Prostitutes suffer greatly from profession

Regarding Bob Elliott's July 12 column, “Sting raises prostitution questions”:

Elliott asked “Who gets hurt?” as one of those questions. I worked at a hospital in Nevada for three years. Prostitution was legal. The prostitutes from a local bordello were brought once a month for venereal disease testing by their madam, who drove a late model Cadillac. These extremely young women never came alone, which made one wonder if they might be held hostage. The purpose of the testing wasn't to protect the prostitutes. It was to protect the johns.

The doctor who did the physical exams believed that the majority of professional prostitutes had hysterectomies by the time they were 25.

How dare anyone call this a victimless crime! Can you imagine the abuse these women or men, many of them mere children or teenagers, must endure with no recourse both at the hands of their customers and their lowlife pimps?

How did these young women and men get into this trade in the first place? Many were molested as young children or teens, ran away from home, then out of financial desperation turned to their only resource, their young bodies. Others were put on the market by their own parents or guardians while too young to make their own decisions. Some use it to support their drug addictions. Others are victims of the slave trade.

Karyl Bonnett

North Liberty