SEX TRAFFICKING - San Francisco Major Center - International Crime Networks Smuggle And Enslave

San Francisco Chonicle
FIRST OF A FOUR PART SPECIAL REPORT

Many of San Francisco’s Asian massage parlors — long an established part of the city’s sexually permissive culture — have degenerated into something much more sinister: international sex slave shops.

Once limited to infamous locales such as Bombay and Bangkok, sex trafficking is now an $8 billion international business, with San Francisco among its largest commercial centers.

San Francisco’s liberal attitude toward sex, the city’s history of arresting prostitutes instead of pimps, and its large immigrant population have made it one of the top American cities for international sex traffickers to do business undetected, according to Donna Hughes, a national expert on sex trafficking at the University of Rhode Island.

“It makes me sick to my stomach,â€