Located on city’s South Side, Greenfield Avenue has become the city’s main hub for prostitution, and in the process created two sets of victims — the sexually exploited women, and those who live and work on Greenfield Avenue. As a resident of the area, I longed to tell the story of some of the women, who face the threat of violence on a daily basis, and the residents, whose children are being exposed to drug use, condoms, drug paraphernalia and open-air prostitution.

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I also wanted to shed light on the challenges that law enforcement and nonprofit organizations that work with sexually exploited women face in addressing prostitution, human trafficking and related issues such as mental illness and drug addiction. By doing so, my goal was to offer a balanced and thoughtful look at an issue that has been devastating my community.

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Raised in a South Side neighborhood where he still lives, Edgar Mendez is the managing editor of the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service. Mendez is a proud graduate of UW-Milwaukee, where he double majored in journalism and sociology, and of Marquette University, where he earned a master’s degree in communication. He won a 2018 Regional Edward R. Murrow Award and 2014, 2017, and 2018 Milwaukee Press Club Awards for his reporting on taverns, marijuana law enforcement, and lead in water service lines. In 2008, he won a Society of Professional Journalists’ regional award for columns dealing with issues such as poverty, homelessness and racism. His writing has been published by the Associated Press, Reuters, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other media. He has also co-authored three articles published in scholarly journals.