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INFO
ON SEX WORK-STATS AND LINKS FOR STUDENTS AND
OTHERS
Statistics and Data new page
Written by Norma Jean Almodovar
page
recreated January 2018- PLEASE NOTE THAT WE
HAVE NOT YET RE-LINKED MANY OF THE LINKS ON
THIS PAGE. PLEASE BE PATIENT... THERE IS SO
MUCH TO DO AND SO LITTLE TIME TO DO IT ALL!
WHEN WE GET TO UPDATE THIS PAGE, WE WILL
ALSO UPDATE THE STATS TO THE MORE RECENT
VERSIONS.
Regardless of how you
personally view prostitution or
pornography, whether or not you think
men/women/transgendered persons are
being exploited for selling sexual
services that they could otherwise
legally give away to as many men/
women/ couples as they want; I must
ask if you believe that it is MORE
important to waste countless scarce
and valuable resources and take away
the freedom of individuals who may not
feel they are in any way exploited,
than it is to spend those same
resources pursuing, apprehending,
prosecuting and incarcerating those
whose victims, like the thousands
noted below in the FBI statistics,
have sought help?
How much police corruption and abuse
are you willing to tolerate to
impose YOUR social or moral values
on others? No matter how well
intended a law is which prohibits
and punishes the private, consenting
adult behavior of others- laws which
can only be enforced arbitrarily and
selectively - always have and
always will engender
corruption of every agency which is
charged with their enforcement...
the cops, the courts, the
prosecutors and the prisons. The
laws not only destroy the lives of
those who violate them, but those
laws and the resulting unintended
consequences destroy innocent
victims of real criminals, the
lives of the moral and upright, and
the lives of those who enter law
enforcement believing they will make
a difference.
If
these consequences are acceptable to
you, then you have no right to claim
you are concerned for the physical,
emotional or spiritual well being of
children or women or the
'exploited.' Your concern is solely
for your own personal social or
moral satisfaction, without a
thought about those upon whom you
inflict injustice.
NOTE: MANY
OF THESE POINTS ARE MADE IN OTHER
ARTICLES ON THIS SITE. PLEASE BE SURE TO
VIEW THE ARTICLES POSTED IN OTHER
SECTIONS IF I HAVE NOT COVERED THEM IN
THIS DOCUMENT. IN ADDITION, YOU CAN FIND
MANY PDFS WHICH HAVE NOT YET BEEN LINKED
TO ARTICLES ON THIS SITE BY VISITING OUR
'PDFS ALL' FILE HERE: http://www.policeprostitutionandpolitics.com/pdfs_all/
2011 Criminal
Statistics from the US Government- an
overview (this chart
was updated 090113 because the
statistical report from the FBI was
finally available):
From
the 2011 Criminal Victimization report,
page 2- click on image to view full
size- the report below was published
prior to the completion of the arrest
statistics... so the number of adults
arrested for prostitution in 2011 was
56,371 and the number of juveniles
(under 18) arrested in 2011 was 974.
Following the image below are the
links to all the tables and reports as
indicated on the chart above. Click on image below to
view full size and compare the 2011
state by state rapes, arrests for
rape, arrests for prostitution and
disorderly conduct and the percentage of
actual arrests of alleged rapists compared
to the number reported by actual victims.
Remember, when cops spend their time
arresting prostitutes and persons they
charge with "Disorderly Conduct," it
takes away the scarce and valuable
resources that could be better spent
pursuing violent people who have victims
that reported the crimes against them.
Compare these 2011 rape statistics and
prostitution arrests with the number of
'human trafficking' phone calls reported
by the Polaris Project.... which receives
millions in grants every year to take
these phone calls... click on each state
to view Polaris Project documents with
state statistics-
TOTAL
CALLS STATE BY STATE :
(According to the numbers
provided by the Polaris
Project Data listed here)
According to their
website, many of the calls
relating to 'potential
victims referenced' are follow
up calls, so the
actual number of calls
directly relating to the
'potential victims
referenced' may be
many fewer.
Here is a
link to their final
2011 annual report:
"Increasing
Awareness and Engagement-
Strengthening the National
Response to Human
Trafficking in the US"
According to their press
release, "Call
Specialists answered 19,427
calls, and 2,945 victims of
human trafficking were
connected to services and
support." We don't know how they
came to this number as the
reported calls were far
fewer.... also, we don't know
which victims of human
trafficking were from
prostitution and which were from
other areas of forced labor.
HOW
MANY VICTIMS OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING OVER
A TWO AND ONE HALF YEAR PERIOD
DID LAW ENFORCEMENT INVESTIGATE?
"
"Federally funded task forces
opened 2,515
suspected incidents of human
trafficking for investigation
between January 2008 and June 2010.... Among
trafficking incidents opened for at
least one year,30%
were confirmed to be human
trafficking,38%
were confirmed not to be human
trafficking, and
the remaining incidents were still open
at the end of the study period.
T he confirmed human trafficking
incidents open for at least a year led
to 144 known arrests." COMPARE THESE
STATS TO THE NUMBER OF REPORTED RAPES/
SEXUAL ASSAULTS, CHILDREN SEXUALLY
ASSAULTED BY LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS,
COACHES, PRIESTS, PREACHERS, TEACHERS,
BOY SCOUT LEADERS ETC.
SERIOUSLY? ARE THESE VICTIMS
MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE
VICTIMS OF CRIMES WHO REPORTED THE
CRIME AGAINST THEM?
How many cases of actual
human trafficking did the US Government
report occurred during this two and one
half year period? 754
(2515/30%) so per year there were 301
cases vs. 90,000 reported rapes
and 12 MILLION estimated incidents of
intimate partner violence.
Meanwhile, between January 2011 to
November 2012, there were over
300 law enforcement agents (federal,
state and local) who were caught
having sex with minors or with child
pornography.
"From
July 2010 through June 2012,
the task forces identified
1,277 victims and
also arrested 1,798
individuals.
[my question and comments: were these
arrests of prostitutes, their clients
or their alleged pimps? In any case,
this amounts to 638victims per year, compared to 7,663
victims of violent rape who reported
the crimes against them for
which the police arrested 1,757
alleged rapists (or 23% of alleged
rapists), while making 10,659
arrests for prostitution in
California and 11,246 arrests
for "disorderly conduct"
for a total of 21,905 arrests
of NON VIOLENT PERSONS ENGAGED IN
CONSENTING ADULT ACTIVITY -
why do I say consenting and adult? if
an individual claimed to be a victim
of sex trafficking, they would not be
included in the FBI prostitution
arrest numbers, and all of the
statistics given here are for those
over 18]
Fifty-six percent of victims who
received services through the task
forces were specifically victims of sex
trafficking. [that means of the1,277
identified victims,
715
were sex trafficking
victims or 357per
year]However,
international data suggests that
labor trafficking is more than
three times as prevalent as sex
trafficking worldwide.It's unclear whether sex
trafficking is really more common than
labor trafficking in California or if
the latter is underreported, the report
says.
[my comment-
for all other victims of
labor trafficking, the police
do not conduct random raids of
hotels, motels, restaurants, garment
manufacturing factories, big box
stores or other locations where such
victims are to be found, nor do they
go door to door looking for domestic
servant/ slaves employed by the
well-to-do, so of course those cases
would be underreported... and unlike
prostitution, law enforcement officers
do not arrest the alleged victims and
then force them to 'admit' they are
victims by threatening them with
incarceration or deportation... if the
cops did that to ANY OTHER TYPE OF
'VICTIM,' no doubt there would be
justifiable outrageous against such
unconstitutional action. But for
prostitution? The attitude is "if she
isn't a victim, then she is a
criminal, so we will assume
criminality first and if we can 'turn
her' then we will arrest her pimp or
her clients. And then we will
rehabilitate her and teach her to sew
and she can make minimum wage just
like the rest of the uneducated
masses" ]
Of
victims whose country of origin the task
forces could identify, 72
percent were from the United States.
