backpage.com

Sex trafficking has spread well beyond impoverished pockets of large cities to wealthy suburbs and rural small towns, federal prosecutors told a room full of students Thursday at the University of Mississippi School of Law.

"Some (victims and traffickers) are from wealthy suburbs and some are living in poverty without electricity and running water in the home," Jonathan Skrmetti, an assistant U.S. attorney in Memphis, told the crowd during a panel discussion attended by about two dozen U.S. attorneys from California to New York.

Just 13. That’s the average age UNICEF reports that girls enter the commercial sex trade in the U.S

And while many Americans might think of sex trafficking as an international problem, it often starts in the United States. Prosecutor Lindsey Roberson has seen it happen.

One of her first cases involved a 17-year-old girl who met a guy at a downtown club. He wooed her, and then “took her out of town on a trip, and let her know what she would have to do to pay her way,” Roberson said.

Village Voice Media (VVM) will split off from its controversial Backpage.com online advertising site and create a new company for its struggling chain of alternative weekly newspapers and websites, VVM president Scott Tobias said.

A work of photoshop art by our resident renowed NYC artist Leslie Tucker.

You can see more of her work here: http://villagevoicepimp.com/village-voice-art-exhibition-online