Ending Hub’s sex trade

Jessica Heslam’s excellent front-page series on sex-trafficking in Massachusetts is an all-toorare contribution to understanding sexual exploitation right here in Greater Boston (“How opioid addiction is fueling the sex trade,” March 13). The two-day special report shows how demand, not supply, drives the problem: The sex buyers (we call them “johns”) are fueling trafficking.

Until now, these buyers — mainly suburban men with college degrees, wives and children — have enjoyed impunity as they buy poor women and girls, often black and brown. Increasingly, their victims have been hooked on drugs by pimps, making them even more vulnerable.

Thankfully, that impunity is now eroding through the combined efforts of local and state elected officials who are setting a national example of how communities should respond to sex trafficking. The good news is that the buyers can stop.