The report says that may be because task
forces are more likely to encounter
domestic victims, and that more
research* is needed to determine their
actual proportion."
* "MORE MONEY-
WE NEED MORE MONEY TO STUDY THE
PROBLEM... IF YOU GIVE US MORE MONEY
WE PROMISE WE WILL FIND MORE VICTIMS
EVEN IF THEY CLAIM THEY ARE NOT
VICTIMS AT ALL!"
Here is the 2011 California
Report on Human Trafficking:
What about
'trafficking' in other states? On
August 8, 2012, the Ohio State Attorney
General’s office released a report it had
commissioned on domestic sex trafficking
in that state. Newspapers across the US
touted the ‘ground breaking research’
based on interviews with a very small
number of underage and adult people (328
) involved in the sex industry.
Although other researchers had previously
stated what prostitutes of all ages and
nationalities have told them, this report
was based on research conducted at the
behest of the state government.
To read the report,
click on this link "Domestic Sex
Trafficking in Ohio: “Victims of
sex trafficking involved through
manipulation reported they sold sex to the
following buyers: Almost half, 46.5% (20)
provided sexual services to law
enforcement; 37% or 16 were sold to
businessmen and to drug dealers; 32.6%
(14) provided sexual services to lawyers;
30% or 13 to Truckers; 28% or 12 were sold
to managers in professional positions and
to factory workers; 26% or 11 were sold to
military men; 23% or 10 to teachers; 21%
or 9 were sold to Government Employees and
professional or semi-professional sports
players;18.6% or 8 were sold to City
Employees; 16.3% or 7 were sold to
Construction Workers and to politicians;
14% or 6 were sold to postal employees;
9.3% or 4 were sold to retail workers,
social workers and state employees; 7% or
3 were sold to ministers/pastors and
judges.” (The total
percentage of sex trafficking victims sold
to government employees including cops is
quite high- if they were even arrested,
does anyone think those ‘johns’ will be
punished as severely as a non government
employee customers?)
The above
is an example of what the prohibitionist
laws allow law enforcement officers to
do to prostitutes- regardless of whether
you believe all prostitution is
trafficking, is this the type of
consequence you expected? This occurs
around the world, wherever adult
prostitution is illegal, and also where
underage persons who are engaged in
survival sex are arrested or can be
threatened with arrest. While we
do not condone underage prostitution, it
is totally inappropriate for law
enforcement to treat minors like this:
"According to
women like Evann Gastaldo,
arresting children for prostitution
actually saves their lives..."Why We Must Arrest Child
Prostitutes: IT MAY SOUND CRUEL, BUT IT
COULD BE THE ONLY THING THAT SAVES
THEM."
And when minors are
arrested and incarcerated, what
happens to them? many of them
are raped by guards: according to a
May 5,
2011 article in the Economist, "Sexual
abuse in prison is
distressingly common: the
Justice Department estimated
that more than 217,000
prisoners,including at
least 17,000 juveniles,
were
raped or sexually
abused in America in
2008."
Is this what
was intended as a way to
teach these minors a
lesson?
or this:
2011 NYPD
Detective Wayne Taylor
“BROOKLYN (NY) - A mother says a former
NYPD detective pimped out her
13-year-old daughter
and forced her to dance naked at parties
and have sex with "as many as eight or
nine men" in a single night. The girl
says Det. Wayne Taylor "bought" her for
$500 and threatened to arrest her for
prostitution if she didn't follow his
orders. H.H. and her mother
sued the City of New York, the New York
Police Department and Wayne S. Taylor in
Federal Court.
Taylor was
arrested and pleaded guilty to
attempted kidnapping and promoting
prostitution in 2008, according
to the complaint and to contemporary
news reports. He
served more than 3 years before he was
paroled in January. H.H. says
Taylor, a longtime NYPD officer and
detective, "was known by the
defendants NYPD and city
to have had improper relationships
with prostitutes, including
prostitutes who were minors.
Indeed, prior to the events at
issue in this complaint, Taylor
was disciplined by the NYPD in
relation to having had an improper
relationship with an under-age
prostitute."
She adds:
"Taylor had been assigned to the NYPD's
Organized Crime Control Bureau, a
notoriously corrupt and poorly
supervised bureau that was scandalized
by the
arrests of dozens of its officers for
corruption and worse." But the
city kept Taylor on the job despite his
shady record, H.H. says. She says she
met Taylor and his girlfriend, Zalika
Brown, in January 2008. She says Taylor
was accompanied by other women, "named
'Crystal,' 'Honey,' and 'Muffin,' who
appeared to be prostitutes." The
complaint continues: "At the time, H.H.
was 13 years old.
"Thereafter, Taylor told H.H. that she
had been 'sold' to Taylor and Brown for
$500. "Taylor threatened H.H. that if
she would not do as he directed and work
as a prostitute, performing sex acts for
money, he would use his power as a
police officer to have her arrested for
prostitution, and that if she did as he
instructed she would have no problems
with the police.” http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/10/13/40584.htm
"An
internal investigation of the Wilmington
Police Department’s narcotics
enforcement team revealed inadequate
documentation of funds, poor and
ineffective supervision of the operation
and a “code of silence” cover-up of a
March 2012 undercover prostitution
operation.
Nearly one year later, Wilmington Police
Chief Ralph Evangelous addressed the
investigation—that also revealedat
least one officer was drunk during
the operation—at
a press conference Wednesday.
“The integrity of the Wilmington Police
Department is at stake here today. As
chief of police I accept that
responsibility,” Evangelous said.
But Evangelous declined to release any
specific information about the
operation.
According to Evangelous, the undercover
operation was in response to a citizen
complaint about a prostitution operation
involving escort services. In response
to that complaint, members of the
narcotics enforcement unit came up with
a “unique approach” in an attempt to
address the issue, Evangelous said.
After the operation was conducted,
information was protected and concealed
for about nine months until someone with
direct knowledge of the operation came
forward with the information, Evangelous
said.
“The ‘code of silence’ in law
enforcement is a misguided theory of how
to protect the organization. We are
dealing with that in this case,”
Evangelous said."
So a 'citizen' makes a complaint about
possible prostitution activity? How would
they know unless they were there? This was
not a case of street workers- but of
escorts working in private places... so
unless the complainant was there, or
peeping in the window (which is a crime)
why would the cops spend all that time and
money investigating for a non violent,
private 'crime'? Who was the victim, other
than the prostitutes who were arrested?
Where do
these human trafficking stats come
from and why do they keep changing
from one news story to another?
If the
federal government admits that actual
statistics do not exist for giving a
realistic estimate of the number of
victims of human trafficking, how is it
possible for the average person to know
what the truth is and how many victims
there really are? The numbers vary
significantly from one news report to
another:
On
November 30th, yet another media
source (The Abilene Reflector
Chronicle) cites yet a different
number of victims: "According to the
U.S. State Department, there
are over12 million adult and
child slaves worldwide,
56 percent of whom are women and
girls. Sister Nacke
will speak about this fast growing
enslavement and some of the efforts
being made to eradicate this
evil.http://www.abilene-rc.com/view/full_story/20971629/article-‘Human-Trafficking’--subject-of-forum?instance=homefirstleft
2.4
million? 27
million?
30 million? 12 million?
600,000 to 800,000....
What is the correct answer?
The
CORRECT ANSWER IS THAT NOBODY KNOWS!
ALL THESE NUMBERS ARE FABRICATED BY
PEOPLE WHO STAND TO BENEFIT FROM THE
MILLIONS OF DOLLARS THE GOVERNMENT
AND GULLIBLE DONORS GIVE TO THEIR
NON PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS!
The
media claims that ‘human trafficking is
the fastest growing enterprise in the
world’ https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/human-trafficking-fastest-growing-criminal-1042-business-world
But if the actual number is 2.4
million and the older number
of 27 million is no
longer accurate, how can it be the
fastest growing? It would seem to be
doing the opposite of growing. The truth
is that
nobody knows what the real number
is... but
these estimates sound scary and the
larger the estimate, the more it sells
newspapers and raises money for
non-profit organizations, so the media
reports those guestimates
AS FACTS. No one calls them to task for
printing the exaggerated numbers because
no one knows how many victims there
are!
