Washington, U.S.A. — Two recent studies sponsored by the Office of Justice Programs’ National Institute of Justice explore the prevention and successful prosecution of human trafficking cases focused on prostitution.  The first, conducted by Abt Associates, focused on “demand reduction” strategies, discouraging potential “customers” from hiring prostitutes. A separate study conducted by researchers at Northeastern University, focuses on the identification, investigation and prosecution of state and local trafficking cases, and explores reasons authorities have not found more victims and prosecuted more cases.

In “A National Overview of Prostitution and Sex Trafficking Demand Reduction Efforts,” Abt researchers found that American localities had experimented with a broad range of demand reduction strategies focused on sex buyers, colloquially known as “johns.” A small body of evidence shows that some strategies, such as camera surveillance and “john school” education program, can be effective.

In “Identifying Challenges to Improve the Investigation and Prosecution of State and Local Trafficking Cases,” researchers examined trafficking cases in 12 U.S. counties and interviewed officials in three counties reporting no trafficking cases. Although the study’s findings cannot be generalized, researchers found a common thread in all three counties: most trafficking cases begin with a tip from someone knowledgeable about the situation, but rarely from trafficked people themselves. Researchers also found that 69 percent of the reviewed cases were prosecuted, most were not charged as trafficking cases per se, but were prosecuted under older laws, such as those against promoting prostitution.

About NIJ

The National Institute of Justice — the research, development and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice — is dedicated to improving knowledge and understanding of crime and justice issues through science. NIJ provides objective and independent knowledge and tools to reduce crime and promote justice, particularly at the state and local levels.

The Office of Justice Programs (OJP), headed by Acting Assistant Attorney General Mary Lou Leary, provides federal leadership in developing the nation’s capacity to prevent and control crime, administer justice, and assist victims. OJP has six bureaus and offices: the Bureau of Justice Assistance; the Bureau of Justice Statistics; the National Institute of Justice; the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; the Office for Victims of Crime; and the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking (SMART).

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Eight pimps were arrested May 29, 2012 and May 30, 2012 in one of the largest brothel raids in Ireland’s history. The raid, known as “Operation Quest” consisted of searching 140 houses, apartments and flats in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Three women were removed from the raid who were considered possible victims of human trafficking.

Three women were arrested and sentenced in the Northern Ireland raids. Sandra Polewska, Milena Tarnowska, and Marta Kozakowska are all Polish nationals who have received suspended two-month prison sentences after all three plead guilty to running a brothel in Belfast and possession of criminal property. The human trafficking charges have not been brought up against anyone as of yet.

Kozakowska received an extra month to her suspended sentence after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice. Kozakowska swallowed a phone SIM card when police first raided her apartment in order to keep her client information secret.

According to the “IrishTimes.com,” the brothel run by these three Polish nationals was considered “unsophisticated.” It is unclear as to the hierarchy of the brothel and which one of the women, if any of the three, were considered in charge of everything. Instead the three seemed to work together to run the brothel but also acted as prostitutes.

Two other women were arrested in the Northern Ireland raids but were released on bail pending further inquiries. Two women and one man were arrested in the Republic of Ireland, but two of the three have been released without charges. No prostitutes were arrested during the raids because they are considered exploited victims rather than criminals.

In addition to sexual items and condoms around $4,229 were confiscated from the Northern Ireland raids.

The operation was a joint effort of Garda, Serious and Organized Crime Agency, Europol, UK Border Agency and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). A Garda spokesperson claimed, “during the investigation to date it has been established that prostitution is organized on a cross-border basis and today’s joint operation was specifically aimed at individuals and groups intent on making profits from vulnerable members of society across the island of Ireland.”

According to the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities, Northern Ireland is the fastest growing sex industry in the United Kingdom. Denise Charlton, CEO of the Immigrant Council stated, “as a member of the Turn Off the Red Light Campaign, a coalition of more than 50 organizations, we want to see the Government act by making it illegal to pay for sex. It is this discrepancy in Irish law which has allowed the brothels to flourish and brought human rights abuses to our communities.”

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Last Friday, three U.S. Secret Service agents resigned over the sex scandal in Colombia, as the result of a boozed-filled party with prostitutes in Cartagena prior to President Obama’s visit on April 14 to attend the Summit of the Americas.

The agents’ party came to light when Dania Suarez, a 24-year-old single mother, made a disturbance after one of the agents refused to pay her the agreed amount of $800 to spend a night with him. After the local police and hotel security were brought in, the fuss finally got back to the Secret Service superiors. There was supposedly 20 prostitutes at the party and authorities are probing whether some of them were underage girls.

Nine out of 12 agents allegedly involved have resigned or are going to be forced out, while three of them were cleared of serious misconduct. The U.S. military is also investigating the other 12 servicemen who were in Columbia helping the agents. The White House did an investigation to determine if any of its personnel were engaged in the notorious incident, but announced Monday that there was no evidence that proves these employees were involved.

“There was no indication that any member of the White House advance team engaged in any improper conduct or behavior,” said Press Secretary Jay Carney. The White House clearly wants to keep the scandal at arm’s length since Carney insisted the White House Communication Agency, despite its name, is not a member of White House staff. He said, “They are not chosen by the White House staff. These are military personnel staffed by the military.”

