Trafficking/Prostitution

Archive for the ‘prostitution’ Category

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Sex Trafficking Survivors Worldwide Unite, Board to Meet in Washington DC

In Johns/Punters/Purchasers, prostitution, sex work, SexTrade101, Stella Marr, Tina Frundt, Uncategorized on 2012/10/17 at 2:27 am

When there are enough empowered survivors speaking out the sex industry will be dismantled

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sex Trafficking Survivors United  is holding their inaugural board meeting in Washington, DC between October 17-21, 2012.  This historic meeting of some of the most experienced and effective survivor leaders in the Western Hemisphere and Europe will launch an unprecedented collaborative effort among sex trafficking/prostitution survivors worldwide.  Flying into the US capital from Canada, the USA, and Ireland to attend are:

Trisha Baptie, EVE, Educating Voices, Vancouver, BC

Vednita Carter, Breaking Free, Minneapolis, MN

Kristy Childs, Veronica’s Voice, Kansas City, MO and KS

Natasha Falle, http://www.sextrade101.com, Toronto, ON

Tina Frundt, Courtney’s House, Washington, DC

Cherie Jimenez, The EVA Center/Kim’s Project, Boston, MA

Stella Marr, Survivors Connect Network, Houston, TX

Bridget Perrier, http://www.sextrade101.com, Toronto, ON

Christine Stark, acclaimed writer and artist, Minneapolis, MN

For various reasons, most survivors have been working in relative isolation within the anti-trafficking movement.  We believe the time is right for us to join forces as survivor-activists to lend our expertise, our voices, our trauma-focused and empowerment aftercare programs, our stories of transformation, and our passion for social change to the larger work of creating a world free of sex trafficking, which is another word for prostitution.  Making distinctions between sex trafficking and prostitution is harmful and misleading.  It marginalize those that are trapped and suffering.

Our organization will raise funds for survivor-led programs helping women exit prostitution and recover from the extensive trauma.  We will continue educating the public on the reality of sex trafficking/prostitution from those who not only have survived it but are on the front lines with those that are still trapped and still not being recognized as victims.  Additionally, we will urge anti-trafficking organizations to empower survivors by opening doors and funding opportunities, recognizing the expertise that we bring to this movement, and hiring survivor leaders.  Our work will connect survivors, strengthen our voices and put us at the heart of the anti-trafficking movement where we belong.

We’ll also advocate for funds for services to help the victims of trafficking/prostitution and continue to grow our survivors network, while developing a speakers and writers group to help get more survivor voices into the public consciousness.  This combination of raising funds, networking survivors and expanding the voices of survivors will lead to more survivor empowerment, and ultimately more resources to help girls and women exit and recover.

About the International Association of Sex Trafficking/Prostitution Survivors Survivors United

Sex Trafficking Survivors United is a fledgling soon-to-be nonprofit organization dedicated to uniting the energy, efforts and voices of sex trafficking/prostitution survivors everywhere while making their work sustainable so we can end sex trafficking/prostitution in our lifetime.  We believe when empowered survivors that have had extensive time in “the Life” understand their experiences and are speaking the truth, along with those that support survivors, the sex trade will truly begin to be dismantled.

Already with 60 members, 25 of whom are running their own effective nonprofit organizations, our coalition provides more services to victims while educating the public  than any single anti-sex trafficking NGO in the USA and Canada.  Additionally, we operate a private network that provides community and support for survivors.  All members of our organization are abolitionists who agree that to end trafficking/prostitution we must address demand and focus on providing more choices and empowering recovery services for the victims.

Sex Trafficking Survivors United has grown out of Survivors Connect Network.  We hope to take our activism to the next level of empowerment by seeking funding for survivor-led programs that meet our best practices criteria as a coalition and creating a speakers group where we advocate that survivors are paid for speaking engagements so their activism is sustainable.  The network will remain  as important as ever.

