FBI Rescues 79 American Child Sex Slaves

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Ayanna Nahmias, Editor-in-ChiefLast Modified: 23:20 PM EDT, 25 June 2012

FBI Badge & Gun (Cropped), Source (Wikipedia)The FBI announced the results of a three-day operation during which 79 minors were rescued and 104 pimps were arrested. Today’s announcement demonstrated that the problem of large-scale trafficking of children into sexual slavery is not limited to foreign countries.

This latest coordinated effort marked the sixth deployment of “Operation Cross Country," implemented to free children who became ensnared in the nightmare of prostitution through online media venues such as social media websites, chat rooms and text messaging.

Despite aggressive television, billboard, and internet campaigns warning parents and caregivers of the insidious tactics employed by increasingly sophisticated predators, young people continue to post personal information on the web at an alarming rate.

According to the website Internet Safety 101.org:

  • 29% of Internet sex crime relationships were initiated on a social networking site. (Journal of Adolescent Health 27, 2010)
  • In 26% of online sex crimes against minors, offenders disseminated information and/or pictures of the victim through the victim's personal social networking site. (Journal of Adolescent Health 47, 2010)
  • 33% of all Internet-initiated sex crimes involved social networking sites. (Journal of Adolescent Health 47, 2010)
  • 72% of teens have a social networking profile and nearly half (47%) have a public profile viewable by anyone.
  • Frequently children in 4th-6th grade levels engage in social networking activities. In the process they post personal, potentially exploitable, information about themselves online. Specifically, and within the last school year: 16% posted personal interests online, 15% posted information about their physical activities and 20% gave out their real name. In addition, 5% posted information about their school, 6% posted their home address, 6% posted their phone number and 9% posted pictures of themselves.
  • Teens often include the following information on their social networking profile.
  • Real age (50%)
  • Photos of themselves (62%)
  • City they live in (41%)
  • School name/location (45%)
  • Videos of friends (16%)
  • Videos of themselves (14%)
  • Their cell phone number (14%)
  • Places where they typically go (9%) (Source: Internet Safety 101.org)

The majority of the children rescued were girls between the ages of 11 and 13, but there were some boys. Most of the children were enticed by the promise of greater liberation from parental authority, while others were tempted by things as inconsequential as cell phones or other minor gifts.

As with most human trafficking cases, once captured the victims remain enslaved through psychological abuse and torture. Many are told that either they or their loved one will be killed if they try to escape or contact the authorities. The children freed during this operation are at the beginning of their journey to freedom.

Though these children have been physically freed, they have a long road ahead of them to achieve physical and psychological healing. Previous reports state that victims liberated during previous phases of "Operation Cross Country" have had severe difficulties adjusting and in some cases their behaviors were so anti-social that battered and abused and runaway shelters refuse to admit them.

These raids are a promising start and hopefully the American public will continue to increase its national and international awareness, advocacy and support of the hundreds of thousands of children who fall victim to perfidious sex traffickers every day.

Follow Nahmias Cipher Report on Twitter
Twitter: @nahmias_report Editor: @ayannanahmias

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Child Pornography Nightmare | Dreamboard

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Ayanna Nahmias, Editor-in-ChiefLast Modified: 09:55 AM EDT, 5 August 2011

Death of Marat I, Edvard Munch, 1907U.S. federal government officials announced the arrests of 52 people involved in an international online child pornography ring that  exploited children through a bulletin board with the moniker "Dreamboard."

The arrests were the culmination of an investigation launched in late 2009. Code named 'Operation  Delego," this phase of the investigation was an out growth of an earlier sting instigated to capture online child sexual predators. To date a total of 72 defendants have been charged and more than 500 additional people have been indicted for their participation in this heinous child sexual exploitation and rape ring.

'Dreamboard,' a members-only, online bulletin board created and operated to promote pedophilia, first came to the attention of authorities in 2009. Members hail from five continents and 13 countries including Canada, Denmark, Ecuador, France, Germany, Serbia and Sweden.

In a perverse parody of due diligence, the board's administrators rigorously screened applicants to validate that future participants' predilections were prurient enough for membership. When applying for membership applicants were required to submit  compromising pornographic images of themselves with children 12 years or younger.

Upon being granted membership, pedophiles had immediate access to graphic images and videos of adults molesting children 12 years old and under, often violently. To remain in 'good standing' participants had to frequently update their profiles with new images and videos of children as they raped them.

“The members of this criminal network shared a demented dream to create the preeminent online community for the promotion of child sexual exploitation but for the children they victimized, this was nothing short of a nightmare,” U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in an August 3rd statement.

The indictments and arrests were conducted in three separate phases over the two-year span of the operation. Each of the 72 defendants are charged with conspiring to advertise and distribute child pornography and 50 of them are also charged with engaging in child pornography enterprise.

Of the 52 defendants arrested yesterday, 13 have pleaded guilty; while 20 of the 72 remain at large and are known only by their online identities.

Four of the 13 people who pleaded guilty have been sentenced  to prison terms ranging from 20 to 30 years in prison.

The travesty of these crimes is that many of the perpetrators will probably remain free because of the veil of anonymity the Internet provides.  Additionally, though the sentences of 20 to 30 years may seem lengthy, they pale by comparison to the life sentences these men have meted out to their victims.

The physical, sociological and psychological damage perpetrated against these children will last a lifetime and will affect each member of our society tangentially or directly.  Many of the victims have not been identified and because the geographic footprint of this criminal enterprise; it is likely that the number of children brutalized by this perverse consortium could run into the thousands.

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Twitter: @nahmias_report Editor: @ayannanahmias
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This morning Americans were greeted with recaps of CNN's sobering and scathing report about child sex trafficking on Craigslist. This is not the first time that this allegation has made headlines, however, last night's exposé signaled the beginning of a frontal assault on a long smoldering problem of Craigslist facilitating the trafficking and sale of children for sex. Last month, two young girls sold for sex on Craigslist wrote letters to CEO Jim Buckmaster and Craig Newmark. One of them, M.C. who was first forced into prostitution at 11, told them she was forced to post her own ads to Craigslist during the day, and then answer them at night. Her pimp drove her around the country for years, using Craigslist as the primary means to advertise her. If she didn't post on Craigslist, M.C.'s pimp would beat her and dunk her in ice water baths. The website was a central figure in the years of slavery and abuse she suffered.

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Ultimately, the problem with child beauty pageants is the sexualization of girls as young as 2 and 3 years old. There is no justification for this aspect of the industry. A child's confidence lies not in how closely she can approximate a grown woman through the artifice of make-up, but in how we as parents help her to develop her innate gifts and abilities so that her external beauty compliments her personality and talent instead of dominating her existence.

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