LOS ANGELES, July 20 (Xinhua) -- Two female juveniles were rescued and 36 adults were arrested this week in a human trafficking operation in the Southern California city of Compton, said the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) on Friday.
The Los Angeles Regional Human Trafficking Taskforce, along with deputies from Compton Sheriff's Station, conducted a human trafficking operation in the city in the Los Angeles County on Wednesday, according to the LASD.
The two female juveniles, aged 16 and 17, rescued in the operation, were identified as commercially sexually exploited children, said the agency in a press release.
Twelve adult females were arrested for the charge of loitering for the purposes of prostitution and two females were arrested for solicitation of prostitution after they solicited sex for money from undercover Sheriff's Detectives. Seven of the females were later identified as victims of human trafficking and accepted ongoing services.
Twenty of those arrested were male adults who solicited undercover Sheriff's deputies for various sex acts.
Rajene Robinson, a 20-year-old American woman, was arrested for the charge of pandering after she attempted to recruit an undercover Sheriff's Deputy to work for her as a commercial sex worker. A 23-year-old male was arrested for carrying a loaded firearm in a vehicle and supervising a prostitute.
The International Labor Organization estimates that there are hundreds of thousands of victims of human trafficking in the United States. The victims of this crime are men and women, adults and children, and foreign nationals and U.S. citizens. There were over 8,500 human trafficking cases reported in the United States in 2017, according to the National Human Trafficking Hotline which maintains one of the most extensive data sets on the issue of human trafficking in the country.
