Undercover Portland Police officers are cracking down on the sex trade in the city of Roses.
The sex industry masquerades thinly disguised in porn shops,
strip clubs, lingerie parlors and sexual massage businesses. Many underage
girls walk the streets and/or meet their dates in motels or private homes which
become centers of opportunity for Johns looking for young girls.
Their pimp handlers keep a close eye on the girls and
control them like puppet masters with a combination of physical, emotional and
sexual abuse as well as drug addiction. Pimps lure and ensnare vulnerable girls
who often come from abusive homes which imbue the girls with low self esteem
and love hunger. Pimps promise love and relationships, manicures, etc. and
instead force their sex slaves to service fifteen to twenty customers per
night. The pimps keep all the money and often give the girls a financial quota
they must meet failing which they are sent out on the streets again to make up
their shortfall.
Following years of this kind of work, sex workers begin to
harden their hearts, suffer from soul injury and feel worse and worse about
themselves.
Survivors who are rescued from the life need extensive
shelter and rehabilitation to regain their self respect and perspective on what
they have experienced for years. Many of these young women need help to break
the trauma bonds which they have developed towards their pimps (Stockholm
Syndrome) and need safe and secure facilities where they can heal and become
whole again.
We can only hope that with dedicated police, local DAs and
community based organizations working to quell this problem of sexual slavery
that young girls will have a better chance of living a good quality of life in
The City of Roses.
Richard Lazere on behalf of East Portland Rotary
anti-trafficking task force
