Parlors of abuse: Our nation’s sex trafficking gauntlet
Lee Enterprises Public Service Team did a first-of-its-kind analysis of states’ efforts to protect women who are subject to sex trafficking at illicit massage parlors.
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Here’s how the Lee Enterprises Public Service Team did a first-of-its-kind analysis of states’ efforts to protect women who are subject to sex…
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A Lee Enterprises investigation found most states fail to protect vulnerable women and few law enforcement agencies punish the owners of the businesses, let alone go after their support networks.
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Trafficking cases can be complex, leading some jurisdictions to take shortcuts by arresting or disciplining the women for prostitution, which experts say is punishing the victims without solving the problem.
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Xiuwen Zhang — a Chinese immigrant and state-licensed massage therapist who owns XF Massage in Chesterfield, Virginia — discusses her arrest.
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FBI data from local police departments show that only seven percent of human trafficking offenses led to arrests from 2021 to 2023 — 1,344 arrests for 19,225 reported offenses.
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For years YunXi Wang felt helpless, shuffling from one illicit massage parlor to another, coerced into providing massages with so-called "happy endings."
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One detective used an approach that experts now consider a model for tackling the exploitation of immigrant women trapped in the human trafficking trade.
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“If you can hit them with enough regulatory and civil actions, they close up because it’s too much hassle to keep operating.”
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Their aim, which mirrored their work in intelligence, was to gather data on this secret world and then convince authorities to hold the owners of the businesses accountable.
