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Sep 3, 2009 at 4:00 am
Portland Has Been Named the Number Two City for Teenage Prostitution. This Is the Story of How One Victim Escaped.
Illustration by Valerie Pensworth
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PO Box 86208, Portland, OR 97286
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This is not a scientific method of determining pedophile hotspots, I hope you are well aware. That is when I stopped reading. Sigh.
And to the comment above that: it's not really fair to compare forcing a 15- or 16-year-old girl to have sex for money with a woman electing to dance naked on-stage to self-selected jukebox tunes.
I thought this was a really well-written article and I'm glad someone's talking about this!
Nope, that isn't evidence either. Restricted sample size. Subjective implant of opinion. We have no motherfucking context what "22 beds" is compared to other crimes in other similar cities. Hey it sounds bad, until you understand we live in a metro area of several million people. The author is sensationalizing the problem without any evidence beyond personal opinion. Opinion piece? fine, go ahead and whine all you want. News article? get real.
@Shugshug Who do you think most Strippers are? Do you really think they are all aspiring writers like Viva whomever? No they are not, they are abused runaways and drugged up foster kids with a few âmy name is Viva and I donât like working with fattiesâ mixed in. There is really a fine line. You are naive if you don't think stripping often leads to prostitution and itâs not exactly a highly regulated business. Underage girls get into stripping all the time.
Its not as if I expect the Mercury to be looking out for the best interest of women, these are the same genius' that were touting the HPV Vaccine as the eighth wonder not so long ago. I do however find it reprehensible to offer up shaking your bare (prob underage) ass for a dollar as an empowering opportunity for women. Especially when the next week you are going to run a story on teen prostitution as if the two are somehow completely unrelated, did you just want to sleep better at night or what?
-A survivor
"raised between $500,000 and $750,000 every year since 2004 from private donations to run Hillsboro-based Transitions Global, a nonprofit that provides counseling and vocational training to girls under 18 who are victims of forced prostitution."
Every year? Since 2004? Why haven't we heard about this group before?
See page 11. Oregon is not at the bottom of the list but there are a number of states that have a higher incidence of trafficking than Oregon.
It is against the law to have sex with a minor under any circumstances. There really isn't any debate to have over this. Plain and simple rape is wrong, it is a problem, and it is punishable by the law.
How it is happening, which state or city has the worst cases, or how a young girl came into the situation is secondary to the crime itself.
We all need to support the efforts of those organizations that dedicate their time to helping these young victims.
Please support the efforts of Seth Johnson (and others like him) who fundraise and advocate on behalf of great organizations like Transitions Global and the building of their shelter for these under age girls. There is a great need for those who have been trafficked/prostituted to have somewhere they can go to access the skills, tools, safety and support they need to create a new way of life for themselves.
Be a part of the solution!
Sure there is a debate. There's a debate simply because there is a wide range where that legality is questioned. Some countries it's 12 years old, some it's 21. A nine year gap in difference in opinion is fairly significant, and should also be discussed.
Huh? Why can't the police take custody of a underage girl? Placing her into the Juvenile Justice system seems a much better choice than leaving her to the pimp and the street!
As for blaming the Johns, yes and no: If the girl says she is 18, and is really 16, there isn't a crime, according to the state law, (I mean, besides the prostitution.) To be convicted of statutory rape in Oregon, the victim has to either be under 16, or the adult has to know that she is under 18, (and some other things: the age difference has to be more than 36 months being the biggee.) If she says that she is 18, then there isn't really a way for the John to know that she is lying, and even if there was, there certainly isn't any incentive for them to admit that/do anything about it, since that makes their behavior a much more serious crime than just hiring a prostitute. If the Johns could be encouraged to come forward with information about suspected underage prostitutes, (instead of being punished for attempting to hire a prostitute in the first place,) I suspect that would change things, since I want to believe that many Johns are just people looking for sex and are otherwise good people that would help a child in trouble. That said, most men prefer younger women and, (baring legalization and regulation, which I think is the best solution, but unlikely to happen in the near future) there will always be some prostitutes that are underage because there is money to made at it. However, we can and should try to minimize that number.
