On Monday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced that an operation across the nation led to the arrests of 159 men over the past few days, charged with forcing at least 105 teenage girls to be prostitutes. Authorities said the youngest girls were only 13.
The FBI said it had rescued, but not arrested the 105 girls.
This operation was part of one that goes along with a 10-year long Department of Justice program called Innocence Lost National Initiative. The program’s goal is to break up as many child prostitution rings as possible.
Over the last 10 years, close to 2,700 children have been rescued from working in prostitution thanks to these rescue programs the government has put in place.
The FBI made arrangements for assistance counselors to work with local service organizations for children, to put the teenagers in group or foster homes. FBI officials said none of the girls would face any charges.
Most of the arrests took place in Detroit where authorities took into custody 18 pimps and rescued 10 girls.
San Francisco authorities netted 17 pimps while rescuing 12 girls, while Atlanta also had 17 arrests and 2 girls rescued. In all, authorities arrested people in over 70 cities across the country.
Authorities said they focused on locating prostitutes who wanted customers through the Internet or at locations such as casinos or truck stops. After locating the young females, the officers used information given to them by the teenagers to locate the pimps that were arrested.
Many operations were carried out by both local and federal law enforcement, along with the Congressional program the National Center for Exploited and Missing Children.
