St. Louis Is A Hot Spot For Sex Trafficking: A Discussion About Efforts To End The Trade
Sex trafficking is not just an international problem, or even a national one. It is also a problem here in St. Louis. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, St. Louis is a hot spot of sex trafficking activity, one of the top 20 in the country.
“The thing about St. Louis that is a little bit different is that we’ve got Highway 44, Highway 70, Highway 40 (I-64) – all these main highways coming through to get to other places,” Detective Sergeant Adam Kavanaugh of the St. Louis County Police Department said, explaining that pimps tend to move their victims around frequently and so to them St. Louis is seen as a “good stopping point for them to make some money and continue to move on to the rest of the country.”
Kavanaugh is in charge of the Special Investigations Unit for the St. Louis County Police Department, which is tasked with handling sex trafficking issues.
Nationwide, the DOJ estimates that as many as 300,000 children may become victims of sexual exploitation each year. Most prostitutes enter the sex trade before they are eighteen.
http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/st-louis-hot-spot-sex-trafficking-discussion-about-efforts-end-trade