls' trouble with the law makes it very challenging to help them. (Alan Gathright, "Girl inmates pose problem," San Jose Mercury News)

Across the San Francisco (California) Bay Area over the past decade, the number of girls admitted to juvenile halls has grown more than twice as fast as the number of boys. In several counties, the number of boys declined from 1988 to 1997, while the number of girls increased by as much as 92% in San Mateo County. In California, the number of girls rose 34% in that period, while the number of boys rose 18%. (Alan Gathright, "Girl inmates pose problem," San Jose Mercury News)

San Mateo County (California) makes more use of "therapeutic detention", briefly jailing probation violators for minor offenses, than other San Francisco Bay Area counties with similar populations. Girls are in the hall because they run away from home, live on the streets, or have sexual relations with older me, all of which places them in harm’s way. Placing them in juvenile hall is a means of protecting the girls. (Alan Gathright, "Girl inmates pose problem," San Jose Mercury News)

About 46% of almost 1,000 girls had a record of abuse or neglect in their case files, found researchers in a groundbreaking study of girls in California juvenile halls in Alameda, Marin, Los Angeles and San Diego counties. When researchers interviewed nearly 200 of those girls, the numbers were even higher:

• 80% reported being physically abused
• 56% reported being sexually abused
• more than 45 % reported being beaten or burned
• 40% had been raped
• 25% had been shot or stabbed

Girls were most vulnerable between age 12 and 15 to their first experiences of being sexually abused, shot or stabbed, engaging in substance abuse, school failure, running away or giving birth. Girls, far more than boys, are arrested for juvenile "status offenses" - breaking curfew, running away, truancy - acts that are only illegal because the offender is under 18. Most intensive programs for girl offenders begin after these problems have started, rather than earlier when they might have been prevented. Prevention services are recommended to target girls by age 5, when many report first being molested. "The almost universal characteristic of girls in the juvenile justice system is a history of violent victimization," said Leslie Acoca, the senior researcher on the study by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency in San Francisco. "When a child is molested they learn to not trust anyone; they don't form relationships well. So, they frequently run away from home or from out-of-home placements, that violates probation and they end up back in juvenile hall," said Deberah Bringelson, executive director of the San Mateo County Criminal Justice Council. (Alan Gathright, "Girl inmates pose problem," San Jose Mercury News)

In California, girl-offender programs are at a disadvantage in vying with the mostly male juvenile population for funding. In August 1998, Governor Pete Wilson vetoed a bill funding $15 million in state challenge grants to encourage counties to create specialized programs for female offenders. Wilson said it duplicated an existing juvenile grant program that allows local governments to decide whether to fund programs serving girls or boys. He added that he feared the bill "disproportionately" earmarked half the juvenile grant funding for girls, who are responsible for only 23% of offenses committed by juveniles. (Alan Gathright, "Girl inmates pose problem," San Jose Mercury News)

Nationally, 1 in 4 minors arrested is female, making them the faster-growing segment of the United States juvenile system. Girl offenders have long been invisible in a juvenile justice system designed for a largely male population. (Alan Gathright, "Girl inmates pose problem," San Jose Mercury News)

A quarter of girls arrested nationally in 1996 were arrested for status offenses, - breaking curfew, running away, truancy - acts that are only illegal because the offender is under 18. This type of arrest accounted for less than 10% of boys' arrests in the same year. Girls composed 57% of runaway arrests in 1996, even though research surveys show that boys and girls run away in equal numbers. (Alan Gathright, "Girl inmates pose problem," San Jose Mercury News)

A 1974 federal law encouraged authorities to divert status offenders to alternative programs, so detention halls are reserved for criminals who pose a danger to themselves or the public. Still, girls on probation for crimes such as petty theft or public drunkenness can be jailed for chronically running away, skipping school or breaking curfew. (Alan Gathright, "Girl inmates pose problem," San Jose Mercury News)

Cases

Mike Leavitt the Governor of Salt Lake City, Utah, USA suggested that polygamy is constitutionally protected. There are tens of thousands of polygamists in Utah, and the crime is not prosecuted. (Mike Carter, "Utah govenor seeks legal opinion on polygamy prosecution", Associated Press, 29 July 1998)

Reverand David Holley is serving a 275-year sentence for molesting boys in New Mexico, records show the Catholic church continuously transferred him to different churches in Massachusetts, Colorado and West Texas. ("Catholic Church documents suggest that the institution knowingly shuffled a pedophile priest among different states for 20 years," UPI, 31 August 1997)

U.S citizen John Wetterer, who ran the Mi Casa orphanage in Guatemala was accused of sexually abusing boys in this care. (Robert E. Kessler, "Ex-Orphan Tells Court About Abuse/ Long Island Native Accused," Newsday, 24 September 1997)

Pornography material from The North American Man-Boy Love Association, an organization for paedophiles, was found by police inside a car suspected of being used to abduct a 10-year-old Massachusetts boy, who was murdered. ("Police have been watching man-boy love group," Associated Press, 5 October 1997)

A San Antonio woman was kidnapped for the purpose of sexual enslavement by being zapped with a stun gun and dragged into a van. She was stripped, chained in a leather harness and instructed to call the kidnappers "M'Lord" and "Lady Dominatrix". She escaped after 24 hours. (United Press International, 19 November 1997)

Captain Blakey, the first woman to pilot an Airbus A300 jumbo jet for Continental, testifies that the Continental Airlines corporation did nothing to stop harassment against her by male pilots who spread pornography in plane cockpits and harassed her for reporting the incidents. (Associated Press, 10 September 1997)

A sexual harrasment suit has been brought against Garban LCC, a Wall Street brokerage firm. Attorney General Dennis Vacco has filed a $10 million lawsuit against Garban and its affiliated companies, alleging some of its 300 brokers verbally, physically and sexually harassed three female brokers. He said the harassment dated back to 1984. Garban was accused of making it difficult for female employees to move up within the company. Garban denounced the behavior alleged in the lawsuit and is cooperating with Vacco's office. Among the allegations were that strippers performed for male workers on the trading floor in plain view of female workers; male employees frequently dropped their pants to fix their shirts; the door to the men's bathroom was kept open so that the urinals were in plain sight; and women were called derogatory names. ("Brokerage hit with harassment suit," Associated Press, 2 September 1998)

A gender discrimination suit has been settled in September 1998, by a federal judge in Chicago who gave final approval to a settlement between the Merrill Lynch & Co. brokerage firm and female employees. The settlement allows 2,500 women to file discrimination claims to be heard by mediators, who would determine what if any award is appropriate. There is no maximum, but attorneys for the women expected awards to total in the millions of dollars. ("Brokerage hit with harassment suit," Associated Press, 2 September 1998)

Trafficking | Prostitution | Pornography | Organized and Institutionalized Exploitation