According to the US
GAO,* the ‘estimates’ of victims of
human trafficking are not based on any
real evidence.
These statistics are wild guesses...
made by people with an ideological
agenda... “such estimates of
global human trafficking are
questionable. The accuracy of the
estimates is in doubt because of
methodological weaknesses, gaps in
data, and numerical discrepancies...
There is also a considerable
discrepancy between the numbers of
observed and estimated victims of
human trafficking...”READ THE PDF This is true of statistics both in
the US and internationally... so why do
organizations and individuals use non
scientific, unverifiable and
questionable estimates to generate
concern for victims of trafficking?
Who
benefits from the use of
hyper-inflated guestimated numbers
of victims? Certainly NOT sex
workers!
Organizations-
including those which promote the
abolition of all prostitution-
admit: “We use those statistics knowing
and admitting that they are dated
estimates because everyone– policy
makers, media and the public– push to
know the number of victims.”["But
we really don’t know!!! So we give
out numbers which we know to be
incorrect because we need people to
believe this is a huge crisis so
they will GIVE US MORE MONEY!!!!" -
and you thought whores were
greedy!!!]
“We use
these statistics because these are
the most recent and comprehensive
numbers we have... (from) the
controversial 2001 University of
Pennsylvania study. Partially funded by
the US Department of Justice, it remains
the most complete published study on the
commercial sexual exploitation of
children. The
current controversy lies in the
100,000 – 300,000 children reported
in the studyto
be at risk in the
US for commercial sexual exploitation.”
http://ecpatusa.org/2011/07/the-numbers-game/
Despite NOT knowing
how many real victims of sex/ human
trafficking there are, taxpayers are
supposed to fund training for law
enforcement officers to spot “victims of
sex trafficking” and then make untold
numbers of arrests, leading to
prosecutions and incarcerations of
individuals based on nothing more than
guestimations? Including
‘guestimates’ of who
law enforcement agents consider to be
victims?
SEE
HOW MANY DIFFERENT AND CONTRADICTORY
STATISTICS YOU CAN FIND - EVERY DAY
THERE IS A NEW STORY ON THE EVILS OF
SEX TRAFFICKING AND WITH EACH NEW
STORY COMES A DIFFERENT SET OF
GUESTIMATES!
To
convince the public that there is
a crisis, the prostitution
abolitionists are fond of
misquoting previous studies of
juvenile prostitutes. According to
federal and state laws, the use of
a minor in prostitution is
automatically considered sex
trafficking, regardless of
consent. Therefore, if those
abolitionists can convince
politicians and the public that
the majority of adult prostitutes
were originally trafficked into
prostitution as minors... then
they can extrapolate that adult
prostitutes could not and did not
originally consent and therefore
were 'brainwashed' by their pimps
or traffickers to believe that
they now consent as adults. This
supplies the abolitionists with
the moral/ social imperative to
'rescue and rehabilitate' those
poor victims, which necessitates
hundreds of millions of dollars of
taxpayer money to make those
rescues.
One of the
most widely quoted and yet
completely fabricated 'statistic' -
which is used to prey upon the
emotions of the public - is the
claim that "the average
age of entry into prostitution
is 12 or 13 or 14."
[NOTE: the original statistic quoted
was '14' but when that didn't get as
much response from society, the
prostitution abolitionists lowered
that stat to 13 and then 12...
whatever gets the most donations!]
Surely no one wants to see
young girls be recruited into
prostitution and forced to
have sex with adult males-
especially for money. This
'statistic' is one of the
cornerstones of the entire anti-sex
trafficking movement, which
generates the greatest amount of
sympathy, concern, outrage - AND
MONEY$$$$$$$$$$$$$$- for the
prostitution abolitionists. This
claim is followed by another
unsupported statistic, that the
'average age of death for
prostitutes is 34.' Wow! Get 'em
young, work 'em hard and kill 'em
off! Who wouldn't become outraged on
behalf of those poor victims?
Here's the
problem with that 'statistic'- the
study to which they refer was a
study of JUVENILE
prostitutes, and NO ONE over 18
participated in that study.
By leaving out that very important
little piece of information, it
changes the entire meaning.
Recently we finished compiling the
actual arrest statistics from the
FBI Bureau of Criminal Statistics-
for the past 30 years (1981-2010),
by age and gender. You can view the
raw data and the graphs and charts
we created from the data to show
how this underage statistic is
quite unlikely.
But
without that lynchpin 'statistic,'
raising money for the 'rescue and
rehabilitation' of the thousands of
poor, ignorant woman- child victims
would doubtlessly be much more
difficult. If the public knew that
the majority of sex workers were
adults and did not want or need
rescuing, how could the hundreds of
millions of dollars thrown at the
'problem' be justified? How
could the States Attorneys
General who want to 'shut down'
backpage.com[because they found 50
children over three years and in
22 states]-and
related adult ad venues make their
point if this one incredibly
prejudicial 'fact' was NOT
TRUE? Never mind that if
'shutting down' adult ad websites
was a viable solution to stopping
the sexual exploitation of minors,
we would have to 'shut down' the
Explorer Scouting Program (a
subsidiary of the Boy and Girl
Scouts of America- where teens
interact with cops as a means of
steering the male and female teens
into future careers in law
enforcement), as that is the
primary source for predatory law
enforcement agents to meet their
victims. And then we would
also need to abolish school sports
programs for both boys and girls, as
there have been numerous coaches who
have found their victims from those
students with whom they have close
and unsupervised relationships. And
how do we protect the victims of
pedophile teachers, preachers,
priests, boy scout leaders,
babysitters, parents and step
parents, siblings and others who are
much more likely to be the
perpetrators of sexual crimes
against minors than someone looking
for adult companionship on a website
with adult ads? Because the US
Government itself says that 90% of
all cases of child sexual
exploitation are at the hands of
someone whom the child knows and
trusts... while ONE child out of 10
MAY be the victim of sex
trafficking. More on the actual
statistics can be found here: http://womensissues.about.com/od/girlsteensyoungwomen/a/10-Facts-About-Child-Sexual-Abuse-Statistics.htm
and here: http://pediatrics.about.com/od/childabuse/a/05_abuse_stats.htm
These
'statistics' are presented time and
time again by supposedly neutral
journalists, just as Lisa Collacott.
According to a 2012 article she
wrote for "OurColoradonews.com,"
"Human trafficking is
not just a problem in other
countries. Trafficking for sex
or labor exploitations is
increasing in the United States
at an alarming rate."
What do they
consider 'an alarming rate'?
And who and where are the
victims? Collacott
further states "There are
approximately 100,000 to 300,000
human trafficking victims in
the United States.Korth (Michelle
Korth, founder and executive
director - is a victim
pimp who runs a rescue and restore
group called Restore Innocence,
which plans to take all those
alleged victims who are arrested by
the cops and given no alternative
other than to be 'restored to some
religious concept of innocence)
said 90 percent of all
human trafficking victims in the
country are American children
with the average age being 13.
About 70 percent are deemed
throw-a-way kids — those who have
run away, are in foster care or
are neglected by their parents.
Some kids are even sold by their parents
for drugs. Only one percent of
child trafficking victims are
kidnapped."
But why
can't those victims be found? In December 2012,
Atlanta Journal- Constitution
journalist Willoughby
Mariano wrote: "Despite
millions spent, human
trafficking’s scope is unknown" in
which he pointed out that many law
enforcement agencies 'exaggerate'
human trafficking problems in
their cities in order to get
federal funding. "the
situation was dire, police
warned. The City of Atlanta was
under siege by human
traffickers. Some
1,000 Asian women and girls ages
13 to 25 were being “forced to
prostitute themselves” in the
city, a 2005 internal police
email said. Many of the victims,
police said, were Korean. To
free them, police forged ahead
with a $600,000 task force. Had
agency leaders questioned the
estimate, they would have found
it defied common sense. If it
were true, one in eight of the
city’s Asians would have been
sex slaves.Perhaps,
then, it’s little wonder that
the program had such poor
results that it drew scrutiny
from the U.S. Department of
Justice. An initial report
said Atlanta police had found
more than 200 victims, but
auditors could only confirm
four."