Not without justification, no -- but there's an argument to be made there. It's neither self-evidently nor necessarily true that "a woman electing to dance naked on-stage" is either empowering or something to be lauded.
Using words like "forced" seems like it absolves the girls of all responsibility. Yes, I'm sure we can all imagine a scenario where they WERE forced - the pimp is holding their baby hostage or something. But real life isn't the movies - most of the time, when you say "forced," don't you just mean "TALKED INTO doing it?"
If they chose to break into homes and steal, or to mug people, we'd see that word a lot less often, even if someone else DID tell them to do it. Why is choosing prostitution different? Why isn't that recognized as their personal decision? Aren't they just as guilty as the men who hire them?
I'm writing a college paper on teenage prostitution. Is there anyway I could contact you (email) to ask you some questions?
I'm writing a college paper on teenage prostitution. Is there any way I could contact you (email) and ask you some questions?
Tell you what, if it weren't for the fact that I would most likely end up in the slammer, I would feel myself so lucky if I had a 14 + girlfriend, and would treat her like a friggin queen!
I'm sure there is lots of violence and completely horrible stuff going on all over America to do with underage sex but lets face it, at least a proportion of that is due to the ridiculously high age of consent, which forces it all underground, where support sevices are difficult if not impossible to provide.
I am 20 years old. I just recently got away from my pimp, and let me tell you-- I still live in fear every day of my life that he will find me. If you are contesting the fact that there is a very large problem in Portland, then you just have your blinders on. Consider yourself lucky.
The fact is, there are a ridiculous amount of underage ladies being used and abused in the sex industry here in Portland. How do I know??? I was one of them for 4 years. I didn't even go to school in Portland, I went to school in Vancouver. And I happen to know for a fact that out of my graduating class I eventually ran in to 6 other girls besdies my self that had ended up on the streets with a pimp. I happened to meet 3 other ladies from the graduating class below me. And four from the class below that. I am talking about SOPHOMORES now for christ sake. 10th graders. And I'm sure there were more than that, but eventually I stopped being allowed to go to school, so I didn't know the freshman. That's just ONE school we are talking about. If you compare with all the other schools in the area, I'm sure the number will be just the same if not worse.
My life was a horror story for 4 years. But in retrospect the worst moments of all were seeing the innocent faces of girls I used to know, all dolled up and smiling, not knowing what was coming and what was really going to happen to them over time.
As for the comments about stripping-you are correct-there are MANY underage ladies in the clubs around Portland. But that's not quite as common. I happened to be one of them also, but it's actually not that easy unless you have an "in" with the owner of the club.
The number of girls on 82nd is a joke, though. All you need is some one to rent a hotel room, a computer to post and ad on, and a camera for pictures. I can't even begin to tell you how many underage girls are on the INTERNET! Its the best source, take sexy pics, blur the face, and BOOM you have clientele. I was confined to hotel rooms for 4 years of my life, and probably made a good 10,000-15,000 a month. Sometimes more. At 15 years old.
This is no joke. This is not funny. This is not something to sneer at or turn away from. It's happening all around you. The girl sitting on the curb outside of taco bell. The girl at fred meyers buying a large box of condoms. The girl with way too much make up on that your eyebrows arch up at in surprise. If only you really knew. If only.
I see girls in the mall today with their stomachs showing, ass nearly falling out of their jeans, high heels. Age? MAYBE 11 or 12. Maybe. I can never help myself but to walk over and talk to them. I offer to take them to one store and buy them a better, less revealing outfit, if they promise to let me burn the other. I tell them my story and watch as their eyes show a mixture of disgust and shock as their hands fight to cover all their skin. They really have no clue.