The global economic collapse is increasingly taking a heavy toll on the lives of workers and the poor all over the world.
The International Monetary Fund projects the 2009 global economic growth rate at around 0.5%, which is sharply lower than even last year’s anemic rate of 3.4%. The economic crisis is in turn driving a deepening global employment crisis.
Among the harshest effects of increasing global job scarcity is an increase in people entering the global sex industry, an overwhelming majority of whom are women and girls.
Globally, less than half of the world’s working population has salaried jobs. The majority are engaged in informal labor, in which they lack a basic living wage, job security, and occupational safety. Informal labor includes very low-paying jobs in agriculture, the garment industry, and domestic service. Most of the vulnerable jobs are performed by women and children.
Precariously positioned even during the best of capitalist economic periods, women are especially susceptible to the adverse effects of recessions. For example, the waste and scrap recycling sector in India, which has mostly women and children working in hazardous conditions for bare subsistence earnings, is one of the hardest hit by plummeting prices this year.
The number of unemployed women in 2009 may increase by up to 22% relative to 2007 (International Labor Organization, “Global Employment Trends for Women”).
As the downturn deepens and as employment opportunities dwindle, women are increasingly finding themselves desperate for ways to earn a living and forced to enter into prostitution.
Rates of prostitution currently appear to be going up, with more desperately poor women entering the sex trade in order to meet their own and their families’ subsistence needs. Although limited data is available for 2009, general surveys and past recessions can be used as a guide to anticipate how the proportion of women in the sex industry will increase as the current economic free-fall continues globally.
The reasons that compel a woman to enter the sex trade can often be traced to financial vulnerability. In New Zealand, for example, 93% of the sex workers surveyed since 2003 have cited financial reasons for working in the sex industry (www.nzpc.org.nz).
Capitalism a Disaster for Women
Following the transition into free-market capitalism in the late 1980s, Eastern Europe plunged into a deep recession, with unemployment rates of 40% and higher. The sex industry exploded in the region, with Moldova and Ukraine becoming the highest and second highest traffickers of prostitutes to Western Europe.
During the 1990s, a staggering two-thirds of the 500,000 women trafficked globally each year for prostitution came from Eastern Europe (United Nations Global Report on Crime and Justice, 1999).
The collapse of the global capitalist economy is forcing women to capitulate to the sex trade in other ways as well. Women already in the sex industry are being subjected to further exploitation.
As the recession causes more people to restrict their spending, prostitution businesses are experimenting with new incentives. Some German brothel owners are offering a “flat rate” deal. Based on the idea of an all-you-can-eat buffet, it allows customers to have sex with as many prostitutes as they like for a single fee (Telegraph, 7/28/09).
Advocates for sex workers are expressing deep concern that with increasing numbers of women turning to prostitution for a living, the growing competition is compelling workers to practice unsafe sex or to make other compromising choices to keep clients happy. There are also concerns of increased violence as a form of control against prostitutes by pimps and gangs (National Catholic Reporter, 4/17/09).
Unemployment and job crises are constants under capitalism, which only intensify dramatically in recessions. Thus, many women are forced to participate in the sex industry under capitalism.
Women and men have to fight together for a fundamental shift away from this system, towards one that can harness the capabilities of technology and society to allow every person to earn a living and live a fruitful life in dignity.

Original Story:  socialistalternative.org

A ban on tourists using stripper poles in Las Vegas nightclubs is picking up support from Clark County commissioners in a move to keep visitors from taking it all off in hotel-casinos in Las Vegas.
Tourists stripping in the nightclubs around Las Vegas have got some officials thinking its time to take away their stripper poles. The pole-induced stripping in clubs in Las Vegas seems to be a little too naughty as women and men have been flashing and exposing themselves, so much as of late that during a meeting of the Clark County Commissioners on August 18th officials started discussing ways to combat the problem.
The discussion centered on Prive nightclub which was heavily fined by the Gaming Control Board to the tune of $500,000 which Planet Hollywood quickly paid. Just last week Prive was given a temporary liquor license to get their doors back open.
In a television replay of the boards meeting, Jacqueline Holloway, the business license director said, “We don’t want to walk into any of these locations and see patrons on the dance poles.”
So now officials are seeking to place employee only restrictions on the stripper-poles, which would allow only go-go dancers that are employed by the clubs access to gesticulate on the brass poles located in the clubs across the city.
Digital Journal contacted Clark County and a spokesperson has confirmed that there is a real effort under way to write up a regulation prohibiting the use of the stripper-poles by anyone other than go-go dancers and other entertainers that are hired by the club.
In this latest move, Clark County is trying appease the Nevada State Gaming Commission after a series of fines and raids in Las Vegas nightclubs and pool side parties.
Prive, which was shut down, was at the center of the mid-summer crack-down along with a major sting operation by the City of Las Vegas Metro Police at the Rio’s topless pool party when officers arrested 8 women and 1 man, charging them with prostitution, along with other charges including drug possession and drug dealing.
The Rio’s topless pool party, sponsored by the strip club Sapphire, was shut down just one day after the flurry of arrests and remained closed for the rest of the summer.
Meanwhile, the rest of the casino hotels in Las Vegas were all put on notice. Hanky-panky would not be tolerated and that Vegas Metro was watching and continuing their investigation into lewd behavior at the multitude of nightclubs and pool parties in Las Vegas. Metro is saying that other charges against unnamed clubs forthcoming.
For now patrons can still get up and shake their groove on the brass stripper-poles that stand tall in clubs up and down Las Vegas Boulevard. For now.
But owners and patrons, beware; Las Vegas Metro has undercover agents watching and waiting for another opportunity to make a point and keep the Nevada State Gaming Commission happy by stopping tourists from grinding along stripper poles.