And
what about other cities which
also exaggerate their sex
trafficking problems? "The
City of Los Angeles, for
instance, identified 49
victims and the Metropolitan
Police Department of
Washington, D.C., found 51. Auditors
confirmed none of them.
Auditors
also found that nearly $32
million in federal funds for
victim assistance groups aided
far fewer people than expected."
So
where did the money go?
What
does the government say about its
accounting method for determining
estimates of alleged victims?
GAO:
Government Accountability Office
*“The U.S.
government estimates that 600,000 to
800,000 persons are trafficked
across international
borders
annually. However, such estimates of
global human trafficking are
questionable. The accuracy of the
estimates is in doubt because of
methodological weaknesses, gaps in
data, and numerical discrepancies.
For example, the U.S. government’s
estimate was developed by one person
who did not document all his work,
so the estimate may not be
replicable, casting doubt on its
reliability. Moreover, country data
are not available, reliable, or
comparable. There is also a
considerable discrepancy between the
numbers of observed and estimated
victims of human trafficking. The
U.S. government has not yet
established an effective mechanism
for estimating the number of victims
or for conducting ongoing analysis
of trafficking related data that
resides within government entities.”
So where
do the prostitution abolitionists
even come up with such numbers of
alleged trafficking victims? Ummm,
we're fairly certain that they make
it up as they go along.
Police
departments, and the Attorney
Generals around the country
receive huge grants of money from
the Federal government for fighting
Sex Trafficking. When they don’t
find any forced against their will
prostitute victims – They make them
up, so that they won’t lose
funding.
Denver
vice Lieutenant Aaron Sanchez says:“Prostitutes are not friendly.
It’s not like you’re talking to
a child-abuse victim or a
fifteen-year-old sex assault
victim who wants to cry out and
wants to explain what happened
or is just scared. These girls
just flat out say, ‘Nope, that’s
not what’s happening.’
So… the
police are trying to invent victims?
Where no victims exist? The
prostitutes say that no one is
forcing them and the police
don’t believe them? The
police want the prostitutes to lie?
And the police are forcing the
prostitutes to lie about being
forced? Why, when there are
so many real victims out there who
REPORT being a victim...
like the over 90,000 cases of
child sexual abuse reported each
year...by people whom the child
knows and trusts? From the "10
Facts About Child Sexual Abuse"
(as well as other government
authorized reports), "most child
victims are abused by someone they
know and trust. When the abuser is
NOT a family member, the victim is
more often a boy than a girl..."
The report goes on to say that 96%
of offenders were known to their
victims, 50% were acquaintances or
friends, 20% were fathers, 16%
were relatives and 4% were
strangers....
Victims who are really
victims do not need to be convinced
of their victimhood.
Even as there are hopeful signs of
intelligence out there, unfortunately
there are even more media postings with
exaggerated statistics, adding to the
climate of hysteria over a mostly
non-existent problem:
She states "Advocates
say education is the key to help
these victims." She is right
about that- education of the public
IS the key to stopping this
nonsense. Unfortunately, the
continued propaganda that is pumped
into the public's brain about this
issue is NOT educating anyone.
The Polaris Project reported a
grand total of 6 crisis calls and
5 calls 'related to potential
victims...' in Wisconsin in
2011. There are no other reports
available that we could find which
indicate a huge rise in the number
from 6 to "hundreds" so without
documentation, we can conclude that
this too is a fabricated statement.
You gotta read this stuff- I mean
REALLY! Adult women are quite capable of
knowing WHEN they are victims and when
they are not... Anyone who says or
thinks otherwise, is a condescending
jerk... not to mention an enabler of law
enforcement abuse of sex workers of all
ages! Unfortunately prostitution
abolitionists don't think we can
consent- because we are
'brainwashed" to believe it is our
choice!
"ALL PROSTITUTES ARE VICTIMS OF
SEX TRAFFICKING EVEN IF THEY CONSENT
TO ENGAGE IN PROSTITUTION!"
Click on
image to view article from 2007 or click here
Really?
We are all victims
and have no right to say otherwise? Is
that why you infantilize all adult women
who say they choose to engage in sex
work? Who are these people who
disallow adult women, men and
transgendered persons the right to speak
for ourselves?
What to do
if victims won't recognize they are
victims? Well, the good folks in New
Jersey think "Most victims will have
a constant fear and an array of
disorders..." and so "The best
way to deal with these issues would be
medication and cognitive
behavioral therapy..."
until they understand they are
victims? Ironically, many abolitionists
and others who wish to eliminate all
prostitution claim that ALL prostitutes
are on drugs- 'to anesthetize themselves
from the emotional pain' of providing
pleasure to men. So, apparently the
solution is to MEDICATE these poor
victims of PTSD, and force therapy on
them as a way to ensure these helpless,
hapless women and children become clear
about their status in life. They are NOT
to reach above their station and earn
MORE money (for 'spreading their legs')
than academics and politicians who have
degrees and are working for the public
good. HOW DARE THEY!
It is JUST not right!
Sex workers
who have experienced positivity in their
work do not deny that there are
victims of sex trafficking anymore than
wives who have only experienced a loving
relationship with their husbands would
deny that domestic violence exists. We
know it does. The problem is that both
society AND the law/ law enforcement
conflate the two and ignore the fact
that the majority of sex workers, like
the majority of wives/ husbands are NOT
victims of coercion or abuse. What if we
presumed that all wives were victims and
all husbands were abusive? What if we
didn't bother to ask the wife if she was
a victim and just arrested her and
threatened her with incarceration if she
did not admit to being a victim? How
would that help REAL victims of domestic
violence, which the US Government
estimates there are over 12
MILLION incidents of intimate/domestic
partner violence every year, and over
1 MILLION incidents of intimate
partner rape each year? How could
any of the real victims be helped if we
wasted time and money pursuing
situations in which the wife was NOT a
victim of abuse? Where would we put all
the non- violent, non abusive husbands
while the husbands who DO abuse their
wives go unpunished... like the many law
enforcement officers who are
themselves abusers?
Men/ women
and girls/ boys who are victims of
sexual abuse at the hands of strangers
or parents - be it rape or sexual
assault, KNOW they are victims and are
often afraid to go to the police because
they are not believed. They realize that
even if they file a report, the
likelihood of the police pursuing and
arresting the individual(s) who
perpetrated the crime against them is
small, and their will rapist will most
likely go unpunished. Every year, we add
more and more outstanding rapists to
the already massive list of predators,
to the ever expanding list of untested
rape kits which, a few years ago, was
estimated at between 400,000 to
500,000. If the police do not have
the resources to test those kits, to
pursue and apprehend the perpetrator and
the prosecutors do not have the
resources to prosecute the perpetrators,
nor is there space in the overcrowded
jails and prisons for convicted
predators if the cops apprehended them.
Cops
are being trained to 'spot' victims
of human trafficking, and here are
some of the 'symptoms' they are told
to look for: (Click on image to
view full size)
And
remember, according to abolitionists, ALL
PROSTITUTES OF ALL AGES AND REGARDLESS
OF CONSENT are to be considered
victims of human trafficking and
their alleged pimps ought to be
prosecuted under the more stringent sex
trafficking laws...
MORE
SEX TRAFFICKING ARTICLES- NEW ONES
EVERY DAY!
