Trafficking not an ill that happens ‘elsewhere’ — it’s a local issue
The explosive news about allegations of human sex trafficking tied to the Orchids of Asia Day Spa is more of a local issue then even current headlines would suggest. Human trafficking is not something that happens “elsewhere.” Each year Wayside Youth and Family Support Network provides shelter to more than 100 youths with histories of commercial sexual exploitation. These young people are from our communities, groomed when they are at their most vulnerable and powerless. It is critical to bring attention to the plight of these exploited children every day, not just when a celebrity makes this issue a front-page headline.
As an administrator of an agency serving hundreds of runaway and homeless youths in Eastern and Central Massachusetts, I can report that we are constantly fighting against the traffickers by empowering and informing young people about the dangers of sexual exploitation. As we address the pandemic of human trafficking, we must begin by educating our communities in order to protect our children.
Eric L. Masi
President and CEO
Wayside Youth and Family Support Network Inc.
Framingham
Anyone should have gathered these were women at risk of exploitation
Re “Fla. spa case a trial of faith” (Metro, Feb. 25): Columnist Adrian Walker, writing about the accusations against Patriots owner Robert Kraft, “seriously doubt[s] that the 77-year-old Kraft suspected the women he was patronizing were victims of human trafficking.” But the spa’s name — Orchids of Asia — clearly plays on the racist stereotype of Asian women submissive to men’s desires, and encountering sex workers who spoke no English should have alerted those soliciting their services that these were women at high risk of being exploited. Perhaps Kraft didn’t know about the trafficking, but he should have known that, by means of his wealth, he was taking advantage of women who probably had little choice.
Joanne Tuller
Dorchester
When our test of character gets graded
With respect to those recently charged with paying for sexual services at the Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter, Fla., this observation by H. Jackson Brown Jr says it all: “Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.”
Mike Rice
South Wellfleet
We should be talking about legalizing prostitution
Prohibition of prostitution doesn’t work any better than prohibition of other human vices, such as alcohol, drugs, or gambling. There’s a reason why prostitution is called “the oldest profession.” As a society, we’re not going to be able to eliminate it. It fills a need, and there’s money in it. To the extent that legal prostitution is limited, underground prostitution will flourish. And criminals will run it, by definition.
Some countries have legalized prostitution and regulate it, just as we in Massachusetts are now doing with marijuana. Society could learn how to do this in the most humane way possible. Most men would rather participate in legal prostitution, I’m sure, than risk getting a disease or the shame of being arrested as a john in an illegal shop. Sex-trafficking shops would be found more easily and broken up. Women could get more of the money as well as benefits such as health care or even a retirement plan.
As a massage therapist, I would benefit by the separation of massage and prostitution, services that still overlap in many people’s minds, occasionally causing undue confusion among clients. Of course I would like to live in a society with less inequality, more social services, and more help for single parents, so that fewer women would be drawn into prostitution. But in the meantime, perhaps we could be a bit more rational about the subject.
Patricia Rackowski
Holyoke