Young Women

In generations past, the world's oldest profession was a tawdry trade practiced mostly in the shadows of unlit street corners and darkened alleys. Today, vulnerable young women and girls are still being tricked or forced into selling their bodies to strangers by predatory and amoral pimps who deceive, threaten and abuse them - but the locus of "the stroll" has changed from sidewalks to computer screens. Increasingly, traffickers are going online to market their victims, and as a new study by the Abell Foundation warns, the rise in Internet sex trafficking is rapidly outstripping efforts to combat it. The study's authors concede that hard numbers are notoriously difficult to come by, since the vast majority of transactions take place out of view of authorities, and traffickers have become extremely sophisticated in managing their businesses.

The label ''role model'' is well intended, and the concept is useful. Yet the term is bothersome. Why?Young women in the 1930s and '40s, when I grew up, had real heroines. Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham were among them. Their extraordinary talents made dance into an original art form. They initiated schools, had followers, were leaders; their unconventional personal lives were romantic. Heroines, yes, but role models? Most American women of my generation could not have imagined an unconventional personal life, and most lacked the talents of Duncan and Graham, not to mention their courage.

Loved ones and friends prepared to say goodbye to the two young women who perished in a train derailment in Ellicott City as the first of the viewings began Thursday evening. Cars lined both sides of the quiet residential street leading up to the Church of the Resurrection in Ellicott City for the viewing for Elizabeth Conway Nass. At 6 p.m., about 100 people stood queued down a brick stairway of the Roman Catholic church from a sprawling parking lot where most of the spots were filled.

TELEVISION, magazines and news articles are pummeling America with the belief that all of today's young feminists are freaks or wimps. They still don't get it.For example, Esquire magazine ran a profile in its February issue of a young woman whom it christened "The future of American womanhood." She's a 17-year-old from Madison, Wis., named Suzanne Jacobson whose most definitive "feminist" characteristics seem to be fishnet stockings, a nose ring and a boyfriend named Mohawk Matt.Granted, Ms. Jacobson's studied nonconformance is funny and fascinating.

Women with migraines that cause vision changes are more likely to suffer a stroke than those without a history of the severe headaches, researchers reported yesterday. Scientists at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta found that women whose migraines were accompanied by vision loss had a 70 percent greater risk of stroke than women who don't get migraines. Women who saw lines or spots shortly before or during their migraines had a 25 percent increased risk.

Baltimore's 1992 murder toll rose to 68 yesterday when police found the bodies of two young women in a vacant rowhouse and that of an elderly woman in a public housing project.Lt. Robert Stanton of the homicide unit said last night the bodies of the young women, apparently strangled, were in a vacant house in the 2500 block of Salem Ave. Neither had been identified last night.In another section of West Baltimore, police found the elderly woman's body in the Gilmor Homes housing project in the 1600 block of Delano Court.

President Gore?Life imitates art. This is the first we knew that ''Beverly Hills 90210'' is well-observed social commentary.Fortunately, young women in over their heads in the Washington swamp can entrust confidence to a big sister who will tape it and run to the FBI.Rarely have the state of state and union been so optimistic and the prospects of incumbents so pessimistic.Pub Date: 1/23/98

To convince itself and the world that it is no longer Communist but "normal," the Albanian state is holding a Miss Albania contest. Which is not how they do it at Atlantic City.Albanian young women are no doubt the equal of the world's best. But for cosmetics, they must go to the black market. And for the loan of dresses, to the state television costume shop. And for practice walking, there are only three mirrors available.This is not a great tradition. The Albanian soul that was suppressed under communism and may now re-emerge is Muslim.

In a first-ever analysis, 25 percent of all teenage girls in the U.S. and nearly half of African-American girls ages 14 to 19 were found to have a sexually transmitted disease. Those alarming rates suggest that admonitions to teenagers about safe sex are falling on deaf ears and that when it comes to infectious diseases, a lot more effort must be put into education, screening and prevention. Some experts familiar with high levels of sexual activity among teenagers as well as young women's greater vulnerability to STDs weren't surprised by the results.

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic -- By nine o'clock each night, two dozen or more young women arrive at the La Herminia Night Club, where they exchange stories and perform their final primping before the start of a long evening of blaring merengues, copious amounts of beer and, they hope, a client or two for sex."If I earn 1,000 pesos, I've done pretty well," said Arele Diaz, a striking 20-year-old in a tiny, shrink-wrap black dress, of her hoped-for nightly purse of just under $100. "Five hundred pesos or less, and it's really been a bust for me."