Toronto police have arrested Tanya Schiftly, a 45 year old Etobicoke woman, for organizing a happy hardcore party where she pimped out her two sons and all their male friends. “Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time that we’ve found parents selling their children at such events,” says Sgt. Henry Desmoines. “So-called happy hardcore parties are frequently used as fronts for prostitution rings. Most happy hardcore promoters are actually pimps, and the majority of men at these events are either johns or hookers. The male prostitutes are usually there against their will. The only men who would ever dance to happy hardcore are either being coerced or they’re being paid. That’s a fact.”

Happy hardcore’s long and sordid history as a hub for male sex trafficking has earned it a great deal of enmity from politicians around the world. It’s gotten so bad that the United Nations has launched the Saving Men From Happy Hardcore Related Prostitution campaign, which aims to raise public awareness of the plight many young males face at the hand of predatory pimps. “Mrs. Schiftly’s actions are simply a symptom of a much larger disease,” says campaign manager Patrick Balala. “The real problem is happy hardcore and the way it’s used by deviants to terrorize young, vulnerable men into sexual servitude. There needs to be a global effort to crush happy hardcore. As long as happy hardcore exists, young men will be at risk of sexual exploitation.”

Henry Portando, a San Francisco native who was rescued from a happy hardcore sex trafficking ring, is working with Mr. Balala on the campaign. “I experienced terrible, terrible things at these happy hardcore parties,” says Mr. Portando. “I was treated like a piece of meat to be used and abused. I was repeatedly molested by happy hardcore DJs, some of whom forced to me to use glowsticks in ways I don’t even want to think about. Happy hardcore is evil, the people who listen to it are immoral, and it’s time we, as a society, put an end to it.”