Skip to footer

On this Take Your Child to Work Day, Secret Service and strippers

Take Your Child to Work Day got a bit awkward at a State Department briefing yesterday, with journalists asking about a widening Secret Service scandal involving prostitutes and strippers.

|
Manuel Balce Caneta/AP
First lady Michelle Obama speaks to children in the East Room of the White House in Washington in celebration of the "Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day" April 26, 2012. Things got a bit more awkward over at the State Department, where kids were treated to a discussion about a widening scandal over Secret Service agents, prostitutes and strippers.
  • By Reuters

Children participating in the State Department's "Take Your Child to Work" day event on Thursday were treated to a discussion of prostitutes and strip clubs as reporters pressed for answers on a widening Secret Service scandal.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland opened the daily news briefing with a salute to the handful of underage observers who joined journalists for the mid-day run-down of global events.

But any hopes that the briefing would steer clear of the salacious dissipated as questions focused on charges that Secret Service agents and other U.S. government employees caroused with strippers and prostitutes on overseas assignments.

"What a topic to be talking about on Bring Your Kids To Work day," Nuland said. "Parents, you can explain all of this later."

Nuland said the State Department was investigating the conduct of one U.S. Embassy employee allegedly involved in an incident in Brazil, the second of two embarrassing scandals to emerge this month involving U.S. officials and sex workers in South America.

She also said the department would look at the conduct of embassy employees in El Salvador after a separate news report, based on unidentified sources, that U.S. personnel visited a strip club in San Salvador last year.

One Department employee jokingly moved to cover his daughter's ears as the discussion began, but for the most part the roughly half dozen children present stared dutifully at the floor from their seats along the sidelines of the briefing room. None asked any questions.

The string of scandals came to light this month after Secret Service agents and military personnel were alleged to have taken prostitutes back to their hotel in Colombia before a visit by President Barack Obama.

The State Department has a "zero tolerance" policy for sexual misconduct, Nuland said.

"Members of the Foreign Service are prohibited from engaging in notoriously disgraceful conduct which includes frequenting prostitutes and engaging in public or promiscuous sexual relations or engaging in sexual activity that could open the employee up to the possibility of blackmail, coercion or improper influence," Nuland said.

She noted that activities that could promote sex trafficking, which the State Department specifically targets as part of its human rights portfolio, were particularly out of bounds.

"The department's view is that people who buy sex acts fuel the demand for sex trafficking, and given our policies designed to help governments prevent sex trafficking, etc., it is not in keeping with the behavior that we want to advocate and display ourselves," Nuland said.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to On this Take Your Child to Work Day, Secret Service and strippers
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Family/2012/0427/On-this-Take-Your-Child-to-Work-Day-Secret-Service-and-strippers
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe