A UN forum is calling for child sex tourists to be prosecuted in their home countries. From the AP (via Google News): Tourists who go abroad to abuse children should face the prospect of prosecution in their home countries if they are caught having sex with kids in nations with lax penalties, participants at a U.N.-backed conference [...]

A new law in the United Kingdom would give out stronger penalties to men who knowingly have sex with women were are trafficked. From the Guardian: New prostitution laws to be set out today will mean a plea of ignorance is no defence for men facing prosecution for buying sex from a woman who has been trafficked [...]

A report by the Attorney General of Texas has found that 20 percent of all human trafficking victims are found in the state. From the Guardian: Texas has become a major hub for human trafficking, state officials said yesterday while proposing a more aggressive response to what a senior government official described as “modern-day slavery”. Nearly 20% of [...]

Human Trafficking from China is the worst offender in Canada. From Canada.com: China, Romania, the Philippines and Moldova are the top four worst offenders in international human trafficking to Canada, according to the first national statistics on the extent of the crime in Canada. And the figure of 31 foreign nationals - four of them minor children - [...]

According to experts, Rhode Island is becoming  a major hub for sex trafficking. From the Providence Journal: When most people think of slavery these days, “they think of the Civil War,” says Shanna Wells, director of the Rhode Island Commission on Women. But in fact, said Wells, slavery is occurring now in neighborhoods around Rhode Island, in the [...]

The FBI has broken up a prostitution ring where 47 children were being exploited. From the AP (via Google News): More than 600 adults have been arrested and 47 children rescued in a three-day roundup targeting people who force children into prostitution. The FBI said the roundup by federal, state and local law enforcement occurred in 29 cities, [...]

The Los Angeles Times has a blog posting on sex trafficking in Lebanon. From Babylon and Beyond: They are lured into Lebanon to work as models, masseuses or dancers in nightclubs. But some of these young Eastern European women, especially from Moldova, are sold by criminal networks to brothels, where they are forced to work as prostitutes. These [...]

A new movie on human trafficking is raising awareness on the issue. From the Washington Post: “Call + Response,” a documentary that seeks to uncover contemporary human slavery in its many forms, opens with a sequence showing four men in a taxi heading to a bachelor party. They are almost giddy, anticipating what they will do and [...]

A new law signed in California attempts to treat underage prostitutes and human trafficking victims not as criminals but as victims.  From the AP (via San Francisco Chronicle): In Oakland, juveniles made up most of the 27 human trafficking prostitution cases investigated there in 2006 and 2007. A San Francisco Bay Area-wide prostitution sting in 2007 caught [...]

New York Times Columnist Nichlos Kristof has a column on one woman’s fight against sex trafficking. From the NY Times: This is widely acknowledged to be the 21st-century version of slavery, but governments accept it partly because it seems to defy solution. Prostitution is said to be the oldest profession. It exists in all countries, and if [...]