Sex Workers: Were They "Rescued" or "Ruined"?

As a northern transplant to the overheated suburbs of Atlanta, I shrugged it off a couple weeks ago when the entire metro area shut down over the threat of a half-inch of snowfall -- but stockpiled supplies and hunkered down when the city hosted the Super Bowl a few days later.

In the run-up to the Super Bowl and for some time after, the local news sites have run buttloads of stories about prostitutes being arrested -- sorry, make that "human trafficking victims" being "rescued." Like this story from the Atlanta Patch, which I saw today on Facebook: "More Than 160 Arrested In Super Bowl Human Trafficking Operation / Nine juveniles and nine adults were rescued during an 11-day federal, state and local takedown."

The body of the article includes mention of "rescued victims," and also says "Of the 169 arrests, 26 people were alleged traffickers and 34 suspects were allegedly people attempting to engage in sex acts with minors. The youngest sex-trafficking victim rescued was 14 years old."

I read the article and then posted this comment on the Patch's Facebook page:  "The article is unclear: were those 18 'rescued victims' included among the number of people arrested? What happened to the sex workers in question -- where are they now? I hope their 'rescue' did not entail them being imprisoned and saddled with a criminal record."

So far nobody has bothered to answer my question. I'll update this post to let you know if that changes.