Posted by Resident, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Jan 30, 2013 at 4:06 pm

This is a big problem here in the Bay Area as well as elsewhere. Have you seen the gypsies begging around town? That's only part of it.

Menlo Park Pres is to be commended for bringing this to the notice of the public. Thank you.

Posted by Really, a resident of the College Terrace neighborhood, on Jan 30, 2013 at 5:00 pm

How does one recognize a gypsy? I do not believe I have ever seen one.

The Japanese have committed some of this trafficking in NY City. At one point, in the late eighties, some Japanese men posing as a modeling agency lured some girls from Willow Glen HS in San Jose into going back to Japan with them. one year later, one of the girls escaped and called home collect, and the whole thing was revealed.

There is a book out by an American woman who claims that the eldest son of the Sultan of Brunei kidnaps American girls to be in his harem, but the veracity of this is in question. In her book she apparently sates that these girls hope to get pregnant by him, because according to Sharia law if they do, he has to support them in luxury for life.

Currently, though, most of the human trafficking seems to occur in Eastern Europe and Africa.