US legal brothel baron Dennis Hof is calling on President-Elect Donald Trump to strongly condemn Tuesday's comments by Russian leader Vladimir Putin in which offhandedly endorsed that nation's illegal, mob-controlled, underage-trafficking-ridden sex trade, bragging that his nation's prostitutes were "...the best in the world."
Defending Trump against recent rumors that the newly-elected president had romped with a number of Russian hookers during a trip to Moscow several years ago, Putin told state-sponsored media outlet Sputnik, “I can hardly believe that he [Trump] ran off to meet with our girls of low social morals. Although of course ours are the best in the world.”
"Best? Best in the world? There can be no 'best' of anything in the cesspool of sexual exploitation and human ruin that makes up the vile Russian sex trade—nothing!" Hof, who has traveled the world speaking out against sex trafficking and the human slave trade, charged.
"For one of the most powerful politicians in the world, to, on one hand degrade Russian prostitutes—who are often underage sex slaves, captives of criminal gangs, exploited immigrants, and sex-trafficking victims, and on the other hand boast how they are the 'best in the world,' displays a horrifically ignorant and dangerous attitude towards one of the greatest humanitarian crises of this century," said an outraged Hof, the owner of seven government-licensed brothels in Nevada, including the world famous Bunny Ranch. "And with his own country, Russia, being one of the worst international hubs of the underage sex-trade and human trafficking, Putin has now issued a ringing endorsement of this modern-day plague. This has to be one of the most outrageous statements on prostitution by a world leader ever!"
Prostitution is illegal in Russia, but runs rampant throughout the country, much of it controlled by organized criminal gangs, who engage in human trafficking on a wide scale. According to human rights and anti-sex trafficking experts, Russia is a top global destination and transit country for both trafficked adults and children. Sex slaves are often shipped from Russia to Europe, Asia and even North America. In fact, the International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that 20 percent of the five million illegal immigrants in Russia are victims of forced labor, including the trafficking of children and of child sex tourism.
The Russian government has been criticized by human rights activists for not complying with the minimum standards for eliminating trafficking. Several years ago a massive case of forced prostitution and mass murder was discovered in the Russian industrial town of Nizhny Tagil, where a gang of pimps abducted girls, forcing them to work as prostitutes in their brothel, and killing the ones who refused. A mass grave with up to 30 victims was later found.
“I supported getting Trump elected," admitted Hof, who himself ran for a Nevada state legislative seat in the same election season, campaigning on an anti-sex trafficking platform, "Now Trump has to step up to the plate and take a stand. If our tweet-aholic president has the time to tweet about actresses he dislikes, golfing magazines, his hatred of Saturday Night Live, and other such trivial nonsense, he can certainly find the time to at least tweet something important for a change. Trump must immediately and in no uncertain terms denounce Putin's remarks and make it clear that there can be no 'best' about the disaster of human sex trafficking and the horrors of the Russian prostitution industry. Putin's reckless remarks amount to a call for traffickers, their patrons, and other criminals to come on down to Russia, because we have 'the best!'
"This is nothing to joke about—'Our prostitutes are better than your prostitutes—so there!'—the underground house-of-horrors black market Russian sex trade is nothing but a cauldron of human misery, rife with violence, STDs and HIV, and all manner of criminal activities," Hof opined. "Just compare that to the regulated, licensed, safe and secure legal brothel operations in the US, in the state of Nevada. Our humane, medically-supervised sex work business model is the gold standard by which every other country around the world should be judged. We have the 'best,' right here in the USA, and it's Trump's responsibility to make sure that Putin, and the rest of the world, know that.
“On prostitution, Putin's got it all wrong, and the USA, right here in Nevada, has got it all right—and Trump needs to say that, now!"
Photo of Vladimir Putin courtesy of Kremlin.ru.
