wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

Hello Brian: Your timely discussion of the legal, political and moral issues involved in the victimization of teenagers is admirable. And so is your focus on the personalities of Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Patterson and others dealing with the solutions to the problem. I would like to invite you and your listeners to read of ALL these issues and more so I can make you laugh. No this is no joke. In my new play, Trial by mischief, a new immigrant from India gets drawn into the dominating world of corporate power which propels him into becoming a judge for the day on the first day of his first job as a receptionist, in America. The first case deals with the trial of a teenager accused of practicing the oldest profession in the world. The judge prosecutes the Public prosecutor and the arresting detective and endows the victim with a court order to monitor the behavior of the State and to pull its beard if necessary. The play is a part of my new book, Laughing in the face of terrorism to be released this week.

There is a petition to request the governor sign at:

http://www.petitiononline.com/12safe/petition.html

Our children and adolescents are sexualized at a very early age ..the brat dolls e.g.,,, Prostitution is normalized by academics and the language neutral work sex worker legitimizes prostitution.

What adults do with their bodies in private is not the business of the State OR the organized religion.

But exploitation does not disappear with language change.

There is a big difference between “choosing” to be a prostitute and having to be a prostitute because there is not other way to economically survive.

A better approach is to decimalize prostitution and AND apply tax laws like any other kind of work ... this will have a huge impact and open the door to health and safety issues

actually, people who are trafficked into the us *also* need to cooperate with prosecution of their exploiters in order to gain most services. in fact, this is also a requirement, in order to avoid jail time/deportation and to gain temporary legal status. it's unnecessary to evoke xenophobia in order to defend women's/children's rights in the united states-- this analysis that deserving "american" women/children are not able to access basic services that are being freely given to undeserving immigrants/trafficking victims is flawed, wholly inaccurate, and unproductive, esp if the goal here is to find ways to protect people who are being harmed.

Is there an online petition to encourage Mayor Bloomberg to support the Safe Harbor Act?

love that teacher from bklyn. she's a real new york hero. all the best to her.

This is great material for educational classes about sex in the law for legal teachers.

How horrible to throw your child out for being gay. Many don't agree with that lifestyle but it is not good to throw a child out before they can take care of themself.

This is a very complicated issue . Unless you include the question of age of consent the real issues are avoided. These kids ARE victims, They do need services, But if we continue to call adolescents "children: it confuses the public.

A program on age of consent is in order.

Also money changes everything .. these adolesencts can make good money that is not availble to them in any other way to survive.

The johns. pimps, client etc need also to be a central focus .. they are the real exploiters and need to be crimalized and prosecutied.

I definitely see Carol's point of view. Child prostitution is very sad, however, it sounds like this line of reasoning suggests that because somebody was abused as a child, they do not have a choice to be involved criminal acts. Does this mean that we should excuse a murderer if he/she was abused as a child?

I would like to encourage your listeners to check out the Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS), an amazing organization that providers services to formerly commecially sexually exploited children.

http://www.gems-girls.org/

Could you please explain Bloomberg's rationale for not supporting the Safe Harbor Act?

I just want to point out that young girls, boys and transgender youth are all involved in the sex industry and each group has issues particular to their experience while all share the experience of being exploited.

It seams that this should be implied with statutory rape laws. If any sexual act with a minor and an adult is rape by default, shouldn’t the transaction be secondary to rape? These girls need help, not jail.

What about arresting the johns?

while having sex with a child should be a crime, i don't understand why prostitution is.

the government should stay out of peoples bedrooms (and bank accounts)

How typical to make the oldest profession a crime, another example of how our world is still being dominated too much by machismo and this is the keep the women down syndrome. Prostitution should be legal and especially children taken advantage of like this to go to jail is ridiculous.

Hello! It is a child, these girls are hurting and need to be decriminalized and taken care of.

Please, please, do you realize that boys are also victims of sexual exploitation? Stop automatically speaking only of "girls." It's children. Boys and girls. Same for adult prostitutes: it's both sexes that are being exploited. I'm speaking as a human being, here, not as a woman or a man.