IF PROSTITUTION
IS DANGEROUS, WHY DOES THE MEDIA PUBLISH
THE NAMES AND ADDRESSES OF SUSPECTED
PROSTITUTES? AND IF IT IS ABOUT RESCUING
THE CHILDREN, WHY ARREST CONSENTING
ADULTS FOR ENGAGING IN SEX WITH OTHER
CONSENTING ADULTS? http://beaconnews.suntimes.com/16731801-417/26-charged-in-aurora-prostitution-sting.htmlThat's
like wanting to protect victims of
pedophile priests by arresting adult
homosexuals (whether or not priests) for
engaging in consenting adult sex with
other gays... HOW DOES THAT HELP THE
CHILD VICTIMS? WHY NOT ARREST THE ACTUAL
PREDATOR WHO HAS SEX WITH A MINOR,
REGARDLESS OF WHETHER OR NOT THEY
'PURCHASE' THE SERVICES OF A CHILD? The
US Government says that 90% of the cases
of child sexual exploitation are at the
hands of someone whom the child knows
and trusts... like cops and priests and
preachers and teachers and coaches and
boy scout leaders and parents... pillars
of the community... not men who are
seeking the paid sexual services of
children whom they find on adult ad
venues. 2000 Sexual
Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement: Victim, Incident, and Offender Characteristics..
"We
want to protect the children"According to many articles, sites
and abolitionists "the
average age of entry into
prostitution is 12 to 14."Surely every one would want to
stop CHILDREN from being trafficked into
the sex trade... right? No one would
support selling juveniles... (unless
they are cops and they threaten the
juveniles with arrest if they don't do
as they are told, like Detective Wayne
Taylor and Ronald Miko... among
others...) but what if this 'statistic'
didn't tell the whole truth?
Unfortunately
this is the way the prostitution
abolitionists spread their
propaganda... and without knowing
the truth, many people believe that
all of us adult sex workers were
'recruited into prostitution' when
we were minors. Which would
mean that the adult sex workers
arrested who were in their 40s and
50s and even 60s have been working
for a very long time, thus debunking
the other lie told by the
abolitionists that the 'average age
of death for sex workers is 34...' "Prostitution
has always been risky for women;
the average age of death is 34,
and the American
Journal of Epidemiology
reported that prostitutes suffer a
“workplace homicide rate” 51 times
higher than that of the next most
dangerous occupation, working in a
liquor store."
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/07/17/the-growing-demand-for-prostitution.html
What
they don't tell you is that this
'workplace' where the homicide rate
is high is on the street- even
though the overwhelming
majority of sex workers do not work on the
street- and is primarily
because the prostitutes ARE OUTLAWS
AND CANNOT ACT TO PROTECT
THEMSELVES... Obviously if working
in a liquor store is that dangerous,
we must not permit women to work in
them. What about the military-
why are we now going to allow WOMEN
to engage in COMBAT? THAT'S JUST TOO
DANGEROUS FOR WOMEN! WE MUST NOT
ALLOW ADULT WOMEN TO TAKE ANY
RISKS.. (but marriage is far riskier
than prostitution--- particularly for
women who marry law enforcement
agents: according to some
reports, 40% of law enforcement
families are the recipients of
intimate partner violence, compared
to 10% in the general population...
SO LET'S OUTLAW MARRIAGE TO PROTECT
WOMEN AND CHILDREN FROM VIOLENT
HUSBANDS AND FATHERS!)
For
your entertainment, the Feminisnt.com
Bingo Card with all the idiotic,
nonsensical arguments Radical Feminists
and Religious Conservatives make against
sex work:
One of our
international associates presents a
document which ignores completely the
voices of adult women in Cambodia who do
not believe they are victims- except for
being victims of the abolitionist agenda
which seeks to 'eliminate all
prostitution' and thus deprive them of
their livelihood. "This
2008 ILO report draws on surveys to
paint a picture of the Cambodian sex
industry that is at odds with accounts
provided by sex workers. It
conflates sexual exploitation with
trafficking, refers to sex
workers as Commercial Sexually
Exploited Women and Girls and
fails to distinguish between adults
and children."Claiming
to reject the term 'sex work' as
political the report is infact highly
politicised using an
'abolitionist' conceptual framework.
From the PLRI- the Paolo Longo Research
Institute (Paolo Longo was a
one time sex worker and activist in
Brazil who fought tirelessly for our
rights and who passed away
unexpectedly in 2004 from a long time
heart ailment) http://www.plri.org/sites/plri.org/files/CSEWG%20ILO%20report%20final.pdf
This document is a prime example of how
patronizing and condescending the
prostitution abolitionist movement
really is.
The
Stupid Comments that People Make about
Sex Work:
There
must be many people who truly
believe that sex workers are
completely uneducated and cannot use
a computer or read the hideously
ignorant comments about us.
Fortunately, the majority of us are
quite computer literate, articulate
and can READ... Unfortunately, when
we speak, our voices are not heard-
because of the campaign against
commercial sex which is supported by
the media, politicians and even the
internet. However, we will continue
to respond to the ignorant comments
made by people who haven't a clue
about who we are or what we do. In
many cases, it seems to be a case of
pure jealousy- "why should a
stupid whore make all that
money spreading her legs when I have
a degree/ am a good Christian/ am an
academic/ etc. It isn't FAIR!" So,
rather than try to understand that
for many of us that sex work is a
very good JOB- and it is a JOB, not
a "life," they do their best to
denigrate us and our work by making
untrue allegations about us and our
work. Is sex work MORE dangerous
than other very dangerous types of
employment? And if it weren't
outside the law, wouldn't it make
the work SAFER, if concern for our
well being is truly behind their
blatantly pathetic comments? You
will find that any article which
gives pro- sex worker rights a
voice, will have many posted
comments which show the true intent
of these people... and it isn't
making our lives or work safer!
"Being a sex worker is
more dangerous than they want to
admit, because they want
to keep doing it stubbornly, and
they HATE to be wrong. They really
do. You could go on forever about
why they shouldn't do what they
do, and they will keep
throwing ridiculous argument
after argument at you. I
could write an essay about why
it's wrong but I don't want to
take up an entire comment page. HumorousLOL in reply
to jxsilicon9
My response
to this mentally impaired person: "Being in law
enforcement is far more dangerous than
being a sex worker- so should we
forbid women from taking any work
that is dangerous? We are even going
to allow women in the military to go
into combat- talk about DANGEROUS
WORK! The bottom line is that YOU have
NO right to tell other adult women
what risks they can take and what they
can't. Ever seen the stats for
domestic violence? Talk about
DANGEROUS! Marriage is FAR more
dangerous for women than SEX WORK!" The
statistics from the US Government on
intimate partner violence and rape
more than adequately demonstrate that.
Additionally,
OSHA reports that the most dangerous
profession is driving a taxi- but
interestingly and not surprisingly, the
stats for just HOW dangerous also vary
from one document to another. Some
sites claim that the rate of homicides
for cab drivers is 20 to 30 % above the
national average:
Driving a
taxicab is legal- and for the most part,
it is easy to count the number of
licensed cab drivers in each city... so,
if having access to the number of cab
drivers and rates of homicide still
doesn't allow for accurate statistics,
and given that prostitution is outside
the law so there is no way to count the
actual number of sex workers in one city
much less the state or country, how
would it be possible for ANYONE to know
how dangerous or safe sex work is, or
the ages of sex workers in any given
city? People want to know "how many..."
so those with the most to gain (funding
for their 'rescue and rehabilitation
schemes), make up numbers that are
impossible to verify.
I could,
for example, pull a number out of thin
air and state that "there are over 10
million prostitutes in NYC alone, and
that 99% of them are 12 years of age or
younger." I just made up those numbers
but I wonder if anyone came across this
site and saw those numbers, if they
would repeat them as fact. I would not
be a bit surprised if they did. So if in
the future you read somewhere that
"there are 10 million 12 year old
prostitutes in New York City who need to
be "rescued and rehabilitated" you
will know that somebody out there is
lying, just as they are with all the
other made up statistics on the ages and
number of victims of sex trafficking.
Follow the money.
