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Almost 500 people were
arrested in a crackdown on human trafficking in California, police said on
Wednesday, in raids that also led to the rescue of more than 50 victims,
including children.
Thomson
Reuters Foundation report continues:
Police
said they had rescued 28 children, some of whom had been reported missing, and
also 27 adults who had been coerced into prostitution.
"We
let everybody know throughout the state that ... we're going to aggressively go
after the pimps and the exploiters, as well as the johns and especially the
johns that think that they can prey on the minors," said Kent Wegener, a
lieutenant with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department
Police
arrested 474 people and freed victims in and around cities from Los Angeles to
San Diego and Santa Barbara in state-wide raids over three days in late
January, Wegener said.
Charges
against those arrested include pimping, solicitation of prostitution and human
trafficking, said the San Diego Country District Attorney's office in a
statement.
The
crackdown was carried out to coincide with the end of Human Trafficking
Awareness Month in January, which former President Barack Obama proclaimed in
2014.
More
cases of human trafficking were reported in California than in any other U.S.
state last year, according to data from the National Human Trafficking Resource
Center's hotline.
Some
5,500 cases of sex trafficking were reported to the center's hotline nationwide
last year, according to its website.
Globally, nearly 21 million people are victims of human trafficking, according to the U.N.'s International Labour Organization. An estimated 4.5 million of them are forced into sex work.
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