Representative Peter King, Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, posed the question of whether federal money was used and if agents had weapons and classified materials in the rooms in which they brought the prostitutes.  He said, “whether any of those foreign nationals (prostitutes) had access to any information that could have compromised the U.S. President or that could make an enemy force aware of the practices and procedures of the Secret Service.” King also wanted to find out whether the incident was part of a pattern. “Was it an aberration- something that happens once every 1,000 times – or something that is condoned?”

The embarrassing incident has drawn the attention of lawmakers onto the security and the work of the elite protection agency. The authorities also argued that this kind of incident might not happen if there were more women in the Secret Service Agency, where females make up only about 11 percent of agents and uniformed officers. This is considerably lower than the 19 percent of female special agents in the FBI.

Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan provided detailed responses to 50 questions by Peter King relating to the embarrassing case, the tarnished image of the Secret Service and a possible security breach. In an interview with CNN Tuesday night, Peter King said that Sullivan revealed that three of the agents involved refused to do the polygraph test. These agents were the first people who were forced to leave after the scandal disclosed.

Wednesday morning, King said that no security breach arose from the secret agents in relation to the Colombian hookers. “We know that it appears that no material was obtained by any of the prostitutes, nothing is missing, all the BlackBerrys are accounted for, there was no president’s schedule available. It does not appear that any of the 12 women had any involvement other than prostitution.”

However, he supposed this incident opposed the principles of the Secret Service and that this is an opportunity for the Secret Service to fix the mistake and do everything that they can to make sure that this will never happen again. 

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XXX news: “Student sex work (prostitution, escort, striptease and other sexual services) is gaining more and more public attention,” reported a group of four scholarship holders at the Studienkolleg zu Berlin (Berlin Centre of Studies) on May 18th at the Berlin Branden-burgische Akademie der Wissenschaften.

According to their international research project, called Nebenjob: Prostitution (Second job: prostitution), one out of three among the 3200 university students surveyed in Berlin would be seriously considering doing sex work. This is much more than those in Paris and in Kiev respectively by around 4 and 15 percentage points, although it is worth of remark that final figures will be available by the end of August 2011. Similar numbers have been published by the German tabloid Bild, which recently announced 5000 of the 140,000 Berlin students to be ‘XXX’ workers, with one in 27 (3.7%) of those living in the red-light district actually already engaged in the sex industry.

For the overall 3500 students who filled in the Studienkolleg’s questionnaire, main motivating factors to sell sexual services would be excessively high university fees and financial hardship in general. Prostitution is widely acknowledged as a ‘simple’ means for quick alluring incomes: “It’s possible that because educational reforms have increased student workloads, they have less time to earn money. Coupled with higher student fees, in this instance, leads students into prostitution” Eva Blumenschein, one of the survey’s authors, said. As a matter of the fact, 30% of those declared pro-sex workers appear to be already stricken by debts, almost double the percentage of those not willing; moreover only 50% of them get financial help from relatives, compared to 65% of the rest of the student population. Eventually, important but less immediate concerns for starting such a career seem to be the need for admiration and searching for adventure.

It is true that prostitution wages can reach £2000-5000 a week, but they entail severe health hazards such as sexually transmitted infections and violence, as well as social and psychological drawbacks, the study pointed out. In fact, even if it apparently seems to be an easy “job” to make money quickly, conversely it might become a dangerous threshold from which you might not bounce back in your life. And often even the so-called normal common people are most likely to be trapped in: open-mindedness, appeal or seriousness have amazingly revealed not to be trenchant distinctions at all, a psychological test linked to the present research carried out.

Another astonishing outcome of the German review concerns gender, since both men and women’s student prostitution rates were revealed to be almost the same: ‘we were expecting a higher female percentage’ therefore “we have prejudice as well”, admitted the Studienkolleg researcher Felix Betzler.

According to another study, the vast majority of those considering a sex job are 26-years-old, often in a steady relationship (52.3%), with heterosexuals as the largest group, accounting for 49% of the total, followed by bisexuals (37.8%) and homosexuals (19.3%); most of them mainly use internet to find their clients.

If you are tempted to relate these figures to the fact that prostitution in Berlin is legal, also being such a famous city for its red-light areas, you might be underrating that, conversely, it deals with a fast-growing very global trend. For example, much before the findings in question, an English 2007 pioneer research project called Sex work and students (Roberts et al) had provided extraordinary evidence of the association between students participation in sex work and pitting economic pressure related to university fees, carrying out over 10% of a 130 undergraduates sample in the south of England to be privy of other students involved in the sex industry in order to support themselves financially. Even not going so far, just a few days ago the University of Arkansas in US claimed to have found that more and more highly educated and affluent women are increasingly entering prostitution. They are not forced, rather choosing it ‘for many reasons that people enter the conventional job market – money, stability, autonomy and even job satisfaction’ said Jennifer Hafer, a doctoral student in the Graduate School of Business at that University.

It deals with numbers alarmingly ever more similar to those in some African countries such as Zimbawe, though with the fundamental difference that there, sadly, many do not have any real alternatives. Thus, once people decide to study in order not to be on the streets: now it seems to happen the exact contrary due to new unendurable educational policy. However, it could be also because today sex business appears far more close and ‘trendy’ than in the past. For example, being an ‘escort’ or a gigolo, and using a webcam while staying comfortably in your home maybe does not sound too much as prostitution. Anyway, it is an activity that is emerging as one of the distinctive choices of freedom made by the future ruling class of the so-called developed countries. What about you? Post your precious comments!

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