What a brave woman. I think the reports about the collusion of the judge and potentially other law enforcement are particularly chilling.

Movies are the best form of education with the highest potential for success and dissemination.

The two things have nothing to do with one another. You think that abduction into the sex slave trade only occurs in places where prostitution is legal?

First you have to accept the fact that just because something is illegal, does not mean it does not occur. The old joke in the Military was the only truly voluntary acts of enlistees was when they did something illegal or against regulations.

The problem is the people who tend to end up in Prostitution tend to be people with few other options, including little money. Such people have to work against people who tend to have money and other means to enforce what they want. The pimps can then rely on they legal rights, including property rights, Contract rights, privacy rights, and other rights kick in that hamper regulation AND due to the difference in bargaining position (to use a contract concept) hard to determine is the sex worker is truly voluntary or otherwise being forced into the profession.

When in comes to Prostitution, what is being a "Voluntary" sex worker? Over time it was found the best way was the same way the Military handle it, make it illegal and thus when someone does it and gets arrested for it and returns to the profession you know it was voluntary.

Even in Nevada, where Prostitution is legal, the larger cities have found that the only way to regulate prostitution was to make it illegal. They tried to regulate it otherwise and found it could NOT be done. These problems were seen in the late 1800s in the US and was the main reason for the push to make Prostitution illegal. Voluntary sex workers no one had any real problems with, they may dislike it but they accepted it. The problem was always involuntary sex workers, women captured by "white slavers" as the term was used. How do you protect them?

When prostitution was legal. the police could do little to protect a prostitute who claimed she was forced into prostitution when a pimp cames to the Station with a contract signed by the prostitute to work for the pimp. At that time period, 1900, a contract was absolute and the police would have to enforce the contract (We are talking about people who could NOT hire an attorney to tell them otherwise). The only way for the police NOT to enforce the contract was to rule such contract was illegal, but that could only be if the act of prostitution was illegal.

While, today, most people know a contract for personal services can not be enforced except in regards to that service as to other people (i.e. a actor can not get out of a contract to act, by going to another place to act, but if he or she decides NOT to act that is legal). On the other hand most victims of such forced prostitution are young run aways whose knowledge of the law and where to get help is limited. The only way to get that information to them is via the Police force via arrest for prostitution. True Voluntary sex workers accept such arrests as the cost of doing business, as to forced sex workers this may be they only way out (and if you study how women are forced into becoming sex workers you realize the first arrest is often not enough, even in abuse cases, where we have decent numbers, it averages about the third time the abuse person seeks help that the abuse person actually goes through the system and gets help and even then many fall back into the hands of their abusers).

Sorry, keeping sex workers illegal is the best way to regulate them. It is not perfect, but it is better then leaving it up to their pimps.

There has to be a better way for a society to function. Has to!

The biggest problem is the highest demand is for young women, age 14-25. With AIDS, the push has been to even younger women, on the grounds that the Johns do not want to come down with AIDS (i.e. 14-16 years olds). The demand for women over 25 goes down sharply (this is confirmed by Strip clubs who tend NOT to hire any woman over the age of 25 unless she is a "Name" act, but such "Names" rarely survive the 30th birthday of the "Name&quot .

This corresponds to the age of most runaways, age 14-18, and why pimps hang out in bus stops to pick such young things up.

The UN policy is to make Prostitution legal, but to keep procurers and pimps illegal. The problem is that is NOT how the practice has ever been set up and can NOT be set up unless some Government agency is in charge (Which is why Ancient Rome and many European Cities the 1800s forced Prostitutes to pay a "fee" to practice they trade, the problem was the fees should have been used to control the pimps, but the cities decided the money should go to "Other City Services" of higher value to the City, thus the whole system was undermined by people who wanted the money collected used for things they wanted NOT the protection of Prostitutes).

In the US, I can not find a city that issued such a tax, but even in Cities where Prostitution was legal, Prostitutes still paid bribes to the local police (In fact the leading explanation for the term "Cops" and "Coppers" was you could hear them coming from all the copper pennies from the Prostitutes bribes the officers collected on their rounds).

Side note: I once knew a Police Officer who said he did not mind being called a "Pig","Fuzz" or worse name, but he objected to being called a "Cop" for that implied he not only could be bought, but bought cheaply.

In many ways, when you have legalized prostitution do you do the following (All of which are inherently conflicting):

1. Place to practice the trade , that does NOT draw other criminal elements, (i.e. Drugs dealings, alcoholics and other, legal activities). This is a problem for many of these prostitutes are drug addicts and/or alcoholics who are drawn to that type of "Friends".

2. Make sure the place is no where near anyplace that people who do NOT want to see the practice want to go (i.e. NOT near any shopping or business districts who will OPPOSE the trade be practiced around them).

3. Make sure the place is protected from Pimps and others who robbed the prostitutes. This means some Police presence.

4. A place. easy for the prostitutes to get to, which do to their low income has to be near transportation centers AND away from other businesses that want to be in the same location due to being near transportation centers.

5. Provide a place for any prostitute who wants out of the business to go, and for no fee get the support she needs to start a new life.

6. Provide medical care for various sex related disease, including the "Incurable" disease, such as AIDS, Herpes (and other viral Sexually transmitted diseases) and Antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea and making sure these disease are NOT spread.