EMAIL:  sextraffickingsurvivorsunited@gmail.com

CONTACT:  Stella Marr, 832 368-3899, texts welcome

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52 Trafficking/Prostitution Survivors Vote to Support Irish Survivor Abolitionists’ Efforts

In FreeIrishWoman, prostitution, sex work, trafficking, trauma on 2012/09/11 at 12:34 am

trafficking, sex work, prostitution, sex worker activism, freeirishwoman, ireland, feminism, sex positive feminism, human rights, trauma, healing

Survivors Connect Network, an international coalition of trafficking/prostitution survivors, has voted unanimously to stand with and support the goals of our Irish sister survivor abolitionists.   These amazing women, some of whom are members of Survivors Connect Network,  are working courageously to bring the Nordic model  into Irish law while insisting on meaningful help for women exiting trafficking/prostitution.

An Irish survivor activist explains further:

“In the run-up to the Irish government’s deliberations on the future of prostitution legislation in Ireland, I put out a global appeal to women who’d experienced trafficking/prostitution via Survivor’s Connect Network. I asked that they vote to support our efforts to see the basic principles of the Nordic Model implemented here in Ireland:

1 – The criminalisation of sex-buying.

2 - This law would of course criminalise only the buyers of sex, not the sellers of it, because we believe that no woman should be criminalised for her own exploitation.  and

3 – The pledge of real, practical and workable supports for women exiting prostitution, including education, training, housing, trauma counselling, and specially trained social workers.

“We Irish survivor abolitionists received wholehearted support; in fact many survivors from around the world asked how they might be of any further help or assistance. We were and are sincerely comforted to feel the collective solidarity of survivors of prostitution and trafficking in our struggle.

“To each of the many women who voted to support us, I would say this letter is a thank you, but in fact it is a statement that we cannot thank you enough.

“With strongest solidarity and deepest gratitude,

 

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Ontario’s Prostitution Ruling Misrepresented Evidence and Contravened the Charter & Case Law

In Aboriginal Women's Action Network, Bedford decision, Educating Voices, LaCLES.org, Law, Max Waltman, prostitution, SexTrade101 on 2012/07/21 at 8:12 am

Max Waltman, bedford case, terri jean bedford, misrepresented evidence

Max Waltman, a legal scholar who has been published in the New York Times, has concluded that the ruling in the Bedford case misrepresented evidence, while contravening case law and the charter.  Michelle Brock discusses his breakthrough paper at Hope for the Sold.  Here’s an excerpt:

A paper concludes thatBedford v. Canada erroneously rewrote the law against “living on the avails of prostitution” on basis of misrepresented as well as faulty evidence, and contravenes prior Supreme Court cases and the Charter by making prostituted persons more vulnerable to exploitation.

To date, living “on the avails of prostitution of another person” has been illegal in Canada. That law was challenged in the Court of Appeal for Ontario in Bedford v. Canada on March 26, 2012. The court essentially found that the law prevented prostituted persons to benefit from third parties such as brothel management, escort agencies, bodyguards, or drivers — all whom were perceived as able to enhance the safety and well-being of prostituted persons. Hence, the avails provision was rewritten by the court, stating that it “applies only to those” who live on the avails “’in circumstances of exploitation.’”

Now, a recent working paper from Stockholm University penned by Max Waltman, a PhD Candidate at their Department of Political Science, concludes that the Court of Appeal for Ontario erroneously rewrote the law against “living on the avails of prostitution” on basis of misrepresented as well as faulty evidence, and as a result made prostituted persons more vulnerable to exploitation. The paper highlights how the Bedford ruling contravenes previous Supreme Court cases on prostitution, and is inconsistent with equality guarantees under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Waltman suggests a different decision based on the notion of equality under the Charter’s case law, which would effectively endorse the Swedish prostitution law in Canada that criminalizes purchasers and pimps, and decriminalizes prostituted persons. The case will now head to the Supreme Court. (If you are new to the Bedford ruling, and want to get caught up on the basics, you can read a clear description of the decision here.)

