Spurred on by a new California law that makes it nearly impossible for police to crack down on prostitutes, sex workers in Los Angeles’ red-light district are going after businesses who wear nothing more than thongs, G-strings and high heels during the day.
A 40-block stretch of Figueroa Boulevard in South LA has seen hundreds of prostitutes, some as young as teenagers, plying their trade since Gavin Newsom passed the controversial Safe Streets for All Act, which decriminalized loitering with the intention of working as a prostitute in January .
“Before, this type of activity only happened at night where most citizens wouldn’t see it, but now it’s 24/7,” a source told The Post.
“Now you can drive by at 2pm and see it. The family drives by and sees 10 girls on the corner, condoms on the ground.
“You go down the aisle and you see a man in the middle of the aisle and a woman performing [fellatio]. And a mother and her children have to go through it. It doesn’t make sense, it’s all in broad daylight. God only knows the effect it has on the children who have to see it.”
A Los Angeles Police Department source who works in the area told The Post that prostitutes will perform sex acts for as little as $40 and many sell their bodies for $160 or less at a time.
However, some of the sex workers Figueroa caught have claimed they earn up to $1,000 a night and have regular clients who fly them to exotic locations.
Prostitutes look for customers along Figueroa Street between 96th and 98th streets in Los Angeles on Oct. 17. 2023. New York Post
As part of the hanging out rules, officers are no longer allowed to stop women from offering them help, unless they appear to be underage.
In that case, they will take the women to the station and refer them to the Department of Children and Family Services.
Even if the girls are sent to shelters or other programs, LAPD sources say they usually see them back on the streets days later.
LAPD sources told The Post many of the women who work the streets and are “trafficked” by pimps are not from California.New York Post
Nonprofits fighting sex trafficking like Journey Out are also finding it harder to connect with the growing number of sex workers on the streets.
The charity’s executive director, Nayeli May, said young women often don’t realize they are being trafficked because of the psychological and physical effects criminals have on them. Many are taken as young as possible from other states and brought to Los Angeles, so their families’ chances of intervention are minimal.
“When law enforcement typically interacts with them — often before they try to prosecute — what they typically do is if they recognize these people as victims, they’ll connect them with organizations like ours,” May said.
The potential “johns” blocked traffic on busy Figueroa Street as they tried to talk to the woman. New York Post
“We could get their help, but that’s not the case anymore. They can’t talk to girls anymore.”
Last month there were six cases of rape reported in the area, according to the latest data obtained by The Post. A total of 51 cases of rape in the area have been reported so far this year.
Cmdr. Jon Pinto, assistant commander of the LAPD bureau where the red light district is located, told The Post about 95% of the women who “work” have pimps, who are closely tied to street gangs.
“Before this type of activity only happened at night… Now you can drive by at 2 o’clock in the afternoon and see it,” a police source told the New York Post.
“Where we work in South Los Angeles, we don’t deal with sex workers where there is a voluntary exchange between two people,” Pinto said.
“What we are doing is dealing with human trafficking in the Figueroa corridor. There is a factor of fear or coercion, and in the end, the pimp takes all the money and he doesn’t get any money back. It has been an ongoing problem for years, but the corridor has been an area where there has been an increase in victims of human trafficking.”
Pinto said officers on Thursday rescued a 14-year-old who was being trafficked by a pimp in the Figueroa Street corridor.
Women wait for business at all hours of the day, even if there are children or families around the New York Post
The problem has gotten so bad that the city, the LAPD, the LA City Attorney’s Office, local nonprofits, the Department of Children and Family Services and the US Attorney’s Office have come together and started a new program in September called the “Figueroa Initiative” to help victims of human trafficking .
The Post hit up “The Track” in Figueroa — which is still gang territory, with various factions of Bloods and Crips patrolling the nearby streets — at 6pm on Tuesday and saw girls wearing barely-there G-strings and waving towards the driver as they pass.
At the intersection of Figueroa and 96th to 98th streets, traffic backs up to residential areas as “johns” in their cars “shop” and stop for women to talk to them.
Prostitution and pimping have increased significantly in the Figueroa Street corridor in South Los Angeles since Gavin Newsom passed the Safe Streets for All Act. New York Post
Police cars circled, but the woman didn’t run because the johns parked their cars in the neighborhood.
A young blonde woman in a hot pink bikini and white faux fur bolero jacket posed seductively and smiled for the man as she tried to balance herself on 6 inch acrylic stilettos. His smile quickly turned to disappointment as the cars drove away.
Not too far from the action was a taco truck, and people trying to get food caught their attention as a sassy bathing suit woman walked by.
To attract business, sex workers wear very revealing clothes. Image provided to the NY Post
By 9 p.m., the traffic was so heavy that the woman walked straight to the line of waiting johns.
About two blocks from the busy corner, a man stripped from the waist down harasses two prostitutes.
“Why the f—k are you out,” one of the women asked, unimpressed, as her friend shooed her away.
Some sex workers charge as little as $40 for their services. Image provided to NY Post
Soon after, the atmosphere quickly changed and became threatening, making it unsafe, so The Post reporters and photographers left.
The influx of sex workers isn’t just in Los Angeles. Further south in National City near San Diego, Mayor Ron Morrison has also sounded the alarm, disgusted by the scantily clad people who have invaded the city’s neighborhoods and gone about their business.
“The police can’t really go and talk to them because they don’t have the right to talk to them because they haven’t done anything wrong … Even if they go out and talk to someone in their car and sit there when all of them are. wearing is less than a G-string,” he told CBS8 news.
A police source told The Post that they saw three times as many prostitutes than a year ago. New York Post
He also said prostitutes have been seen near schools and they also work on the streets day and night.
The same thing happened in Figueroa. The young women and girls who “worked” on the streets around 4pm looked gloomy in the 85 degree heat one day last week.
A mother and her daughter walk home from school trying to avoid the prostitute’s gaze as they continue to eat shaved ice from small Styrofoam cups.
The young woman, wearing a sports bra and high-cut shorts, kept her eyes on the car, hoping to catch a glimpse of her next customer.
A few blocks away, huge billboards were plastered over prostitutes and families walking down Figueroa Street.
Emblazoned on the billboard was a picture of a frail looking young woman and next to it in bold letters: “Pimps don’t care. We do. There is a way out.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
