Courts Take A Kinder Look At Victims Of Child Sex Trafficking

[redqueen]

...

The numbers are staggering. The Justice Department estimates that each year at least 200,000 children are trafficked for sex in the U.S., and it is said to generate upward of $32 billion a year.

Across the country, teens are being picked up on prostitution charges. It's a stunning contradiction in the law: Girls who are too young to legally consent to sex are being prosecuted for selling it.

...

Pratt remembers one case that made her believe the system was broken. A young girl was asked to testify against her pimp, in a public adult court, in a case that involved her being drugged into unconsciousness. She was asked by the district attorney to review a tape of the incident, which she had never seen, and identify the defendants in the court.

"It was a devastating experience for her, and she has struggled ever since then," Pratt says. "So that is one of the cases I feel very badly about. I feel like we did a very poor job of protecting her from that and preparing her for that. It's one of the lessons that I learned about how to work with these kids."

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http://www.wnyc.org/story/courts-take-a-kinder-look-at-victims-of-child-sex-trafficking/

It was really hard to decide what to include in this excerpt. Later she mentions the reason for not prosecuting men who buy sex from trafficked people - because its not "politically expedient" - I'd really like to know more about that, and why it is even an option not to prosecute these men.