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TRAFFIC IN GIRLS

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 21, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 3.

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TRAFFIC IN GIRLS.

It would seem that legislators—fathers, brothers, husbands—would be interested in the purity and protection of young girls. Yet the W. C. T. U. have had one constant fight to raise the “age of consent” when a girl can legitimately barter her body for immoral purposes. The Pacific Ensign of some time ago tells this story in part of their struggles:—
When the W. C. T. U. of California was organized the “Age of Consent” for girls was ten years. Over that age moral lepers, if they could get “consent” from an unsuspecting child, were not criminals. Mrs. Peet and some others can tell of the heart-aching, dreary, disgusting experiences. Lecherous men, deemed the women who care enough about these girls to do something, good targets for their dirty wit. We asked for eighteen years. After much tribulation, we secured fourteen years. Legislative experiences only proved the need of such laws, and we worked on for eighteen years. Very few fathers and mothers in the State cared to inform themselves on the question.
At last we secured sixteen as the age, and Governor Budd refused to sign the bill. Two years later we tried again, and Mrs. Peet and the women who had circulated petitions had so educated the legislature that the bill passed unanimously (cut down from eighteen to sixteen) and Governor Budd was compelled to sign it.
Why cut down? The opponents declared themselves afraid of blackmail. These men of position, old enough to be fathers of girls, are afraid of the machinations of girls under eighteen. With courts, judges, juries, all of their own selecting, they profess to fear the wiles of girls in their teens. The truth is they do not want girls protected from their own wiles. Some legislators, about a third, are excellent men, men of principle; but I have not overstated.
It makes one's blood boil to think that such things could be, but it is all in harmony with God's prophetic Word. Apart from Christ this world will not reform.