AKRON, Ohio – Police say a 14-year-old girl was dancing topless at an Akron strip club when they raided the bar and arrested four exotic dancers.

The girl has been placed in protective custody.

Akron police vice officers served a search warrant Friday night at the Playhouse bar. (more…)

The Pan American Development Foundation (PADF) has launched an inspirational U.S. campaign called I Too Am Haiti to heighten awareness about the hundreds of thousands of children who are the victims of trafficking, forced labor and other forms of exploitation in Haiti.

“The exploitation of children is a stain on human dignity,” says Jimmy Jean-Louis, the actor known as “The Haitian” on NBC’s hit series Heroes. “It is within our reach to create a better future for these children.”

Jean-Louis, who is PADF’s Goodwill Ambassador for Haiti’s Children, noted that these human rights abuses do not have limits. (more…)

If you have ever been in an airport, you have probably witnessed human trafficking.

You may have seen a woman at check- in not making eye contact, never speaking, always within reach of her owner’s heavy hand.

If you were a witness and did nothing about it, forgive yourself. Most people have not been taught how to recognize human trafficking victims. Instead, the victimization of women and children continues right in front of our eyes. (more…)

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic — The Dominican constitution has been amended for the first time to prohibit human trafficking in all its forms, earning praise from human rights watchers.

The law was approved Monday with 180 votes in the 201-member constitutional reform assembly, which began work earlier this month.

“For the first time this issue has been given constitutional status, and that is positive and significant,” said Servio Tulio Castanos, president of the Foundation for Institutionalism and Justice, a Dominican non-governmental organization that promotes judicial reform. (more…)

SAN MARCOS – Sheriff’s Deputy Colin Ingraham, who investigates Internet vice, was scrolling through the sex ads on Craigslist when he saw a young woman advertising services he thought he recognized from other postings.

Ingraham arranged to meet the 18-year-old at the Ramada Inn on San Marcos Boulevard, according to court records. The woman had a warrant issued for her arrest, and Ingraham learned later she had once been listed as a runaway juvenile. (more…)

San Diego – One of three young people who recruited girls to pose for racy photos and work as prostitutes was sentenced Monday to 68 months in federal prison.

Christopher Black, 21, pleaded guilty last Dec. 4 to conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of children and coercion and enticement of a juvenile into prostitution. (more…)

Craigslist.com continues to be a popular site in Atlanta for the sexual exploitation of girls despite law enforcement efforts to curtail it, an Atlanta group that fights child prostitution said Friday.

As recently as February, 176 girls were prostituted for sex on the popular Web-based advertising service, said the group A Future. Not A Past. That’s up from 100 girls advertised in November.

“It’s frightening to think more and more of our girls are being exploited over the Internet,” said Kaffie McCullough, the group’s campaign director. “We need stricter law enforcement, more stings, more arrests.”

(Read more at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Ever wonder where traffickers advertise their victims? Turns out it’s in one of the nation’s most prestigious newspapers – The Washington Post. Advertisements for massage parlors that are often fronts for brothels selling trafficked women are run in The Post every day, despite the fact that the publication has reported on human trafficking in massage parlors.

(Continue reading at Change.org)

A Portland children’s author has been charged with three felony counts involving child pornography, U.S. Attorneys announced Monday.

Kevin Patrick Bath, 50, was arraigned in U.S. District Court an indictment charging him with distributing, transferring and receiving child porn. He also faced two counts of possessing child pornography, U.S. Attorney Karin Immergut said.

The writer publishes under the name K.P. Bath and had previously volunteered at a local children’s library, according to charging documents. (more…)