sex trafficking – The Burning Platform

RUST BELT COLLAPSE: Ohio’s Runaway Children

Well, it’s been awhile, hasn’t it? Let’s get right to it.

As an Ohioan, I can safely say that human trafficking is a real and persistent issue. I assert my claim with this phrasing because within the past few months, I went into Casey’s (a gas station found across the Midwest and Rust Belt) to use the bathroom. Near the urinals, on the inside of the open stall door, I saw a sticker with big letters:

“NEED RESCUED?”

Under that, a phone number to call if you needed help. Underneath the hotline number, the the dangers and reality of sex trafficking were detailed. The startling truth is, across Ohio, in 2023 alone:

A man convicted in a child sex trafficking operation was sentenced to 40 years in prison…
Another man was also sentenced to 40 years in prison for trafficking a juvenile…
In Cincinnati, a man was arrested and federally charged with exploiting teen girls and sex trafficking…
A man in Cleveland was sentenced to 3 years in prison for engaging in the kidnapping of a human trafficking victim…

Continue reading “RUST BELT COLLAPSE: Ohio’s Runaway Children”

Another Mystery: Dead in Haiti, Forgotten in America

AS WE SAW YESTERDAY with the attack on the Republican Congressional baseball team practice in Alexandria, VA, the bizarre 2016 U.S. Presidential election continues to reverberate and to claim additional victims.

Seth Rich appears to have been an earlier victim. Nearly a year later, Seth’s death remains unresolved as the authorities seem uninterested in investigating it as the political assassination it almost certainly was. Interest in Seth’s murder was revived a few weeks ago, but seems to have abated once again.

While yesterday’s victims are fresh in mind, and Seth’s death seems on the verge of being forgotten a second time, others have disappeared from memory. We stop here to remember one, Monica Petersen.