Girls for $ale in Honolulu (Pls. dial Federalization Squad)

Senator Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) has used prostitution in these isles as one of major reasons to push his legislation for a federal takeover of the CNMI through the US Senate earlier this year.

The measure didn’t get anywhere and it’s basically dead on arrival when transmitted to the US House of Representatives. It’ll die a sure and slow death as the current Congress winds up to adjourn this year.

It is my pleasure, sir, to remind you of the obvious hypocrisy with which you’ve exercised, in royal fashion, the so-called glass house syndrome.

A serial on teenage prostitution in Oahu published recently in the Honolulu Star Bulletin definitely confirmed the existence of a far worse situation on the flesh trade in Hawaii than in the CNMI.

“Hawaii’s age of sexual consent is 14, the lowest in the US, and that makes it easier for predatory older men to exploit young teenagers.”

“It’s illuminating that the other states have upgraded their statutes in the past few years, but Hawaii has not”, said Howard Davidson, director of the American Bar Association’s Center for Children and the Law. “There is a piece of law reform work to do there”.

“Since we have cracked down on adult prostitution, one of the unintended consequences has been the stepped-up recruitment of local girls,” said Meda Chesney-Lind, a University of Hawaii-Manoa women’s studies professor.

“The percentage of girls arrested in Hawaii reached record proportions–accounting for a bigger share of juvenile arrests than in the rest of the US–and the state lacks enough female-focused rehabilitation programs to combat the problem”, according to a new study.

“Although the largest number of arrests is for ‘status offenses’ such as running away from home, those offenses–while considered less urgent to the rest of society–put the girls on hostile streets and at greater risk of committing more serious crimes such as theft, drug dealing and prostitution.”.

“For girls, it’s unfortunately the case that they are pretty immediately drawn into behaviors like survival sex, sex for a place to stay, for food, for drugs” and “can end up controlled by pimps and stuck as prostitutes”.

The study says that in “1998 girls accounted for one of every three juvenile arrests in Hawaii, compared to one out of four nationally. And the Hawaii percentages have risen since then”. Females comprised 41 percent of all juvenile arrests and 22 percent for all adults arrests.

This study, Senator Akaka, is a grand illustration of prostitution in your side of the ocean divide. If anything, sir, please refrain from casting stones on prostitutes nor must you use it against the CNMI only to put your filthy foot in your mouth. Even the bible reminds squeaky clean hypocrites: “Let he without sin cast the first stone”.
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Prostitution and tourism somehow are very closely related. Where the former exist, so does the latter. Whatever the case may be, both sides of the Pacific divide must seriously hunker down to resolve problems associated with the world’s oldest profession.
It’s so unsettling that it involves young girls. Only we can guide them out of this mess. Mud throwing isn’t going to help them in a whirlwind so fanned by spinmasters. How sad that the news media is the only victor in this acrimonious slug fest, right? Mahalo yan Si Yuus Maase`!