There is a trafficing problem involving some agencies, I'm sure, but the ones who advertize and get good grades are not involved in that.

The problem is that laws against sex work work to the advantage of those who exploit aliens and the underage by making them the victems of LE, so they never report abuse.

It would be wrong to say that human trafficking does not exist. I was working in Orlando last week and there was a bust all over the news that involved underage girls being forced into prostitution.  Is it pervasive in the industry? Well, the truth is NO ONE REALLY KNOWS.  There are no accurate statistics involving much of anything surrounded the P4P game.  The only records involve street walkers who get busted and, as we all know, that is only one segment of the industry.

There are good agencies and bad agencies, good AMPs and bad AMPs.  I have, twice in my life, felt that I was with a girl who was either terribly over-worked or being forced to perform sex acts against her will.  In one case it was an AMP in another it was an agency that eventually got busted and it's owner convicted of trafficking young Brazilian girls.

If you stick with well-reviewed providers on TER you are usually safe. If something seems to good to be true it probably is and it may be a situation to avoid.  Sadly, as was the case with me, sometimes you don't know a situation is bad until you are in the middle of it.

My gut and experiences tell me that the vast majority of indie girls and girls who work for legit agencies with a track record are OK.

Someone posted a troubling Newsweek article on one of the boards insisting that human trafficing was widespread in the business.  I'm new, but the tone seemed a little sensationalist to me.

But the article was pretty frightening.  When I think of coerced women, I think of people who are underage, and are foreign born.  (For this reason profiles of woman who are described as "Russian" or from East Asia kind of scare me.)

If someone states that she is an independent, she has an "American" name and accent, and she appears to be firmly in her 20s or older, are we safe?

What about abusive agencies?  Are some bookers abusive?  How does someone avoid those?  Should I avoid using someone who doesn't do her own screening?

you can't always be sure. There have definitely been cases where they turned out to have been coerced. The best you can do is to be alert to the signs and avoid anything that seem questionable.

The articke you saw has been discussed on the General Board.  It was "done" by well know anti-sex trade activist groups.   Once you know the conclusion, it's easy to create a study to support it.   Real data is hard to come by but LG until a few days ago the Mederator of Erotic Highway Board did a real study with actual providers.  I don't know if she has published it yet.

I am sure that there may be some drug adicts, pimped & abused women who are prostitutes.  However, I dare say that this is a minority of sex workers...  and even rarer among indies.  

Speaking for myself (and I suspect the vast majority here feel the same) that we care about the ladies we see, at least on some level.  Often we become aquaintances if not "friends".   If I suspented a woman was being abused, forced or coercd, the session would end.  I would see if I could get her help.  I would not frequent someone under these circumstances.  

I agree, well reviewed TER ladies are a world apart from the vicious world of trafficing.

It could be a problem there.

It is all these young girls posting that are under 21, most of them are really teens are travel with boyfriend like pimps.  Any man that picks an escort under 20 years old is just nuts because if she turns out to be 17, things might get really bad for you.
To learn the facts of sex workers go to swaay.org

and the gals I've met are very happy to have their jobs at these AMPs where they make good money and send lots of it home to their families in Korea.

Their other choice was to do backbreaking work at an electronics or auto plant.

Again, there are probably some bad AMPs around too, but don't tar all of them with the same brush.

I will not say that human trafficking does not exist but I have dated many girls that work or worked at AMPs and trust me, I have known personally dozens and dozens of AMP employees in social settings outside the parlor and believe me, none of them were "sex slaves"

Now I realize that my story is anecdotal in nature, but my sample size is considerable, literally hundreds of women over a couple of decades and every one of them had a home of their own and were working of their own free will, or at least as free a will as anyone with a job can have. lol

However, I'll give you my personal take as someone who does not EVER want to book a pimped girl.

I don't book with agencies. pimps
I don't book with standard price escorts that have a booker. pimps
I don't book asians or AMPS. pimps
I don't book with women who have phone numbers with area codes outside the city. pimps
I don't book foreign girls. pimps
I don't book visiting (circuit) girls. pimps
I don't book young women working incalls at budget motels. pimps
I require young women (under 25) to show me their ID to prove they are 18.

And I use BP all the time.

You might find that more restrictive than most, but that's the way I roll. I find all the great escorts I like without breaking those principles.


HH

An important thing to remember is magazines like Newsweek are owned by large conglomerate companies that own multiple new outlets. While it would be foolish to say sex trafficking does not happen, it has been resoundingly  shown that it is not happening anywhere near the rate it is made out to be.

Here is a link to a scholarly reviewed article about the sex trade:
http://www.gwu.edu/~soc/docs/Weitzer/Social_Construction.pdf

The article essentially says that the sensational stories popular culture gets about sex trafficking are used for the ultimate means of ridding the entire world of any type of sex trade. This is done by writing such sensational articles, controlling the entire argument about the sex trade and getting legislation passed in multiple countries that targets the sex trade as they see it. The article is a relatively easy read and anyone with an interest in the area, beyond the physical aspects of this area will want to check the article out.