Academic

Yet Another Sex Trafficking Incident

By Ann Bartow

Too common for much press coverage apparently, but there was this:

Authorities: Kidnapped girl rescued at motel

ABSECON — Police arrested a Vineland man and three other people after a Massachusetts girl called her mother to report she was being held against her will at a White Horse Pike motel.

The mother notified Absecon police, who responded late Tuesday night to the Super Lodge Motel room where the girl was staying. She told police she had been threatened with a stun gun, forced to stay in various motels for at least a week and forced to work as a prostitute in the Atlantic City area.

Police said the four captors returned to the motel shortly after officers arrived and were arrested.

Police charged Javon R. Gordon, 26, of Vineland with unlawful possession of a stun gun. He was held in Atlantic County Jail.

Colleen M. Stapleton, 18, of Somers Point, was charged with promoting prostitution and endangering the welfare of a child. A Pompano, Fla., man was arrested for being a fugitive from justice, and a Philadelphia man was arrested on outstanding traffic warrants.

The investigation was continuing, police said.

The victim was treated at a local hospital and on her way back to Massachusetts, police said. Authorities did not specify where the alleged kidnapping began or the victim’s exact age, except that she was under 18.

Had she been 18 or over would she have been assisted, or arrested? Please, if you have any decency in your soul, support passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.

–Ann Bartow

Full post as published by Feminist Law Professors on August 17, 2008 (boomark / email).