Download Waltman’s ground-breaking paper here

Read  the rest of the article about this breakthrough legal scholarship at www.HopefortheSold.com

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Learning how to be Human

In prostitution, Rebecca Mott, trafficking, trauma on 2012/07/05 at 9:32 pm
rebecca mott, survivors connect network, human trafficking, prostitution, sex work, sexual slavery, ptsd, trauma, dehumanization, dissociation, torture

But there was a part of me … that was reaching for another life – that found it loved Phillip K Dick. I found his universe made sense of my prostituted soul.

Another brave, honest post from extraordinary survivor writer Rebecca Mott.  Here’s an excerpt:

I, like most exited women who were in the sex trade long-term – I am slowly finding what it is to be human.

When exited women speak of trauma – they speak of be utterly lost to how humans communicate, lost to the simple routines of being human, lost to be outside the role of appearing human.

It is trauma that is embedded in us – and we have learnt to be like a human, but only as androids are in a Phillip K Dick short story.

I learnt to be human by copying.

It is why I love films, it is why I read fiction, it is why I love to be in a crowd – it is why I am watcher.

I can repeat the actions of what I think it must be to be human – but more often than not, I do so without emotion or able to stop the emptiness inside in me.

I have no idea what it is to be unique – for by copying and being the role that pleases, I have no idea if I am any more than an empty shell.

With the logical side of my brain, I know I am more than a copy, more than a role – but there is always the constant fear that I still am nothing but what makes others feel makes me human.

Many years ago I read or had read to me by a punter –  ”Do Androids Dream of Sheep”.

At the time, it was the beginning of a small voice saying you are more than a role.

Read the rest of this powerful piece at Rebecca’s blog www.rmott62.wordpress.com.

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How Survivors Give Each Other Hope

In Alexis at Spilled Perfume, prostitution, sex work, trafficking, trauma on 2012/07/05 at 5:40 am

Alexis, who blogs at Spilled Perfume, just posted a beautiful piece about how survivors encourage each other, about her realization that she wants to devote her life to helping people exit prostitution, and about her new book, which will soon be available on Amazon.com — Hooray!!  Here’s an excerpt:

On Thursday night last week, I made a big decision: I will give myself and my life fully, 100% to helping people escape prostitution, and helping survivors recover.  This decision has been four years in the making.  I think it is good idea that God gave me this desire years before I was ready; this allowed me to ponder it intensely and get prepared.  My wounds were too fresh before so it was not really an option for me to help other victims (not to mention that I had no courage whatsoever), but it seems that the timing is right somehow.

I often feel that I’m not in the driver’s seat of my own car.  My life is so random and unpredictable.  So check out these VERY CRAZY THINGS which have been going on in the past eight days.

First of all, I met a survivor of child sex trafficking just 24 hours after my car accident which should have killed me.  I’ve never had the courage to find out about how to apply for positions working with sex-trafficked survivors, but by the time I read his story (which took me and hour and a half) I was completely resolved.  This is the reason I did not die last Monday.  This is the reason I’m alive.  Again, I’ve known this for four years, but I did not have the courage or the resolve until Thursday night.

Second, I’m realizing that this decision I made will have its rewards and joys but it will also have its challenges and tough times.  I cannot express the joy I feel from hearing my new friend – who was trafficked as a little boy from age 6 until age 10 – asking me, “How did you get to where you are today?  I’m having trouble in my recovery.  I don’t know if it’s possible to recover.  I don’t feel that I deserve to recover.”  This is a flicker of hope, a flicker of life inside someone who is somehow still alive against all logic and all reason.  He wants to recover.  He’s not sure how, but if there is any flicker of hope out there he wants to grab hold of it.

So this is an exciting thing about being involved in the lives of survivors!

Read the rest of this beautiful post at www.ragamuffinalexis.wordpress.com.

