Pimped up = Beaten up

I wish people would stop saying “pimp out” or “pimp up.” Pimps do not deserve the glory of having an expression named after them. Pimps are mean men who earn money off the backs of captured, brain-washed, maltreated young girls and young women. Pimps are lazy, conniving and manipulating....

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Women: just pawns in the game

Mobster and human smuggler Bill Bedini was back in Albania after jumping bail in Texas. “This [is] payback to your Uncle Edmond for when I was in the United States,” he said as he beat two young women, nieces of the Albanian man who testified against him in the U.S. A human weed, Bedini...

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Tampa Bay hub for human trafficking

Many people know the phrase “modern day slavery” but don’t realize it’s happening in their hometowns. Florida state representative Rachel Burgin admits she was unaware of the problem’s severity until she attended a national conference in Washington, D.C. and sat next...

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Make slavery a household word

I was nearly speechless last week when a friend asked, “What is modern day slavery?” “Women forced into prostitution,” I blurted. “Forced farm labor!” Is what I see and read about every day invisible to the average American? Twenty-seven million people–the...

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Tricked into sexual slavery

Somaly Mam was tricked into becoming a sex slave when she was a 12-year-old Cambodian orphan by a man who said he could find her parents. Instead he dumped her in a brothel. She suffered the life for ten years then escaped. Today she is the founder of the Somaly Mam Foundation and committed to...

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‘Fabric’ brings modern U.S. slavery to light–again

Nineteenth century San Francisco had Ah Toy. Twentieth century El Monte, Calif., had Aunt Suni. Ah Toy, a daughter of joy on the Barbary Coast, was queen of the underworld, specializing in smuggling and prostitution. Even Niccolo Machiavelli thought she was tops with political intrigue. It is Aunt...

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Losing my religion for equality

Jimmy’s on our side. My friend Azariah sent this article written by former President Jimmy Carter last summer. The first sentence could have been written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who expresses similar sentiments in my first book, A Shocking & Unnatural Incident. Although I write...

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