CSEC2007
United States US
The defendants in this case allegedly courted girls as young as 17 from Mexico, smuggled them into the United States under pretense and eventually conspired to transport them across state lines for the purposes of prostitution. According to federal Criminal Indictment NO. 1:08-CR-317-CC, five women were smuggled into the US, harbored as aliens, and had hidden from them the fact that they would be prostituted to repay the group for smuggling fees and other expenses. The indictment states that the Rugerios and Hernandez "targeted young, vulnerable women and teenagers with limited resources, and used violence, sexual assaults, threats of violence, threats of violence to family members, and threats of deportation and imprisonment, to compel the victims to engage in prostitution."
Bonded Labor2009
United States US
Shirke is one of six entertainers that were allegedly recruited from India with promises of profits - tips - from their dancing at the bar and restaurant, only to be paid slave wages and have every movement carefully guarded once they arrived in Georgia on Nov. 20. Shirke is worried the arrest of her bosses will shame her parents and brother in Mumbai, India, even though she and the other dancers didn’t participate in prostitution or stripping. The two male performers played in a band while the six women performed traditional folk and Bollywood-style dancing between eight and 14 hours a day, seven days a week at Mehfil Bar, Grill & Entertainment at 1200 Rockbridge Road near Norcross. The doors to the five-bedroom house where the entertainers lived in Lilburn were always dead-bolted from the inside by guards who stayed in the sparsely furnished house with them, Shirke said. She said the girls, who did not have the key to the door, were not permitted to go anywhere without an escort. The eight performers had signed a contract before they left India, stating they would surrender their passports and be confined to their home when they weren’t working, Shirke said. “They said it was for our safety, and we believed them,” Shirke For now, the performers are still staying in the house without keepers and planning to return to India when their visas expire in April.
Sex Trafficking2011
United States US
A 30 year old Atlanta man, Demetrius Homer (“Cateye”), was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on charges of sex trafficking of a minor. According to the U.S. Attorney Sally Yates, “HOMER recruited and enticed a juvenile girl by becoming her boyfriend. The victim, identified in the charges only by the initials “A.M.,” was 14 years old when HOMER met her and began to use a cycle of romance and violence to cause her to engage in prostitution. HOMER hit A.M., threatened A.M. with a knife, and even shocked her with a taser her in front of another juvenile he also placed in prostitution. From January 2009 through November 2009, HOMER took pictures of A.M. and placed advertisements of this young girl on the Internet site Backpage.com to solicit customers. The advertisements listed prices ranging from $60 to $175 depending on the amount of time booked and the location. HOMER would also pay for hotel rooms in the greater metropolitan Atlanta area where the commercial sex acts took place. HOMER even had A.M. engage in prostitution while she was pregnant with his child. HOMER took all the money from A.M. and another juvenile identified in the charges by the initials “J.F.,” which both of the juveniles had earned. HOMER also bonded out “A.M.” from police custody when she got arrested, knowing that she was a minor”.