LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
I WRITE in regard to the woman you identify as Jessica, who was abused and forced into prostitution, and is now in recovery and trying to put her life back together (“ ‘ People need to know what these guys have done,’ ’’ Page A1, Oct. 10). You write that she “was the first young prostitute to share her story with investigators and one of the terrified young witnesses whose court testimony was key to the convictions’’ of six Boston pimps. And yet, she still finds herself in a cycle of blaming the victim.
Jessica, who had been arrested for prostitution, has been discharged by the National Guard and had to switch universities as a result of her arrest record, as if she were a predatory streetwalker selling herself for personal gain. On the contrary, Jessica was a sex slave, forced into her role by unprincipled gangsters who abused her sexually and physically and confiscated the money she received.
Where is the justice in the holier-than-thou attitude that a young woman who was abused as a teenager should be shut out of the mainstream because of a life over which she had no control? It’s about time that all police and prosecutors recognized exploited youths as victims. We should be working to change the callous state law that allows for the arrest and conviction of child prostitutes.
Harry S. Westcott
Wellesley
Jessica, who had been arrested for prostitution, has been discharged by the National Guard and had to switch universities as a result of her arrest record, as if she were a predatory streetwalker selling herself for personal gain. On the contrary, Jessica was a sex slave, forced into her role by unprincipled gangsters who abused her sexually and physically and confiscated the money she received.
Where is the justice in the holier-than-thou attitude that a young woman who was abused as a teenager should be shut out of the mainstream because of a life over which she had no control? It’s about time that all police and prosecutors recognized exploited youths as victims. We should be working to change the callous state law that allows for the arrest and conviction of child prostitutes.
Harry S. Westcott
Wellesley
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