Some
abolitionists want to criminalize our
clients and decriminalize the
prostitutes- whom they call 'prostituted
women...' Why do sex workers find
that system so offensive and harmful? By
what right do these abolitionists
impose their terminology on us?
Would it not be offensive if the
religious right insisted that we call
gays and lesbians "fags" and "lesbos"
and accept that homosexuality is a
'choice' which one can easily not
chose? Should we not allow every group
of marginalized individuals to define
themselves?
Second, in
order to secure a conviction against a
non violent, non abusive client who paid
a sex worker for something he could
otherwise legally get for FREE (if he
found a willing sex partner), the
prosecutor needs the prostitute to
testify against him... and how do the
cops force the 'poor victimized
prostitute' to testify against the men
who pay her for her sexual services?
They THREATEN THE PROSTITUTE if she
doesn't cooperate... And again, if
the prosecutors do not want to take a
COP WHO RAPED A PROSTITUTE to trial (See
the case of San Diego Police Officer
Daniel Dana) WHY would the prostitute
want the jury to convict a man who makes
it possible for her to earn a living?
"As Susan Cohen says in the The Guttmacher Report on
Public Policy -February 2005, Volume 8,
Number 1 - "Sex trafficking is one
component of the broader problem of
trafficking in persons—an internationally
recognized human rights violation and a
crime in the United States. It would
appear, however, that from the perspective
of many social conservatives both inside
and outside the Bush [and now the Obama
administration as well]
administration, human trafficking
is problematic largely to the extent it
involves trafficking for sex.
And since these advocates view sex
trafficking and prostitution as
inextricably linked, if not for all
intents and purposes identical, the
U.S. government's global
anti-trafficking program in many ways
has come to resemble a global campaign
against prostitution.”
For more
information on the Swedish model and how
it impacts the lives of sex workers in
Sweden, you can find this and much more
information on 'human trafficking'
at Anthropologist Laura
Agustin's website: http://www.lauraagustin.com/
Positive
Articles with negative comments: People
say the dumbest, most ignorant
things about prostitution!
http://www.dailybarometer.com/forum/column/prostitution-should-be-legal-considering-our-constitutional-rights-1.2867357#.ULovok_sKAc
And how lovely of these
individuals to say of sex workers who do
not believe they are victims of sexual
abuse because they are sex workers: Says
Salmon Ammon Cheney"sexual
abuse ALWAYS harms another
person...The human body is not a
commodity."
(tell that to construction workers,
athletes, dancers and others whose body
is necessary for them to earn a living)
Says Madeline Duthie "I saw this too
and had a similar response. No
human body should be treated as
a commodity. Nothing outrages
me more than this topic... and I'm not
one to anger easily. Thanks for sharing
your thoughts, Ammon." So if an adult
woman or a man uses their body for
their work, this is a bad thing? And
adult women who do not feel they are a
commodity when they sell their
services, such ideas are disallowed?
Apparently so! Do they care that the
laws they insist on keeping in place
are used by cops to extort us for
sexual favors? Or that in order to
make arrests, very often cops are
ALLOWED to have sex with us - they
get paid to have sex as part of
their job- and then arrest us for
being victims of sexual abuse??????
How To Respect Sex
Workers
http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2010/09/02/how-to-respect-sex-workers/
Comments: "The thing is, even if
this seems like Common Sense to you,
many don't get it. Especially some
feminists who claim to support sex
workers and then call us "used toilets".
It actually happens quite often."
Response? from Berryblade: 'For goodness
sakes, no-one called prostituted
womyn "used toilets"!' A tad
arrogant and condescending isn't it?
To insist on calling adult women who
choose sex work "prostituted"?
What Anti-Trafficking
Advocates Can Learn From Sex Workers:
The Dynamics of Choice, Circumstance,
and Coercion http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danah-boyd/what-anti-trafficking-advocates-can-learn-from-sex-workers_b_1784382.html?
comments: Stella Marr
says "Would I'd love to see from
Danah is an article on how sex
trafficking survivors who aren't
connected to astroturf pro-sex industry
groups could make our voices better
heard. Truth is everyone who is writing
about this issue or studying it
professionally should be opening doors
for survivors. Ultimately we are the
solution, and until we are empowered
there will be lots of vain floundering."
WHAT WE
SAY: No one denies that some people in
prostitution are victims of violent
pimps, just like some wives are
victims of violent husbands. It
helps no one, particularly not those
who are truly victims, to insist that
all prostitutes are victims or that
all wives are abused by their
husbands. Unfortunately, the
abolitionists don't care about the
majority of sex workers who are NOT
victims, they are only concerned about
imposing their social/ moral agenda on
the rest of us sex workers regardless
of the harm that such conflation
causes.
Stella Marr is a
particularly obnoxious individual
and bully who attempts to
discredit anyone who does not hold the
view that ALL prostitution exploits
ALL women, regardless of our own
personal experiences, and that
ALL clients and 'pimps' belong behind
bars. If any of the sex worker rights
activists dare to challenge her, she
calls them 'pimps' and says they have
no right to speak for prostitutes,
even though they are prostitutes
themselves (she says they aren't
prostitutes...). She claims that WE
want to silence HER, when it is the
other way around. She is free to tell
her pathetic story to anyone who will
listen. If she had a terrible
experience in prostitution and was not
doing it by choice and was indeed a
victim of evil pimps, then she ought
to be able to share that experience
with the world. But when she starts
lying about other sex workers whose
experiences were NOT like hers, then
we have every right to stop her lies
about us.
You'll LOVE
the ignorant comments made by people
who have NO clue about sex work or sex
workers... and I did my share of
responding to those comments... I know
it isn't nice to pick on people who
cannot match my "grossly above average
intelligence" (as an LAPD psychologist
reported in his evaluation of me), but
I have my flaws and if there is one
thing really irritates me, it is
illiterate men who, when they are
unable to outwit me, tell me to "shut
up." And then these men
brag about their girlfriend, as if to
say "see- I don't have to PAY for
sex... because I am so macho!" I am
sure that if he were ever in need of a
sex worker companion, he'd be the type
that we'd turn away. There are SOME
things that prostitutes WON'T do for
money!
The next time someone tells you that we
need to keep prostitution illegal to
protect the women and children from
exploitation and a life of degradation,
please consider sharing the following in
response to their imbecilic comments:
SEX WORKERS FROM OTHER COUNTRIES
NOT ALLOWED TO ATTEND THE 2012 AIDS
CONFERENCE IN WASHINGTON DC...
Actually they are not even allowed to
enter the United States if they have ever
been a prostitute-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtKeSSri5Dg&feature=g-crec-u
WHY? Because the US Government believes
they are all victims of human trafficking-
so we cannot allow them to attend an AIDS
Conference to speak about the need
for governments to stop signing the
"PLEDGE" which the US Government forces
them to sign if they want any of the
PEPFAR money to help stop the spread of
AIDS/ HIV.... http://sexworkandhiv.org/
http://epidreamiology.posterous.com/pepfars-blueprint
July 15,
2012 NY TIMES Distributing,
Then Confiscating, Condoms
"While
public health departments spend millions
of dollars promoting and
distributing condoms,
police departments are harassing
sex workers for carrying them
and using them as evidence to support
arrests. Many of the women we
interviewed asked, “How many condoms is
it legal to carry?” One wondered, “Why
is the city giving me condoms when I
can’t carry them without going to jail?”
Some women said they continued to carry
condoms despite the consequences. For
others, fear of arrest trumped fears of
sexually transmitted diseases and
pregnancy. Most of those we interviewed
told us they were afraid to carry the
number of condoms they needed, and some
— about 5 percent — told us they had
unprotected sex with clients as a
result.
Police officers
confiscate condoms and prosecutors try
to enter them as evidence not because it
is official policy to do so, but simply
because they have not been trained to do
otherwise. An act of the legislature
(like one bill
pending in the New York State Assembly),
or even a directive from a police chief
or district attorney, could end the
practice immediately. Categories of
evidence — like testimony regarding the
sexual history of rape victims — are
excluded as a matter of public policy in
many legal systems. In this case, the
value of condoms for H.I.V. and disease
prevention far outweighs any utility
they might have in the enforcement of
anti-prostitution laws. Law enforcement
efforts should not interfere with the
right of anyone, including sex workers,
to protect his or her own health."
