A Facebook friend sent me the following message: I edited the text by converting it into sentences and correcting typos.
it is related to my post A few days ago, a government official referred to voluntarily chosen prostitution as “human trafficking.”
I saw you. Posted by EconLog About sex trafficking. I was going to post this story as a comment, but decided it was too long. Still, I thought I’d ask.
A few years ago, a female colleague from Raleigh told us over lunch that she had almost been kidnapped by sex traffickers in Target in Raleigh. Surprised we asked what happened. She said a man came up to her and commented on her T-shirt. That was it. She was young and attractive and our company was known for our witty T-shirts. I suggested he was just trying to start a conversation. She claimed to have seen stories about multiple sex trafficking arrests at that target. Therefore, in her view, he must have been the kidnapper. When I got back to my desk, I Googled the Raleigh Target sex trafficking case. She was right. There were at least four or five high-profile incidents. But after reading more than a dozen paragraphs, I finally realized that they were all just regular prostitution. There were no traffickers or kidnappers. Because police got more headlines and more federal funding for fighting non-existent human trafficking, they passed it off as human trafficking, and news organizations went along for the clicks. Because of this, at least one woman in Raleigh was afraid to go to Target for fear of being kidnapped. (italics added)