Original Story:  digitaljournal.com

Tiffany Shepherd sent out 2,500 resumes, said Palm Beach, Fla., Post columnist Jose Lambiet in Page 2 Live, but nobody seemed interested in hiring a former high-school teacher who was fired last year after photos surfaced of her moonlighting, wearing a skimpy bikini, on a fishing charter boat. So the unemployed 31-year-old biology teacher transformed herself into Leah Lust, porn star, and started performing in videos like My First Sex Teacher.

It doesn’t sound like Tiffany Shepherd is happy about her “new career” as the star of Leah Lust videos, said Eitan Gavish in the New York Daily News. “I’m not particularly proud of it. To be honest, I hate it,” she told Page 2 Live. Apparently it was a charter boat captain—who happened to own a porn Web-cam business, too—who convinced her she’d never get her old job at Port St. Lucie High School back, so she needed to cash in on her beauty while she could.

Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy, said Tim Worstall in Examiner.com. Tiffany Shepherd will never get her old job back now. “The tragedy here is that the reaction to Tiffany Shepherd doing something almost entirely innocent, fishing in a bikini, has led to her being forced (by her account) into hard core porn and Leah Lust videos.”

Original Story:  theweek.com

Three Americans accused of traveling to Cambodia to have sex with children are expected to be charged in federal court here, officials said Monday, marking the first prosecutions under a new international initiative intended to combat child-sex tourism.

The initiative, Operation Twisted Traveler, targets Americans who exploit children for sex in Cambodia, which experts describe as a top destination for child predators. U.S. and Cambodian authorities, as well as nongovernmental organizations, were involved in the effort.

“This level of cooperation is unprecedented,” said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, which coordinated the initiative with the Justice Department.

Before arriving in Los Angeles on Monday, the suspects — Ronald Boyajian, 49, Erik Peeters, 41, and Jack Sporich, 75 — were arrested by Cambodian authorities on charges related to child sexual exploitation. They are expected to make their initial appearances in federal court Tuesday afternoon.

The three men are current or former California residents, and all are registered sex offenders, authorities said. An attorney for Boyajian did not respond to a call to comment. The other two men do not yet have attorneys.

Child-sex tourism — whereby minors are sold for sex through brothels or solicited off the street — has long been part of the landscape in Cambodia. Like most countries where the crime occurs, such as Thailand and Mexico, Cambodia is a poor nation, with a $600 annual per capita income, according to the World Bank. In desperation to pay for food or health care, some families sell their children to foreign pedophiles or sex houses.

It is difficult to know how pervasive child-sex tourism is in Cambodia, or in any other country, because of the illicit nature of the crime. Undercover investigators, working with human rights activists, continue to find many brothel owners and traffickers selling minors for sex in Cambodia.

There are increasing reports of men traveling there to have sex with underage girls for as much as $4,000, according to the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report of 2009. The report designated the Southeast Asian country as among those that should receive special scrutiny because it has not made enough progress in eliminating the problem.

Cambodia has made some efforts. Over the past year, after enacting laws with anti-trafficking provisions, the government convicted a dozen offenders and prosecuted nearly 70. U.S. legislation, including the PROTECT Act of 2003, has also targeted trafficking. The legislation bolstered federal laws targeting predatory crimes against children outside the United States by expanding the range of crimes and increasing penalties.

Officials say Twisted Traveler, launched in October, will help enforce existing laws. Under the initiative, the FBI and ICE trained the Cambodian National Police and local police in Phnom Penh, the nation’s capital.

