We think of branding as something ranchers do to their cattle. But it\u2019s also what pimps do to women and girls they control across America.<\/p>\n
Taz, a 16-year-old girl here in New York City, told me that her pimp had branded three other girls with tattoos bearing his name. When she refused the tattoo, she said, he held her down and carved his name on her back with a safety pin.<\/p>\n
More about Taz in a moment. That kind of branding isn\u2019t universal, but it\u2019s very common. An alleged pimp\u00a0indicted last month in Manhattan<\/a>\u00a0is accused of tattooing his street name on a prostitute\u2019s neck, along with a bar code. He allegedly tattooed another prostitute with a symbol of his name on her pubic area, along with a dollar sign. In each case, the message was clear: They were his property, and they were for sale.<\/p>\n Such branding is a reminder that women being sold on the streets in America are \u2014 not always, but often \u2014 victims rather than criminals. That consciousness is spreading, and we are finally seeing considerable progress in tackling domestic sex trafficking.<\/p>\n So far, in 2012, states have passed more than 40 laws relating to human trafficking, according to\u00a0Megan Fowler of Polaris Project<\/a>, an anti-trafficking organization. [Read the full report<\/a>]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With 21 days before departure, I want to share with you the story below, written by Nicholas Kristof, of the New York Times. This, and 27,000,000 stories like this one, is what keeps me in this battle, every day. She Has a Pimp\u2019s Name Etched on Her By\u00a0NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF We think of branding as… Read More »[21 days 2 go] Stories from the front: She Has a Pimp\u2019s Name Etched on Her<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[33,5,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-33","category-news","category-news-and-reports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2o6Hc-bU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=738"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":739,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738\/revisions\/739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}