Underage women common in Vegas sex trafficking

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS

A yearlong academic study of sex trafficking in Las Vegas is providing a glimpse into a shadowy world beneath the neon glow where underage girls, threatened by pimps, solicit for business in casinos, on streets and online.

Of 190 identified sex-trafficking victims in 2014, Arizona State University researchers found two-thirds were under 18 years old, one in five was brought to southern Nevada from somewhere else and more than half were never reported as missing.

“These are kids that nobody even cares enough about to report missing,” said Laura Meltzer, a Las Vegas police officer involved in the report’s roll-out.

A victim advocate in the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, Elynne Greene, called them “throwaway kids.” She said many are products of the foster care system.

The average underage victim in the study was 16. The youngest was 12.

About one in three victims was recruited by a boyfriend-turned-“violent, fear-based” abuser, with more than half reporting being forced through physical assault involving a gun, knife, razor or cord.

The average trafficker was 29 years old, and 80 percent of them had criminal histories. Most came from outside Nevada, and most of those were from California.

The report also pointed to difficulties prosecuting accused sex traffickers.

Only 34 of the 159 cases studied, or a little more than one in five, resulted in convictions.