Letter to Frank Girardot of the Pasadena Star News
Dear Mr. Girardot: I read your article about how “investigative journalism” isn’t dead yet. No it isn’t and thank the heavens it’s not or we’re in real trouble. I say that because back in the 1980’s - no one believed that sex trafficking was “real”. To speak about the subject then was received about as well as someone saying Bill Cosby had raped all those women in the 1980’s. The Telecommunications Act of 1995 hadn’t been passed yet - so when I was able to step up starting in 1987 to raise awareness this was real, it was happening to US citizens on US soil, and that we needed to change our legal and mental health system to help these victims I was heard. We were able to run public service announcements, get interviews on major media, and I even produced a weekly public access show with survivors telling their stories. The result? The Trafficking Act of 2000 was passed giving us federal recognition of domestic sex trafficking. Back in 2013 I received a call from a wo