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Beautiful new survivor-led center opens in Miami

In prostitution, sex work, trafficking, trauma on 2012/06/27 at 11:45 pm

Be sure to watch the video here.  This survivor-led center for trafficking victims is beautiful.  Your eyes will fill with tears of hope:

Here’s an excerpt from the news story:

Anew facility in Miami for victims of (trafficking) crimes aims to empower victims to change their lives.

The images at the Life of Freedom Center in Miami are stark, disturbing and powerful. For instance there are quotes from victims about abuse, visual representations of what victims endure and statistics about sexual exploitation and human trafficking that will shock you.

lisa dugan, freedom, trafficking, survivor, miami, survivors connect, sexwork, prostitution, ptsd, torture, coercion, crime victim, violence against women

At the Center’s opening Tuesday victim Lisa Dugan shared her gripping story of meeting a man who forced her into a life of prostitution, violence and drugs.

Read the rest of the article here.

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Pimps Posing as “Sex Worker Activists” & Conflicts of Interest

In prostitution, rants, sex work, Stella Marr on 2012/05/24 at 3:58 am

stella marr, pimps, posing, swop usa, coyote, pony, international union of sex workers, robyn few, maxine doogan, norma jean almodovar, conflict of interest, fruit of the poisonous tree, survivors connect network

I wrote this piece on the widespread problem of  (usually white)  female and male pimps posing as ‘sex worker activists’ for the Survivors’ View Blog:

Well meaning people think most “sex workers activist” organizations/unions speak for women in prostitution. They are mistaken. A shocking number of these “sex worker” organizations were started by women and men who are admitted pimps and madams, or have been convicted of pimping, pandering, or conspiracy to promote prostitution. These people call themselves ‘sex workers’ but it’s a ruse. This is a huge conflict of interest. These organizations and their ‘partners’ and affiliates cannot be allowed to speak for women in prostitution or collect funds on their behalf. Any NGO, university, college of nonprofit organization that engages with these pimp-affiliated organizations or their partners is tainted by association. These organizations benefit the predators who profit off of sexual exploitation; they don’t help women in prostitution.

A pimp is someone who makes money from another’s prostitution. A madam is a female pimp. Whether they call themselves managers, brothel owners, escort agency owners — they are all pimps. As a survivor of ten years of trafficking/prostitution, I have a right to use this word. If someone poisons another in cold blood, it doesn’t matter if they call themselves a life extinguisher or claim they’re an innovative longevity re-allocation businesswoman. They’re still a murderer. A pimp is still a pimp, no matter what name they peddle.

But pimps don’t like that word. So these founders and leaders of ‘sex worker activist’ organizations say they’re sex workers. They appropriate the identity of those they exploit. It’s a bit like a plantation owner in blackface pretending to be one of the slaves they oppress. They’re trying to steal our survivor voices.

Douglas Fox, the main ‘activist’ at the International Union of Sex Workers, claims to be a male sex worker. But he and his partner John Dottery were featured as the owners of a large UK escort agency in the British documentary ‘The Escort Agency.’ On a website he co-edits Fox states his partner owns an escort agency and argues ridiculously that pimps are ‘sex workers.’ He also states ” The fact that paedophiles produce and distribute and earn money from selling sex may make them sex workers.”

The first so-called ‘sex worker activist’ group in the United States was Whores, Housewives and Others (WHO) which eventually became COYOTE. It was founded by Margo St. James, who like Douglas Fox claimed to be a prostitute when she was actually a pimp. She’s admitted to being convicted of running a disorderly house – a brothel – in 1962.

The Sex Workers’ Outreach Project USA (SWOP USA) was founded by Robyn Few the year after she was convicted of conspiracy to promote interstate prostitution. This means that like St. James, Few was also a madam, a female pimp. As a survivor of ten years of prostitution myself, I would never feel safe around a madam. Most women in prostitution wouldn’t. Such an organization can’t speak for us. Few calls herself a ‘sex worker’ most of the time so the conflict of interest isn’t obvious. But the SWOP website makes a point of acknowledging her conviction for promoting interstate prostitution. Why? Because pimps across the country are using SWOP to connect with Johns while they recruit vulnerable young women. This isn’t activism, it’s marketing while lobbying for pimp interests.

