Price of Life NYC

Jun 1

Oldest profession or oldest oppression?

Great story about a judge who wanted to make a difference, took the time to ask questions, and would up founding a whole new kind of court for a population with a special set of needs.

Herbert decided to establish a restorative justice program for these women, launching CATCH Court—”Changing Attitudes to Change Habits”—in September 2009 with the support of his colleagues. Traditional treatment and probation had never been successful with this population, Herbert explains. Prostitutes simply cycled in and out of jail. The other judges told him, “If you want to try this experiment, go right ahead.’”

Through the two-year CATCH Court, women are sent to residential rehabilitation programs to detox and receive intensive therapy. Their movements are monitored electronically, they are subject to random drug tests, and they appear before Judge Herbert weekly in the courtroom to report on the progress. “I wish you could see the way they interact with each other,” he says. “They all have each other’s phone numbers, and they call, and they make meals for each other, and if one’s in the hospital, they all go visit her. It’s an amazing community.”

Click through for the full story.

We featured this on our facebook page! Did you see it?

May 31

Don’t fall for lies about prostitution

Rob McKenna, Washington State Attorney General, writing in the Huffington Post about a disturbing trend of glamorizing prostitution and ignoring the violence and exploitation that often characterize the reality, gives the concerned public a tip on how to respond:

What may be done? The answer lies in public opinion. Over the years, views about drunken driving and domestic violence shifted for the better. Speak with your children about the reality, versus the Hollywood-spun fantasy, of human trafficking. We must also demand that websites such as Backpage.com cease the advertising of human beings. State attorneys general are leading the fight, pressing Backpage.com to abandon so-called “adult services” ads. But you can help. Participate in any of the letter-writing campaigns and boycotts aimed at Backpage.com owner Village Voice. Businesses, both large and small, should resist associating with a company profiting from human exploitation.

“In response to a question from a Huffington Post writer about interviewing actual prostitutes in preparation for the role, Hewitt said, “I was like, ‘Nah, that’s okay. Some things can just be acting.’”

Jennifer Love Hewitt, explaining why she didn’t need to research her character for Lifetime’s new show Client List, about women providing special (illegal) services at a massage parlor.

The show portrays her as initially reluctant to provide “special” (illegal) services, but as Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna writes,

[a]fter a change of heart, Riley receives a new class of customers: handsome, appreciative young men. Hewitt’s character proclaims, “I may not have been able to save my marriage but I’m going to save my family.”

McKenna then quotes an actual former prostitute describing her own experience:

“I have been fortunate to survive having my ear cut off, my face rebuilt, my bones broken, being hit and run over by a car — all my teeth knocked out … “

Click through for the rest of McKenna’s excellent editorial about how the entertainment industry glamorizes a violent and exploitative reality.

Apr 20

How do we fight human trafficking locally?

An aggressive mix of law enforcement and social services is the right approach. Add a vigorous push against the Internet’s profitable online sex-advertising market… .

If the local sheriff makes it clear that this is his priority, you’ll see everyone respond to that… .

Part of the challenge will be changing the public’s perception of prostitution as a victimless crime. Girls as young as 14 are forced into a life that doesn’t come close to the life depicted by actress Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman.”

Click through to read this engaging, practical column exploring how Washington State is taking action. What’s happening in your state?

Apr 19

South America, sex tourism & the Olympics

Type in “sex tourism” and “Brazil” in Google, and the first site that comes up is not a news report or academic study, but advice on going rates and how to hire prostitutes.

But ahead of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, officials are starting to clamp down on the country’s image as a haven for sex tourism. Brazil’s Tourism Ministry recently said it identified more than 2,000 sites advertising the South American giant’s sex industry, many of them hosted in the US. To counter the reputation, the tourism ministry has stepped up efforts to advertise Brazil’s natural beauties like beaches and the Amazon, instead of bodies for sale. And they have circulated information reminding visitors that sexual exploitation of minors is a crime.

Brazil’s preventive efforts seem more crucial than ever after the scandal in Cartagena, Colombia, during the Sixth Summit of the Americas last weekend. Some 11 US Secret Service agents were sent home for allegedly hiring prostitutes in the steamy colonial city, also a major destination for sex tourism.

Click through for the rest.

Child sex trafficking victims receive money from sale of former brothel

In one of the first cases nationwide to provide such restitution, a federal judge in Texas recently ruled that the victims would benefit from the sale of the traffickers’ “ramshackle real estate empire,” 10 buildings and lots valued at just over $600,000.

The funds will be divided equally among five underage victims … but older women commercially sexually exploited in the same brothels are not eligible for assistance:

[The judge] excluded nine other women in their 20s and 30s from benefiting in his decision, though federal officials had argued they too had been beaten, threatened and used by the same criminal group. [The judge] said he was unable to determine how much each woman had collected in cash as a prostitute - willing or not.

“Some of them may have had horrendous experiences, incredible pain and economic deprivation - others may have profited substantially - I have no way of determining that,” declared [the judge], who said he was troubled by evidence that some government “victims” married or had children by traffickers.

Click through for more info.

Apr 17

“I remember the police officer pulled over and arrested me. I told him I had just been raped and he said, ‘Raped? You haven’t been raped. You’re a prostitute.” Trafficking survivors speak up in Salt Lake City symposium.

Apr 12

Why doesn’t she just leave?

Have you ever wondered why a trafficking victim would stay with her trafficker? Why someone who is being abused doesn’t run away? Why a victim may find it difficult to testify against her abuser?

Read this first person account by a trafficking survivor for a fuller picture of this complex question.

By the time the trafficker spotted me in that New Jersey shopping mall, I had already been broken down.

As traffickers are skilled predators, they look for girls that are withdrawn and quiet. They prey upon minors with emotional brokenness as my trafficker did in late June, 1992, soon after my eighth grade middle school graduation.

Child sexual abuse paralyzes many children with the inability to differentiate a healthy relationship from an exploitative one. I, too, thought that exploitive relationships were the norm. Prior to meeting my trafficker, I was already used to relationships based on deception.

Many victims do not understand their fundamental right to say “No.” They often fail to understand ownership over their bodies. I didn’t run away when my trafficker demanded that I agree to prostitute.

This was not because I wanted to stay but rather because I didn’t understand that I had another option.

Apr 11

Proposed Hawaii laws to assist trafficking survivors

Little more than a year ago, Hawaii was one of only four states in the country without an anti-human trafficking law. Today, our state stands on the precipice of becoming a national anti-trafficking leader.

Hawaii is poised to pass an assortment of new laws that will protect commercially exploited minors and provide services to survivors. The Senate is considering bills that would, among other things:

Require places most likely to participate in human trafficking to exhibit a poster displaying the national human trafficking hotline number.
Allow sex trafficking victims to petition to have prostitution-related convictions and arrests vacated from public records if the violations were the result of force, fraud, or coercion.
Immunize minors acting as a prostitute from prosecution for prostitution charges (patrons and pimps may still be prosecuted, however).
Create a task force charged with crafting a comprehensive state plan for furnishing coordinated services to human trafficking survivors.

Read the full article for more about the proposed laws and how they could transform trafficking in Hawaii.

Apr 5

{Polaris Project public service ad targeting Backpage.com and Village Voice Media (VVM), its owner.}

Click through to read more about the controversy, the money, the victims, and VVM’s counter-attack. {Article written by a retired Chicago police officer!}