“Some part of what we’re trying to do here is change attitudes and change acceptance of child-sex tourism as something that’s always been around or can’t be changed,” Carol A. Rodley, the U.S. ambassador to Cambodia, said in a telephone interview. “And I think that’s very much true of the Cambodian police — that their attitudes about the issue have changed in part because of the collaboration.”

Authorities in both countries relied on information provided by Action Pour Les Enfants, a nonprofit group, and the International Justice Mission, a human rights agency. Their involvement, Rodley said, marked a breakthrough for Cambodia, which historically has had an uneasy relationship with such organizations because of their criticism of the government.

In a statement announcing the latest allegations, officials said Boyajian, of Menlo Park, Calif., is accused of having sex with a 10-year-old Vietnamese girl. Peeters, of Norwalk, Calif., is accused of engaging in sexual activity with at least three underage Cambodian boys, paying them $5 to $10. Sporich, of Sedona, Ariz., is accused of sexually abusing at least one Cambodian boy, and of driving through city streets on his motorbike, dropping money as a way to attract children.

If convicted, the men face sentences of up to 30 years for each victim.

Officials said they hope the arrests will deter would-be sex tourists. Over the past six years, ICE has arrested more than 70 suspects nationwide on charges of child-sex tourism.

“The appeal of a place like this is that it’s very far away, and pedophiles feel like they can come here and be anonymous and be outside the reach of U.S. law enforcement,” Rodley said. “I hope the message that it sends is one of deterrence.”

Original Story:  washingtonpost.com

A swingers’ resort was one of the investments, a suit claims Milton (Todd) Ault 3rd invested their money in.

A California moneyman with X-rated interests is being sued by several hedge funds who accuse him of shoveling their millions into porn and a planned Catskills swingers ranch.

Milton (Todd) Ault 3rd is charged with stiffing a dozen hedge funds on a $4.2 million investment with his firm Zealous Inc.

The Manhattan Supreme Court suit says the money was supposed to be steered to an “integrated global community of trading partners.”

“The financing was a scam,” the suit says. “He intended to, and did, use plaintiffs’ money to fund [his] lifestyle, which included the development of a ’swingers ranch’ in the Catskills and other pornographic-related endeavors.”

Ault, whose online bio boasts that he has traded stocks since he was 11, has dabbled in adult entertainment, and his company co-produced a porn flick based on Sarah Palin.

He declared the suit “worthless” and said any talk of a swinger hideaway in New Lebanon, N.Y., was a “joke.”

“We were subdividing it into eight lots,” Ault said. “There was never going to be a swingers club.”

Ault, who worked at Dean Witter Reynolds and Prudential Securities before starting Zealous, said the money was always earmarked for the creation of a platform for the trading of securities.

“These hedge funds didn’t do their homework when they made their investment,” said Ault, adding that the funds have already recouped a chunk of the money.
Get started now!

He said the 130-acre plot of land on Wadsworth Road was purchased long before the hedge funds invested in his company.

Last September, Ault merged Zealous into Adult Entertainment Capital Inc., a publicly traded firm that issued a press release about plans for a 140-acre East Coast project for the “fast-growing swingers lifestyle.”

Ault insisted yesterday a swingers ranch was never seriously planned for woodsy Columbia County.

“That was simply a joke,” he said.

A lawyer for the hedge funds did not return calls.

Original Story:  nydailynews.com

A sex trade ring in which young girls were allegedly pistol-whipped and forced from their homes into sexual slavery was broken up in Houston this week and several suspects are in custody.

Five people, including a former Houston police officer, were arrested in the largest sex trafficking case in Texas’ southern district, MyFOXHouston.com reported. A sixth remains on the run.

John Butler, 47, William Hornbeak, 34, Jamine Lake, 27, Andre McDaniels, 39, and Kristen Land, 28, all of Houston, as well as Tulsa, Okla., resident Ronnie Presley, 35, are named as suspects in the case.

All are charged with conspiracy to traffic women and children for the purposes of commercialized sex; sex trafficking of children; sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion; and other offenses, according to the station.

The five Houston residents were arrested Monday and Tuesday; Presley is still at large, MyFOXHouston.com reported.

Butler was a Houston police officer for a brief period in the 1980s, sources told the station.

The sting was the result of a joint investigation by local and federal authorities.

“It is a horrible reflection on our society when adults prey on the vulnerabilities of children and reduce them to indentured sex slaves,” U.S. Attorney Tim Johnson said in a prepared statement.

The suspects allegedly used businesses like massage parlors, modeling studios and health spas to disguise their sex trade business, according to the 16-count indictment unsealed on Tuesday.

Women and teens as young as 16 were among the victims allegedly coerced into prostitution and regularly beaten and threatened, according to the U.S. attorney’s statement.

Original Story:   foxnews.com