Sex Slaves and the City

When Philly Confidential got word last week that the feds busted a brothel ring that extended up and down the East Coast, one thought popped in our head: Philly must be involved.

And, well, damn. We were right. After pouring through dozens of pages detailing the feds' case against more than 30 brothel owners and employees, the local angle was found. The Callowhill Recreation Center, located on Ridge Avenue near Hamilton (just a stone's throw away from the Daily News' headquarters) was shuttered by the feds.

To say that the CRC was popular would be a gross understatement. CRC attracted 50 to 60 clients every day by staying true to their unofficial motto, "We really aim to please." Myong "Debbie" Moon, 46, and Jung Lim, a.k.a. "Big Sister Miko," were caught by the feds through wiretaps ordering bigger and better talent from their suppliers in Korea. According to the wiretaps, girls with big breasts were a huge hit; girls who were menstruating, not so much.

But aside from giving us a glimpse of what a brothel order form looks like, the big sting brought up a larger issue that has thus far gone fairly unnoticed: the evils of human trafficking. Of the 70 or so women who were freed last week, many were likely victims of human trafficking, US Immigration officials said. How does human trafficking work, you ask, and why is it so evil? Well:

Recruiters target women in Korea, Thailand and Cambodia who are dirt poor and desperately need to earn money for their families. They offer to pay their way to America, where the girls believe they will work in restaurants and nail salons.

The recruiters put up the cash and secure the fake passports and get the girls over to America, even if they have to smuggle them through Canada. (Glad to hear those borders are secure, ey?) Transporters pick the girls up and charge them up to $500 to deliver them to their new "homes." (A ride to a Philly brothel, incidentally, costs about $300.)

The girls are left in the hands of a brothel manager, who delivers the grim news: the girls owe their recruiters up to $16,000 for getting them to the US of A. Their passports (which are fake, but hey, at least they're passports) are confiscated, ruling out any chance that the girls can flee once they learn that are about to become .... sex slaves.

As sex slaves, the girls are required to work day in and day out at brothels; they can easily be "traded" to another brothel with just one phone call. If they try to run, the girls are told their families willl be murdered. Even if the girls are able to somehow escape, going home isn't always an option.

"We've heard stories where women return home and are shunned in their community for what they've done over here," said Kao Nhia Kue, an executive assistant for the West Philly-based Southeast Asian Mutual Assistance Association Coalition. "As a result, some of them just end up going back into [the sex trade]."

And plenty more keep arriving. More than 45,000 women and children arrive here each year through human trafficking, and are forced to work as sex slaves. "I think this is a bigger problem than we realize," Kue said."This is a huge problem all across Asia, and it's across Philadelphia, too. Either we ignore it or choose to acknowledge that it's happening and do something."

For the 70 women who were freed last week, their best chance at getting a fair shot at a decent life in America could be coming soon. Women who were freed from the brothels are being interviewed by immigration officials to determine if they are genuine trafficking victims, or if they came here willingly to earn money by selling their flesh.

If you're wondering -- "Someone would willing come to the U.S. to be a sex slave?" -- well, yes. "We had a case in Los Angeles two years ago where, after very close inspection, we found that none of the women [freed from a brothel ring] were trafficking victims," said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement out on the Left Coast. The women -- prostitutes in their home countries -- "came here for the potential of greater return. They were told by their smugglers that they would be in the land of milk and honey," Kice said.

Posted by david at August 23, 2006 11:28 PM