The girl was 14, from North Carolina and had just escaped from an ordeal in which, according to federal prosecutors, she had been coerced into prostitution by a man who had threatened harm to her and her family with numbing regularity.
She said a 15-year-old girl was still with the man. Federal prosecutors say Christopher Jason Williams had sexual relations with the girls and forced them to pose for photographs and videos posted to escort service websites.
In the past, children and adults in such circumstances might have been charged with crimes related to prostitution. Prosecutors across North Carolina are adopting a different stance now, one that is the result of a new understanding about the harsh dynamics of sex trafficking. New laws are treating the children as abused victims, which criminal justice officials say vast numbers are.
Prosecutors also are trying better to coordinate their new efforts, calling on teachers, human services providers, families and law enforcement officers to look into the faces of the young girls and boys in the streets and on websites – and to think differently. States across the country are setting up special courts for prostitution cases, intending to pull sex- and human-trafficking victims out of the cycle of abuse.
“Human trafficking is a national epidemic and it is also happening here, in our communities, with many of the victims and perpetrators hiding in plain sight,” said Anne Tompkins, the top federal prosecutor in North Carolina’s Western District (more...)
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