More on Antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea:
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/12/news/la-heb-bacterial-stds-20110712

7. Make sure NONE of the prostitutes are "Forced" into the profession, i.e .it is truly a voluntary act on their part while maintaining the privacy of the prostitute.

8. Making sure the prostitute gets paid for her services

9. If any children are the result of the sex, that the Father knows he has to PAY support, even if he says he only wanted sex and that is all he agreed to pay.

10. Some sort of system to pay for the above that does NOT encourage the prostitutes to go elsewhere.

AS you can see most of the above have inherent conflicts within themselves in addition to conflicts between the above 10 elements. To do it you need a Religious/Medical/Welfare/Police system to run the system. Religious in the sense you need a group who are prepared to accept the practice AND to help people who want out of it. Medical to make sure the prostitute understand what she is in from both a psychological and medical point of view. Police is the sense someone is present to prevent abuse or worse of the prostitute and Welfare is that the Prostitute can go to and from work in relative peace with knowledge the prostitute will retain her wages AND that the prostitute is of age (i.e. over 18 if not 21 as oppose to 14-18 years of age).

These four groups will also have conflicts, the Religious group will conflict with the others in that it should be helping those prostitute who want out of the system to get out (The other groups will be dependent on the prostitute for payment of these services thus an inherent conflict). The Medical group will conflict with the Welfare group when it comes to privacy and any VD the prostitute comes down with. The Police with the prostitutes themselves for the Police will want total peace, something not every customer will also want. Welfare and medical groups will conflict with the prostitutes themselves in that once the prostitute is out of the place of business, they still has to provide services AND would received no payment for that service.

Given the above, you quickly see why Prostitution stays illegal. Welfare in most states today, has to consider all sources of legal income, if prostitution is a source, then it is grounds to deny welfare. If it is a LEGAL JOB OPTION, the person on welfare MUST undertake it even if they do NOT want to. Welfare thus can NOT handle legalize prostitution EXCEPT to force people into that profession.

Police want no part of prostitution for most prostitutes also tend to be drug addicts and the pimps keep them that way. Violence in more the norm then the exception (I have to exclude high end prostitutes, but that is a rare exception no one really cares about, it is given as a reason prostitution should be legal, but among most police departments it already is, those high end hookers are NOT a problem except as they work they way down as they age and do NOT get out of the business). It takes a bit of force to force women to have sex with several men a night, women are NOT hard wired like that (and neither are men), most human beings tend to one sex but with a person they have sex with before. They are exceptions to this rule, but with 94% of the population entering into some sort of pair-bond, an additional 1% Psychopaths, 5% of the population is not many if you remember that also includes the approximate 3% of males, and 1% of females who are gay).

The medical community wants nothing to do with prostitution for these are low income people who are, at best, on welfare, thus low return on investments.

The Religious groups you must watch out for, the effective ones tend to be tied in with Catholic, Orthodox, or main line Protestant churches (and Jewish and Moslem groups) and work to get the women out of the profession by addressing their other needs, including drug rehab, VD treatment etc. Fundamentalist tend to go through the motions and condemn them without providing a way out. Given the prostitute some support (other then money) is the key to religious key to helping prostitutes. The Medical support can provide medical care, Welfare can provide financial support, but often these same prostitutes needs emotional support and that is often provided by the nuns (and others) working in various Magdalene groups.

http://www.magdalenegroup.org/

http://www.magdalenegroup.org/about/history/

Please note these are NOT tied in with the Magdalene Laundries of Ireland. While the Magdalene Laundries of Ireland started out as Church run places for prostitutes, who could come and go as they pleased, by 1900 due to HOW things operated in Ireland became more and more a form of prison for women (WIth all the problems of prisons). This has lead to problems in Ireland, including accusation of child abuse but seems to be more the case of people objecting to the fact they ended up in such homes as teenagers then anything else (and as laundries they were self-sufficient i.e, the laundry service paid for the care of the facilities). Most of the sites tend to be anti these laundries, but often you hearing from people who just dislike the idea of such laundries and women being sent to them then any actual abuse. Even the Wikipedia site mentions these problems. I just mention that what is being discussed ABOVE had nothing to do with the Magdalene Laundries that were in Ireland up to 1996.

More on such Laundries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_asylum

Through the problem seems to have been an over all policy is ALL such types of Schools/Prisons for Ireland, not just the religious ones:
http://www.childabusecommission.com/rpt/preface.php

http://www.magdalenelaundries.com/what.htm

I mention the Magdalene Laundries just to make sure people understand that I am NOT talking about the Magdalene Laundries of Ireland. I am referring to the more voluntary group that the Laundries appear to have been prior to 1900 and the other Magdalene groups that are strictly voluntary in the sense no one is forced to go they. Through the Laundries are an example of what happens when the cost of something overcomes everything else. The Laundries were self supporting financially and thus everyone who knew about them use to to unload Girls and women who were becoming a cost to them. The Laundries had to adjust and did it badly. It should be shown as something to avoid, but it also a lesson how something like this can go bad when money gets tight.

"Prostitution is not illegal in Argentina, but the exploitation of women for sex is."

All of the incidents being involved here were in ILLEGAL prostitution rings, that would exist just as much if prostitution was fully illegal in Argentina.

This issue does not get the attention (and action) that is deserves.

Wish we had hundreds more like her.

What a courageous woman!!! For love of her daughter she has enabled hundreds of mothers to be reunited with their own children. May she some day find Marita.