Village Voice Media

Two men pleaded guilty to pimping young girls they recruited and then offered online for sexual acts, in some cases tattooing their own names on the teens, U.S. attorneys announced.

D.C. resident Melvin Douglas, 32, and Capitol Heights resident Dennis Smith, 31, both pleaded guilty Thursday to transporting a minor across state lines to engage in prostitution, according to U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein.

Prostitution may be the world's oldest profession, but Local police are using a new way to catch hookers in the act.

Backpage.com is a website where "escorts" can advertise their services.

West Palm Beach police say that's just a front for alleged prostitutes. Last night alone, they nabbed 12 people for prostitution related charges.

Police say all of them advertised on backpage.com.

It will take more than law enforcement and money to combat human trafficking in Oklahoma, said Maj. Francina Proctor, associate area commander of the Central Oklahoma Salvation Army Area Command, who spoke to an Oklahoma City women's networking group on Wednesday.

The trafficking of humans in and through Oklahoma — for both sexual and labor purposes — can only be defeated with public awareness and a concerted effort by the community as a whole, Proctor told about two dozen women with OKC Happy Hour at Bricktown Brewery.

California will toughen its penalties for human trafficking and its monitoring of sex offenders under an initiative approved Tuesday.

Prison sentences for human trafficking will more than double under Proposition 35, which imposes life sentences for the sex-trafficking of children. It also requires sex offenders to provide email addresses and other Internet identifiers to law enforcement.

The initiative was mainly funded by former Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly, who lost a bid for state attorney general in 2010.

Experts testifying before a new Alaska task force on sex trafficking said Monday the teenage victims often are too afraid and embarrassed, and sometimes too addicted to drugs, to come forward.

The comments were made at a hearing to address sex trafficking, which authorities say is notoriously underreported. Among the most vulnerable are chronic runaways whose own parents have quit looking for them, said Detective Sgt. Kathy Lacey, who heads the Anchorage Police Department's vice unit.

"Those kids are falling through the cracks," she told the panel.

Myron Irby, 29, of Duluth, Georgia, appeared in federal court today on charges of sex trafficking a 16-year-old girl. Irby was arraigned before United States Magistrate Judge Linda T. Walker. Irby was indicted by a federal grand jury on October 23, 2012, for sex trafficking of a minor and attempted sex trafficking of a minor.

A joint federal and state investigation has hooked 18 Sioux Falls area men on sex trafficking or solicitation charges.

The suspects were swept into court for their interactions with minors and adults who’d advertised sexual services online and come into the orbit of investigators pursuing federal charges against pimps.