WHY
DO PROSECUTORS WANT THIS CONFISCATION TO
CONTINUE EVEN IF IT MEANS THAT SEX
WORKERS AND THEIR CLIENTS MAY BE AT RISK
OF GETTING OR SPREADING DISEASES? WHAT
COULD POSSIBLY JUSTIFY THIS POLICY?
Well, according to NY Prosecutor
Kate Hogan, it is MORE important that the
cops have a tool with which to make an
arrest of the PROSTITUTE so they can
extort the prostitute into testifying
against the alleged pimps / human
traffickers:"Kate Hogan, a prosecutor who
is the former president of the state
district attorneys' association,said the real goal of
prostitution cases is "to get the
pimps and the sex traffickers."
Giving up supporting evidence would be
giving them "a lot of leeway we don't
want to give them," she said. IN OTHER
WORDS, WE DO NOT CARE IF THE
PROSTITUTES OR THEIR CLIENTS GET
AIDS OR OTHER STDS AND DIE - BECAUSE
WE CARE MORE ABOUT IMPOSING OUR
SOCIAL AGENDA ON SOCIETY THAN WE
CARE ABOUT THEIR HEALTH - EVEN IF
THE PROSTITUTE DOESN'T WORK FOR A
PIMP NOR IS A VICTIM OF SEX
TRAFFICKING ...http://www.romenews-tribune.com/view/full_story/18266855/article-New-York-advocates-want-condoms-out-of-prostitute-cases
So if the
HEALTH, SAFETY AND PROTECTION OF SEX
WORKERS IS NOT THE GOAL OF THE
ABOLITIONISTS, WHAT IS?
"Nobody
cares about safety of sex workers,
court hears" -
Canadian Sex Workers Fight for their
Rights to Work Safely- but the Catholic
Church thinks they ought to continue being
harmed as that will discourage other women
from entering a dangerous profession... http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/06/16/nobody-cares-about-safety-of-sex-workers-court-hears/
"Prostitution is immoral and should be
eradicated through strict laws, even if
that leaves sex trade workers vulnerable
to attack, argued Ranjan Agarwal, a
lawyer representing the Christian
Legal Fellowship, Catholic Rights League
and REAL Women of Canada.
“Parliament intended to eradicate
prostitution” by enacting these laws
because it is “an attack on the
fundamental values of modern Canadian
society,” he said.
But, asked
Justice David Doherty, what if
that meant sex workers die as a
result, wouldn’t that be harm
out of proportion from the
intended good?
No,
Mr. Agarwal said, such an
outcome is a “sad side effect,”
and it was better for Parliament
to “send a signal” to anyone
thinking of entering the sex
trade that there was great risk
involved.[by allowing
those sinners to die if necessary to
impose their moral or social values on
others who do not share those values]
His stance caused a ripple of derision
from several sex workers observing the
proceedings. [the whole point of the fight
to decriminalize sex work is to make it
possible for sex workers to have a safer
work environment, thus lessening the
risk... risks which other women in other
professions like law enforcement, the
military, tax cab driving etc. are
allowed to take, weighing the risks
against their need to earn a living,
desire to work in a certain field, etc.]
“Canadians have good reason to abhor
prostitution and they have every reason
and justification to discourage people
from engaging in the sex-trade, either as
sex workers, customers, pimps and madams
or as service-providers,” the groups told
the court. SO LET THEM DIE!
It is for their own good and the good of
society!
WITH
'FRIENDS' LIKE THESE, WHO NEEDS
ENEMIES? STILL THINK THE
ABOLITIONISTS CARE ABOUT
PROSTITUTES?????
HOW CAN YOU
AS STUDENTS HELP SEX WORKERS FIGHT THE
MISINFORMATION/ LIES BEING SPREAD BY
THOSE WITH AN ABOLITIONIST AGENDA- AND
HELP US STOP THE HARM THAT THE STIGMA
AGAINST SEX WORK CAUSES?
If you live near any sex worker
rights organizations, why not volunteer
your time to help us? Find your
local organizations here: http://www.bayswan.org/orgs.htmlISWFACE - my non
profit organization- always needs help.
Located in Panorama City/ Van Nuys, we are
attempting to digitalize our massive
library to make it accessible to everyone
over the internet. If you have time you
can donate, contact me at
normajeanalmodovar [at] gmail.com.
Links to articles
against Prop 35- even though it
passed in California, we need to stop it
from spreading like some hideous disease
from the evil minds of those who believe
that lying and misrepresenting their case
to protect adult women and children is
morally or ethically acceptable.
And if you know a sex worker or someone
who is an academic and has done scholarly
research on sex work (but not anyone who
views us as 'prostituted' victims- there
are plenty of conferences for them to
attend and share their bile), here is the
link to the 2013 Desiree Alliance
Conference in Las Vegas, Nev.
DEBT BONDAGE
AND STUDENT LOANS: WHAT'S THE
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOU AND A VICTIM
OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING?
One of the
arguments to continue the prohibition
against prostitution is that many
immigrants who are transported across
borders go into that country with debt
bondage. Allegedly people who want to
migrate to another country- for whatever
reason- are willing to pay someone
to take them to a better life.
However, once they arrive in the country
of choice, their passports are taken
away and they are forced into areas of
labor until their agreed upon debt is
repaid. They are given a minimal amount
of the money they earn so they can pay
for their rent and food and other
necessities, but the majority of their
earnings are taken from them to repay
their debt.
Also
called Debt-Bondage, bonded labor is a
form of modern day slavery. A person
enters into debt bondage when their
labor is demanded as a means of
repayment of a loan.[DOES IT
COUNT AS 'LABOR BEING DEMANDED' WHEN
YOU HAVE TO WORK AT A JOB TO REPAY A
LOAN AND YOU MUST GIVE THEM YOUR
MONEY EARNED FROM YOUR 'LABOR'????
IS IT STILL EXPLOITATION IF YOU
WILLINGLY TOOK OUT THE LOAN? IS
SOMEONE SUPPOSED TO JUST GIVE
SOMEONE ELSE THEIR HARD EARNED MONEY
WITHOUT EXPECTING IT TO BE REPAID?] Typically,
the laborer is tricked into accepting
terms which are exploitive in nature,
and in gross violation of their human
rights. The combination of unlawfully
low wages and unlawfully high interest
rates create a situation of
perpetually increasing debt.
Despite
being prohibited by international law,
debt bondage continues to exist in
both developed and under-developed
nations. An estimate by the International
Labor Organization suggests that
12.3 million people are
trapped by debt bondage at any one
time. Other sources have
estimated that the true number is
over 27 million.[WE ASK- WHICH
SOURCES ARE THEY CITING? HOW DO THEY
COME TO THIS NUMBER? DOES IT INCLUDE
THOSE WHO ARE 'TRAFFICKED' AND NOT
PAID AT ALL? DOES IT INCLUDE
CONSENTING ADULT PROSTITUTES? IS THIS
IN ADDITION TO THE 2.4 MILLION OR 27
MILLION VICTIMS OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING
OR HOWEVER MANY ARE GUESTIMATED ON
THAT PARTICULAR DAY BY THE MEDIA
OUTLET SEEKING TO SENSATIONALIZE A
MOSTLY NON EXISTENT PROBLEM?]
SO,
HOW DOES THIS DIFFER FROM THE
FOLLOWING DISCUSSION ON STUDENT LOANS?
