Two Russian girls arrive in DC as part of a travel exchange program for which they’ve paid about $3000. The program promises them jobs on arrival but fails to deliver. Instead, they are instructed to travel to New York City to do “hostess work” in a place called the Lux Lounge. Their American friend, currently in Wyoming, pleads with them not to go, but after some initial hesitation they board a Greyhound bus to New York, insisting that everything is fine.
Where can the panicked friend turn? To the Internet, of course. He posts a plea for help. Commenters jump into action, contacting police and social service agencies, pooling information to figure out what bus the girls are likely to be on, and arranging to have them escorted to a police station. A couple of hundred comments later, the girls are safe and sound. One commenter adds:
This is the best use of the Internet that I, personally, have ever seen. I’m so proud to be a member of this community.
Indeed.
I don’t get it, are you being sarcastic? Police arresting people because someone on the internet thinks their intentions are immoral is considered to be something to be proud of these days?
Dmitry: Nobody arranged to have them arrested. Instead they arranged to make the girls aware of the resources available to them and to escort them to a police station after they realized they’d been duped and asked for help.
Assuming the original poster’s account is correct, these girls had been falsely promised jobs in DC and had then agreed to go to New York under the implicit threat of being abandoned in a foreign country with no resources. Under those circumstances, I don’t think it’s antisocial to inform them of their options.
Whilst I am sure that it was nothing but good that these individuals did not go through with their plans, they had been informed several times and told the person to stop interfering. For whatever reason (we do not find out) they initially chose to ignore the warnings and proceed with a very dangerous plan. That they eventually expressed thanks for preventing them suggests that they would have chosen earlier not to proceed if they had understood, and thi ssuggests that persisting in interfering was the correct course. What obligation do we have to continue trying to prevent someone from what we see as poor course of action, even after they have been informed and told us to back off? An alternative is that they pretended to agree in order to get the do-gooders off their backs, and then proceeded straight to the planned rendezvous. Or the whole thing is some sort of hoax.
Sorry Steve but “escorted to a police station” sounds rather different than “inform[ing] them of their options.” Especially “arranging to HAVE THEM escorted”. Maybe all is as it should be, but that sure ain’t clear from what you posted.
An SMS message is mentioned ” Also, there may be people to escort you at the station. They are good people.
3:35PM” and “A member of this site convinced them to meet her instead of the contact.”
This could have become “escorted to a police station”. As far as I could work out, a member of the public talked to them and the police were not actually involved in this.
This is a good example of what Steve has discussed before about “statistical lives” and “actual lives”. In this case, a message about 2 individuals has prompted dozens of people to make significant efforts to help them, and hundreds of others to devote time to following it. This is even though they were complete strangers. Even the person who alerted them was a stranger. They were aquaintances of a stranger. I bet most of these people had not lifted much of a finger to prevent people trafficking before. Not all, as some who became involved were clearly working or interested in the field.
I think several commenters here are quite unfamiliar with how sex trafficking works. It’s pretty common for the victims to “voluntarily” go through with the initial due to the traffickers’ well-honed persuasion and pressure tactics, and the result is they spend years getting raped and too afraid to get out of the situation.
Ken B, on the other hand, maybe just didn’t read the linked post.
Cos: I quite agree. It makes me wonder how much of our other “voluntary” actions would stand up to scrutiny.
That was amazing. Thank you for sharing it.
Perhaps the first commenter is just upset that someone talked his two birds out of the pie.
Or his interpretation of the police involvement could be a product of the same cultural aspect that created so much apprehension in the two girls. Coming from Russia, the view is often that the less the police are involved the better. At best they may be disinterested at worse they may be complicit.
No, Cos, no-one disputes the good intentions here. If this had been a missing child there would be no concern.