Dirty Dozen: 12 companies and entities facilitating sexual exploitation

12 companies and entities named 'mainstream facilitators' of sexual exploitation

By Samuel Smith, Deputy Managing Editor Monday, February 11, 2019

Nevada

Nevada is the only government entity to ever be featured on the Dirty Dozen List. According to NCOSE, the state has become a “home base” for pimps and sex traffickers.

Nevada is also the only state in the entire United States where prostitution is legal. The organization accuses Nevada of legally sanctioning “male sexual entitlement.”

NCOSE points out that Nevada’s sexual exploitation industry has a “predatory dependence on women with economic disadvantages” and women with “childhood histories of neglect and sexual abuse.”

“The most emblematic measure of women’s true status in any society is reflected in its prostitution laws,” Lisa Thompson, NCOSE vice president of policy and research, said during the press conference unveiling the report. “Are women public sexual commodities under the law or not? In Nevada, of course, the answer to that question is yes.”

Since 1971, Nevada has given its rural counties the legal right to decide whether to legalize brothel-based prostitution, in which as many as 10 of its countries have chosen to do so. As of last year, there were 21 brothels active throughout the state.

Because of the normalization of prostitution work, NCOSE argues that Nevada has turned into “a magnet for sex traffickers and prostitution tourists.” As result, illegal sex trafficking trade in Nevada is the largest in the nation.

“In fact, Nevada has the highest rates of an illegal sex trade in the country, adjusted for population,” the Dirty Dozen List explains. “It is 63 percent higher than the next highest state of New York and double that of Florida.”

Additionally, a recent audit of legal brothels in Lyon County discovered that 34 percent of Lyon County’s legal sex workers showed signs of human trafficking.