Focus on prosecuting the buyers in prostitution
by Dianna Fine and Marilen Pitler, Co-chairs of the Committee on Human Trafficking, NCJW St. Louis
“People engaged in prostitution are nearly always forced, coerced or tricked into doing so. Yet our legal systems arrest and prosecute them rather than seeing them as victims of both the pimps who criminally exploit them and the johns who pay for the privilege of raping them. National statistics show that in cases where authorities intervene, 90 percent of victims are arrested compared with only 10 percent of buyers. That’s the crime we should be focusing our energy on solving instead of victimizing women.” Read the full letter to the editor.