About That Child-Prostitution Sting

Although I applaud the FBI for taking seriously the victimization of child prostitutes--and my local newspaper for noting that the girls in question were "rescued," not arrested--I can't help but wish that ANY of the stories about the rescue had mentioned the fact that the average age at which girls "enter prostitution" is between 12 and 14... suggesting that many of the grown women among the 571 arrested on prostitution charges last week had unquestionably been abused themselves. To suggest that a teenage prostitute, once she turns 18, crosses an invisible threshold from victim to victimizer ignores the circumstances that cause young women to "take up" prostitution in the first place.