Couple Arrested for Alleged Trafficking of Swedish Immigrant
Police break up a scheme to force a young Swedish woman into prostitution at a Kinnear block tenement.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Victor Pinot, a bartender, and his wife were arrested at 1 o'clock this morning by Officers Sam Corbett and Shubrick on a charge of procuring an 18-year-old woman from Sweden to lead a life of shame. The woman was found last evening by officers in room 7 of the Kinnear block, on the corner of Main and South Third streets. She told police that Pinot had convinced her to come to Seattle from her home in Sweden, ostensibly to work as a domestic. Upon her arrival, the couple insisted she become a prostitute.
“She said that Pinot sent her to come to Seattle... ostensibly to work as a domestic. When she arrived here, Pinot and his wife... insisted that she should become a prostitute.”
This story highlights the vulnerability of young immigrant women in the Pacific Northwest at the turn of the century and the predatory networks that exploited the promise of employment to facilitate forced labor and sexual violence.
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