Some have suggested that legalizing prostitution would put an end to such a depraved industry, but the opposite may very well be true.

Hughes said, "What happens when you have a large demand for women in prostitution is that you don't have enough local women who are able to fill up all these slots that are needed, so the pimps have to start looking abroad."

She added that evidence from the Netherlands, Germany and Australia -- where prostitution is legal -- indicates that such a policy has "resulted in increased trafficking of women to meet the increased demand for women in prostitution and an accompanying increase in organized crime."

While prostitution is still illegal in the U.S., many municipalities have minimal penalties for prostitution, reflecting the belief that it really isn't that big a deal. "Pimping must be made a felony," Hughes told the AFA Journal in an interview, "and the government needs to enforce the laws against trafficking that are already on the books in this country. There are lots of local and state laws against it, but often prostitution is considered a victimless crime or nuisance crime."

Under the Bush Administration, the federal government has begun to make the prosecution of trafficking a priority. Last September, in an address to the United Nations, President George Bush called the sex slave trade "a humanitarian crisis."

"There's a special evil in the abuse and exploitation of the most innocent and vulnerable," said President Bush. "Those who create these victims and profit from their suffering must be severely punished .... [G]overnments that tolerate this trade are tolerating a form of slavery."

Since it began targeting sex traffickers three years ago, the U.S. Department of Justice has convicted 111 traffickers -- 79 of whom were involved in trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

That may only be a drop in the bucket considering the ocean of victims who are suffering, but for the women who are rescued from prostitution, it is an escape from a darkness few of us could ever imagine.

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Ed Vitagliano, a frequent contributor to AgapePress, is news editor for AFA Journal, a monthly publication of the American Family Association.  This article appeared in the April 2004 issue.

Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons ( http://www.state.gov/g/tip )
Physicians for Human Rights ( http://www.phrusa.org )
Free the Slaves ( http://www.freetheslaves.net )

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