Eavesdropping Uber Driver Helps Rescue 16-Year-Old From Her Pimps (washingtonpost.com)

Slashdot reader sabri writes "In California, an Uber driver saved a 16 year old girl from human traffickers after he overheard them talk about delivering the girl to a customer." The Washington Post reports: Uber driver Keith Avila picked up a passenger who looked like a 12-year-old girl in a short skirt Monday night. That was the first sign that something was off, he would say later. Two women got into his car with the girl outside a house in Sacramento. Halfway to their destination -- a Holiday Inn in Elk Grove, California -- they asked Avila to turn up the music, he said. Then the women turned to the girl. Avila listened in.

"They were describing what they were going to do when they get there: 'Check for guns. Get the money before you start touching up on the guy,'" Avila said on Facebook Live minutes after he dropped off the passengers, then called police to report the women whom he suspected of prostituting the child. The girl was 16, not 12, Elk Grove police told local news outlets. But Avila's suspicions were right, they said. The teen was being sold for sex at the Holiday Inn, and her eavesdropping Uber driver had saved her.
The teen girl was returned to her family, while the two women with her were charged with multiple felonies. The driver had only joined Uber a few weeks earlier, but his Facebook Live video from outside his fare's house has now been viewed more than 240,000 times.

Comments

Uber driver

[fluffernutter]

Did the Uber driver also investigate what it was about this girl's life that led her to prostitute herself in the first place and remove those conditions so that she won't just turn around and do the same thing next week? Did the Uber driver pay for some sort of counseling? If not, then this is just a feel good story that really means very little, sad as it is.

Re:Uber driver

[mi]

Did the Uber driver also investigate what it was about this girl's life that led her to prostitute herself in the first place

The guy, obviously, spends too much time on Facebook. He even called the cops only after posting, which increased the risk to her health, obviously.

But, hey, the woman was 16 — in many places that's well above the age of consent. Not in California, but, be honest, had it been, say, a priest, notifying the girl's parents/teachers/police after seeing her fornicating with a boyfriend, you would've denounced his busybody nosiness.

So, it is not about sex per se — it is about prostitution (sex for money). A victimless crime, that simply should not be a crime...