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Washington state police free 12 women, seize sex trade site
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In this Dec. 31, 2015 picture, persons gather at the Cologne, Germany, main station. German police said Wednesday Jan. 6, 2016 that they are investigating whether a string of sexual assaults and thefts at New Year is linked to a known criminal network. The assaults in Cologne last week have prompted outrage in Germany and a fresh debate about immigration, after police said the perpetrators appeared to be of "Arab or North African origin." The events in Cologne involved a crowd of around a thousand men. Police say at least 90 criminal complaints were filed, and that some men in the crowd formed smaller groups and surrounded women. (Markus Boehm/dpa via AP) (Markus Boehm/dpa via AP)
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span class="inline inline-center">In this Dec. 31, 2015 picture, persons gather at the Cologne, Germany, main station. German police said Wednesday Jan. 6, 2016 that they are investigating whether a string of sexual assaults and thefts at New Year is linked to a known criminal network. The assaults in Cologne last week have prompted outrage in Germany and a fresh debate about immigration, after police said the perpetrators appeared to be of "Arab or North African origin." The events in Cologne involved a crowd of around a thousand men. Police say at least 90 criminal complaints were filed, and that some men in the crowd formed smaller groups and surrounded women. (Markus Boehm/dpa via AP)
Police in the Seattle area said Thursday they freed a dozen women who were forced into prostitution, arrested 14 people and shut down two websites this week as part of a sex-trafficking investigation.
Sheriff John Urquhart said most or all of the exploited women had been brought to the U.S. from South Korea, where some had been forced into bondage to pay off debts their families owed to criminal organizations. Eleven men who were arrested were part of an online network that included websites where customers rated the women and posted details to help facilitate the prostitution, he said. The men face felony charges of promoting prostitution, as do two other men and one woman identified by police as brothel managers.
"These women are true victims ' make no mistake about it," Urquhart told a news conference.
Authorities seized a website called The Review Board, which they said had about 20,000 members around the country. The website on Thursday featured the insignia of the agencies involved in the investigation ' the sheriff's office, Bellevue Police Department, King County Prosecutor's Office and FBI ' along with the message, "This website has been seized pursuant to a Promoting Prostitution investigation."
A similar, password-protected website was also shut down.
The seizure of The Review Board drew objections from a group of self-identified sex workers who protested outside the sheriff's office Thursday, saying that it was a service that helped protect those voluntarily involved in the trade. Sex workers could vet potential clients by seeing whom they had reviewed, then contacting those prostitutes to ask about them, some said.
In a written statement, the local chapter of the Sex Workers Outreach Project, an organization that fights the stigma of sex work, said the website also enhanced the safety of sex workers by allowing them to work without managers, or pimps.
But Urquhart and Bellevue Police Chief Steve Mylett said there was nothing safe about the website. The women involved in the case had been shipped from city to city about every month and typically were not allowed to leave their apartments except to go to the airport, they said. The trafficking had connections to about 15 states, and the women serviced between two and 10 clients a day.
Police said they had no interest in arresting the women, but could assist them in obtaining visas reserved for victims of human trafficking. (+)
