I wonder if Uber drivers consider it an insult to be referred to as a “taxi driver”?
This is skirting the line about dragging topics from other threads into unrelated ones. Let’s stop it at this post.
No warning given.
Somebody has to step in to keep SDMB from becoming an echo chamber of non-contrarian conventional wisdom, hooting down any dissenter…
I said drop it the post just above yours.
Drop it.
This is the part that bothers me:
Maybe she ran away for a reason? I know a number of people who started selling sex as teenagers as an alternative to living in destructive home environments, and sometimes, for them, it actually was the better alternative.
Not saying the driver shouldn’t have done what he did, he couldn’t have known either way, but it shouldn’t just be assumed this was the best outcome for the girl.
Gee, I don’t know. Having to sell her ass for money that she doesn’t get to keep, vs. not having to do that. Tough call.
Its a better alternative in the same way an Adder is less poisonous than a Cobra, but being bitten by either is not a desirable outcome.
You really think that Child Services or local equivalent is unaware of that and will not investigate as far as practicable.
Completely missing the point. The uber driver called because the girl was underage. Had she been older he may not necessarily have called.
As others have noted, the driver thought she was younger. Regardless, both men and women much older are trafficked.
Try listening to the young people who are or have been in these situations, rather than making assumptions which are often surprisingly incorrect.
I’d say that when you think it is a child, better to err on the protective side and be wrong
than the other way around.
You can apologize to an adult easily, you cant fix a wrecked child so easy
You have a different idea?
It’s also possible she was abandoned, or separated from her family by mistake, or kidnapped by sex traffickers. So really, it seems like putting her in foster care at least temporarily is the immediate action to take, because the alternatives would be to just put her back out on the streets alone or put her in police custody, protective or otherwise.
We know even less what the kid’s situation is like than the authorities do, and the authorities are at least in a position to try and figure it out so they can decide what to do in the long run. Anything else one way or the other is just a knee-jerk response.
The foster care part wasn’t the part I objected to, it was the implication that she would be returned to her parents as soon as they could be located.
I think it’s safe to assume that the authorities will talk to her and if there is a reason she should not be in the custody of her parents/guardians, will not return her there.
Oddly enough, that was my first reaction. I had already read this news story several days ago and was sure it was an Uber driver. Perhaps taxi drivers know to mind their own business.
…just kidding…
Yes, the Uber driver thought the girl was even younger than 16, and was suitably alarmed. Sure, the girl may end up back on the streets, but at least the pimps were busted. Who knows what the John thought he was getting into (figuratively and literally), but his ass is grass now.
So much of what gets said about sex trafficking is wrong, it’s not really safe to assume anything.
I deal with young people in this situation all the time.