CASE STUDIES: Hawaii
Lost to sex
Tuesday, September 11, 2001
Tens of thousands of children in Hawaii and across North America -- many of them runaways -- fall into prostitution or are sold into the sex trade by exploitative adults, according to a study released yesterday by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania. The study, "The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the U.S., Canada and Mexico," was funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, the W.T. Grant Foundation, the Fund for Nonviolence and the Research Foundation of the University of Pennsylvania. The report included profiles of juvenile victims and two adult sexual exploiters of children with ties to Hawaii. The profiles, published here, were prepared by Jayne Bopp and the Rev. Pam Vessels of the Life Foundation in Honolulu.
By Vernon
"The first bold print should show why some people might care about privatley paid for sex."
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'Jenny'
Jenny was born and raised in Hawaii to a working-class family. She is of Portuguese descent and was raised in a single parent home by her father.
History of assault is unknown, although by the age of 12 she had run away about a dozen times. After running away again she went to her friend "Mary's" house in Waimanalo.
There, Mary's mother pimped both Jenny and her own daughter. At the age of 12 Jenny's virginity was sold to an off-duty police officer for $600. Mary's mother put ads in the PennySaver advertising the girls. Mary's mother introduced both girls to ice; by age 13, Jenny was a complete addict.
Between the ages of 12 and 14 Jenny worked at four different hostess bars.
Jenny reported that the owners always knew beforehand when the Liquor Commission or (police) vice officers were coming and would make her put on her clothes and leave during those visits.
The Life Foundation met Jenny through a local youth- outreach project. A trick she had been staying with brought her to the project's medical clinic because she had severe abdominal pain.
Jenny was diagnosed with an advanced case of pelvic inflammatory disease and was told she needed to be hospitalized.
Jenny begged the nurse practitioner not to contact her father, whose permission was needed for the hospitalization. Not knowing what to do the nurse practitioner contacted one of the Life Foundation's senior staff members who took Jenny in and later became her foster mother.
Jenny subsequently was accepted into a local high school and did well for about four months.
Eventually she ran away again and got back into drugs.
Today her whereabouts are unknown.
'Sara'
Sara was born in Canada to an upper-middle-class Caucasian family. The details of her history of sexual assault are unknown. At age 13 she became pregnant and had a baby who... was raised by her parents. At 14 she ran away and got hooked up with a pimp in Vancouver. Her pimp sent her all over to work including Seattle, Salt Lake, Las Vegas, Houston, Pasadena, San Francisco and eventually Honolulu.
While in Honolulu Sara was sent to Japan two times to work. The first time was for three months and the second time for about two months. While there she was "given" to someone else and worked in a hostess-bar-type setting.
Between trips to Japan Sara worked in Honolulu, Las Vegas and Canada. At age 23, Sara left her pimp and returned to Canada. She got pregnant again and had her second child. Today Sara is living with her family, working as a secretary and bartender and raising both of her kids.
'BG'
BG is an African-American male in his 50s. He has been a pimp all of his working life. He traffics girls between Los Angeles, Seattle, Honolulu and Vancouver.
He mostly recruits young girls in Vancouver, brings them to Hawaii and keeps all of their legal papers so they can't leave the country.
He drugs them; handcuffs them and then makes them have sex with his dog.
He photographs these sex acts and then uses the photos as blackmail, threatening to send them to magazines or family members.
Other methods of controlling the girls include locking them in a bathroom and making them drink water from the toilet and eat out of dog-food bowls, and walking up and down the "track/strip" while his girls are working -- with the dog he makes them have sex with.
'Tony'
Tony is a 50-year-old African-American male who owns several legitimate businesses in Las Vegas.
He recruits young girls and young professional women. He recruits young homeless girls from the Las Vegas area and sends them to Honolulu to work.
One of the girls the Life Foundation worked with was 15 years old and was forced by Tony to raise one of his children.
He had taken the child away from another one of his prostitutes as punishment for her drug use.
Tony is reported to traffic girls between Nevada, California, New York, the Bahamas, France and South America.
By Vernon Balmer Jr.
Seems the only two trafficers in Hawaii are black. This should make it easy to stop these animals and stop the trafficing in Hawaii. Oh, wait a minute...these guys don't own the strip clubs and bars the girls work at....Do They?
Powered By Ringsurf
Testimony runs
strongly against
hostess-bar tax hike
By Mike Yuen
Star-Bulletin
But she said in an interview that the bill is also discriminatory because it would target Korean and Vietnamese women who own nearly all of the hostess bars in Hawaii, said Burge, whose ancestry is Vietnamese.
“In all of the states throughout the US, Hawaii, which has more prostitutes per capita than any other state, has nearly no services available for the men and women who are trapped in that lifestyle.” I was shocked.