"Every
single year, millions of young adults
head off to colleges and universities
all over America full of hopes and
dreams. But what most of those
fresh-faced youngsters do not realize
is that by taking on student loan debt
they are signing up for a life of debt
slavery. Student loan debt has
become a trillion dollar
bubble which has shattered the
financial lives of tens of millions of
young college graduates. When
you are just starting out and you are
not making a lot of money, having to
make payments on tens of thousands of
dollars of student loan debt can be
absolutely crippling...." At
least the people who brought the
human trafficking victims to this
country get their money back in a
relatively short period of time and
then the debt bond is paid and the
immigrant can pursue other types of
labor. But what about students?
"Student
loans -- if unpaid even for a short
time -- lock
you into the only effective debtors'
prison existing in the United States.
The government's
collection rights are something a
mobster might admire. Late
fees and collection fees are ruinous.
Student loans cannot be discharged in
bankruptcy, so
you'll drag that escalating debt
forever. So will parents
with PLUS loans, if they lose their
jobs and cannot pay. Co-signers face
the same potential fate.
Our national story says, "get an
education and get ahead." Usually,
that works. When
it doesn't, the loans can wreck your
life. Congress could change
that story line, but conservatives
(Republicans plus a few Democrats)
like things the way they are. Few
Americans even know what's going on,
unless they fall into this pit
themselves.
Students have to take the borrowing
risk. Loans have become the only road
to the costly classroom door for
middle-class families and students
paying their own way. But before you
sign or co-sign, consider whether a
lower-cost school would be a smarter
move...things you might not know about
education loans:
1. The default rate is much
higher than the government leads you
to believe.
Officially, the default rate on
federally insured loans is running at
7
percent, up 55 percent from its
low in 2003. But this only measures
the loans that went into default
during their first two years. Also, it
doesn't count loans whose payments are
being deferred for one reason or
another -- for example, financial
hardship. Many of those borrowers will
default as soon as payments come due
again.
In 2003, the Education Department's
Office of Inspector General estimated
the probable lifetime default rate of
federal loans taken out in the late
1990s. The rates range from about 20
percent to 30 percent for students in
four-year schools, depending on how
long they stayed. For two-year
schools, the rate runs at 40 to 42
percent. At for-profit, career
schools, 44 to 51 percent.
Borrowers don't sign up for loans
intending to cheat. But life deals
unexpected blows. Solid citizens can
lose jobs, homes, marriages, and
health. The smallest possible debt is
your best defense.
2. You have no idea how fast an
apparently modest student loan can
build, if you skip payments. For
proof, go to StudentLoanJustice.org,
founded by Alan Collinge, or ProjectOnStudentDebt.org,
and read the individual stories.
There's the $70,000 grad school loan
that grew to $102,000, and the $40,000
undergraduate loan now being billed at
$152,000.
All of these borrowers made payments
once upon a time. When hardship
struck, they used the various rescue
programs -- payment deferrals,
forbearance, loan consolidation, and
loan rehabilitation, paying extra
interest and fees. But as one New York
borrower wrote, "In my 22 years of
good faith efforts to pay this thing,
I've succeeded only in doubling its
size with no end in sight."
When a loan defaults and goes to
collection, the monthly charge can run
up
to 25 percent more than the
principal and interest due, and this
charge is paid before any of your
money goes toward reducing debt.
3. By law, student loans cannot
be discharged in bankruptcy. In
theory, there's an out. A bankruptcy
judge has the option of releasing you
if you face severe economic hardship.
But that happens rarely and you'll
need a lawyer even to have a shot. In
one case, a judge refused relief to an
orchestra cellist who taught music
part-time, on the ground that he could
switch to a higher paying line of
work.
4. The government and collection
agencies can beat you with tactics not
allowed for other types of loans. For
example, they can seize tax refunds,
garnish up to 15 percent of your
disposable income, and seize part of
your Social Security or disability
payments if you receive more than $750
a month -- all without getting a court
order.Many
states can also cancel your
professional licenses, such as those
for teachers, lawyers, and
healthcare workers, making it
impossible for you to find the work
you're trained for.
On federal loans, you can be dunned
until you die. States limit the period
of time that private lenders have to
sue, but once they get judgments they
can come after you for years. One
reader, a grandmother of six, tells me
she is still being harassed. Lenders almost never
negotiate a reduced payoff.
5. All the traps that await
student borrowers also await parents
who take education loans. If
you've been hurt financially during
these hard times, you're generally
stuck with this debt no matter what.
6. You're also at risk if you
co-sign a loan and the borrower can't
pay.If the student
dies or becomes totally disabled, your
federal loans can be forgiven. But if
you co-sign private loans, they'll
come after you forever."
""So
if you think that banks were dumb
enough to loan you money for school,
you’re mistaken. You can’t beat them
at their own game. You’ll be giving
them twice the money as their indentured
servant..."
http://www.vanadia.com/liveandlearn/re/pay-my-student-loans/
"I am
aware of the total lack of consumer
protection associated with student
debt. I knew that if I was unable to
make my minimum payments, they would
hit me with late fees, penalties, etc.
They would harass me. In ruining my
credit history, they would make it
impossible for me to get access to
basic services. Forget about taking
out another loan – I’m talking about
not being able to rent an apartment.
And defaulting would not only mean a
ruined credit history, it would mean
that my debt would double, triple,
quadruple, etc…I would be a
slave (serf)
forever."
http://nataliaantonova.com/2011/12/03/student-debt-story-dear-sallie-mae-i-cant-afford-you-youre-too-high-maintenance-and-your-cutesy-name-sucks/
SO,
ARE YOU A
'HUMAN TRAFFICKING
VICTIM' OR A
'VICTIM OF DEBT
BONDAGE' BECAUSE YOU
HAVE A STUDENT
LOAN AND MAY
NOT BE ABLE TO
REPAY IT IN
A TIMELY MANNER?
WHAT WILL YOU
DO IF YOU
CAN'T FIND A
JOB IN YOUR
CHOSEN FIELD AND
HAVE TO TAKE A
MINIMUM WAGE JOB
DOING MENIAL
LABOR? HOW WILL
YOU EVER GET OUT
FROM UNDER THIS
'DEBT BONDAGE'?
SHOULD
ADULTS BE HELD RESPONSIBLE
FOR BORROWING MONEY FROM BANKS,
FRIENDS, 'TRAFFICKERS' ETC.
TO PAY FOR
WHATEVER IT IS
THEY NEED THE
MONEY FOR? SHALL WE
ARREST THOSE WHO
LOAN YOU MONEY
AND EXPECT TO
BE REPAID-
BECAUSE THEY ARE
EXPLOITING YOU?
BUT IF BANKS AND
GOVERNMENTS (TAXPAYERS)
WHO LOAN YOU
MONEY CANNOT
EXPECT TO BE
REPAID, DO YOU
THINK THEY WILL
CONTINUE TO LOAN
MONEY TO OTHER
STUDENTS WHO WILL
ALSO NOT REPAY
THEIR LOANS?
WHAT
SHOULD WE DO
TO STOP THE
DEBT BONDEDNESS OF
STUDENTS? PROHIBIT STUDENT LOANS
ALTOGETHER? SEND THE COPS OUT TO
ARREST THOSE WHO HAVE STUDENT LOANS
AND TREAT THEM THE WAY WE NOW
TREAT ALLEGED VICTIMS OF HUMAN
TRAFFICKING? IF YOU WILLINGLY
TOOK OUT A LOAN, KNOWING THE
CONSEQUENCES, DOES THAT MAKE YOU A
VICTIM? IS SOMEONE WHO IS WILLING TO
WORK OFF A DEBT SO THEY CAN
IMMIGRATE TO ANOTHER COUNTRY AND
MAKE A BETTER LIFE FOR THEMSELVES A
VICTIM ANYMORE THAN YOU, A STUDENT,
WHO IS WILLING TO BE INDEBTED FOR
DECADES TO MAKE A BETTER LIFE FOR
YOURSELF?
SOMETHING
TO THINK ABOUT- BEFORE YOU JOIN THE
CRUSADE TO RESCUE VICTIMS WHO
HAVE NOT ASKED TO BE RESCUED...
MAYBE YOU ARE A VICTIM YOURSELF?
