On September 11th, Beaver County law enforcement raided four massage parlors in an undercover operation which led to a multi-county sex trafficking investigation. Beaver County law enforcement arrested and charged Wenxian Stuart, 51, with multiple counts of Promoting Prostitution and one count of Operating a Corrupt Organization. Stuart was denied bail and is currently being held in Beaver County Prison.
Beaver County law enforcement executed search warrants at the four massage parlors following weeks of undercover work based on countless complaints from residents of the community. Baden Borough Manager, Elaine Rakovan, received reports of men coming and going from the massage parlors at all hours. Two of the massage parlors are located in Baden and the others are located in Ambridge and Hopewell Township.
Beaver County District Attorney, Nate Bible, alleges that some of the massage parlors are linked to businesses in other counties, including at least three other massage parlors in Allegheny County. While all four massage parlors are not necessarily related, DA Bible alleges that some have the same owners and shuffle the same workers between them. Many of the prostituted people in the massage businesses were brought to the United States from China and have been forced to sell sex while living in poor conditions at the massage parlors, sometimes never leaving, according to DA Bible. Investigators believe that children were also being trafficked at one of the massage parlors.
Four Jane Does of varying ages were also arrested in the massage parlor raids and now face Prostitution and Corrupt Organization charges. According to DA Bible, it’s likely that the Jane Does were victims of sex trafficking and will be released. Investigators are continuing to interview the business owners and people in prostitution.
Illicit massage parlors are common throughout Pennsylvania and provide a legal facade for commercial sexual exploitation. The women who are trafficked in illicit massage businesses are typically immigrants from China or South Korea. They are promised work opportunities and a better quality of life but are then trapped in a cycle of cultural manipulation, fraud, and coercion. The complex vulnerabilities associated with race, ethnicity, immigration, and class often prevent victims of exploitation from immediately self-identifying as trafficking victims to law enforcement or service providers. While this story is developing, the CSE Institute urges Beaver County law enforcement to utilize their resources to investigate the owners of the massage parlors and the patrons of the businesses seeking to buy sex, rather than the prostituted persons.
The CSE Institute supports the Equality Model to combat commercial sexual exploitation. The Equality Model focuses on criminal justice reform by decriminalizing those who are bought and sold for sex and criminalizing sex buyers. The Equality Model includes four key tenets: (1) decriminalization of the prostituted person, (2) criminalization of sex buyers and facilitators with a commitment to treating buying sex as a serious crime, (3) a public education campaign about the inherent harms of prostitution, and (4) funded, robust, holistic exit services for victims of commercial sexual exploitation. The Equality Model targets the demand for buying sex by criminalizing sex buyers and traffickers, while decriminalizing the people who are being bought and sold for commercial sex. Moreover, the decriminalization of prostituted persons recognizes that those who are bought and sold for sex are exploited, not perpetrators of a crime.
The CSE Institute commends the efforts of Beaver County District Attorney’s Office and Beaver County law enforcement for their investigative efforts. However, it is imperative that law enforcement understands that persons in prostitution should not be arrested during investigations to end the sex trade. Instead, law enforcement should focus on prosecuting sex buyers to decrease demand. Since the sex trade relies on supply and demand, prostitution would not occur without sex buyers. Buying sex and sexual exploitation are inextricably linked. Thus, to target the root of sexual exploitation, law enforcement must use their resources and efforts to target sex buyers rather than those being exploited in prostitution.
The CSE Institute will continue to provide updates on this matter.
All views expressed herein are personal to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law or of Villanova University.