SWOP USA isn’t the only ‘sex worker activist’ organization founded by a female pimp. The Erotic Service Providers Union is led by Maxine Doogan who was convicted of running an escort service. Like Robyn Few, Maxine Doogan poses as a ‘sex worker. She claims that legislation which helps pimps is good for women in prostitution. Terri Jean Bedford, who was widely represented in the Canadian media as an advocate of women in prostitution, was convicted of running a brothel. So she’s also a pimp.

Executive Director of COYOTE/ Los Angeles Norma Jean Almodovar was convicted of pandering while she was working as a cop. As such she is part of a long tradition of police officers involved in the prostitution of other women. It’s an unholy alliance that sends women in prostitution the message they can’t get out and they can’t get help. Like Robyn Few, Norma Jean Almodovar calls herself a ‘sex worker,’ but details the pandering conviction on her nonprofit organization website.

Now when a survivor of trafficking/prostitution such as myself happens to bring up this conflict of interest, the pimping parties in question react as if viciously attacked. But there’s nothing personal about saying someone has a conflict of interest. It’s a statement of existing conditions not a vendetta. The majority stockholders of Walmart can’t speak for the company’s minimum wage employees because what benefits those stakeholders may be bad for the workers. But in the ‘sex worker activist’ movement, pimps pretend to be workers when in fact they are management — the ones in control.

No wonder SWOP -USA, COYOTE, The Erotic Services Providers’ Union, the International Union of Sex Workers as well as their partners and affiliates which include the Desiree Alliance, the Red Umbrella Project, and Prostitutes of New York (PONY) support policies that protect pimps rather than women in prostitution. PONY actually claims to “reach out” to Madam members.

We trafficking/prostitution survivors have had enough. We’re going to start calling out the NGOS, universities, and academics who tacitly support and encourage these pimp-led groups. The concept of fruit of the poisonous tree applies here. Any organization that partners or collaborates with these groups is tainted by association They can’t speak for us or collect funds on our behalf.

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An Ex-Hooker’s Letter to her Younger Self

In prostitution, sex work, Stella Marr, trafficking on 2012/05/18 at 9:34 pm

Stella Marr, ex-hooker, letter to younger self, prostitution, human trafficking, feminism, women,

Dear twenty-year old Stella,

Work hard on learning to ask for help.  It’s the only way you’ll ever  break free.  No one ever does anything alone.  You don’t have to.

You’ll learn how to make the men happy.  The happier they are the nicer they treat you.  You’ll get very good at being a hooker.  But when the Johns say “baby you were born for this” that doesn’t mean its true.

Now when most men come near you  feel a stabbing at your eyes, your throat, and your gut that you know isn’t real.  You don’t want to admit it but you’re terrified.  You start, you tremble.  Your hands shake.  Think about it, you’re being stabbed a lot these days.  This is a quite reasonable reaction to being used by man after man, day after day, in this prison of a brothel.  It doesn’t mean you are so miserably flawed that you can’t do anything but be a hooker.

Being a hooker doesn’t make you subhuman.  It’s not OK for your (white) pimps to smack you and tell you they’ll kill you.

You have to work up the nerve to pay a cashier for a soda.  You’re too scared to ask that guy behind the deli counter to make you a sandwich.   This isn’t weakness, it’s biology.  Trauma changes your brain.    Your hippocampus, where you form narrative memory in the brain, shrinks.  This is a symptom of PTSD –  a neurophysiologic response to repetitive trauma –not evidence that you deserve to be in prostitution.

In the middle of the winter in the middle of the night when that guy in theDoubletree suite invites you to sit while he pours you a seltzer trust your gut and back out of there before the five guys you can’t see who are waiting in the bedroom have a chance to get between you and the door.

Being vulnerable means you’re alive.   There’s no shame in it.  It doesn’t mean you’re a terrible person.  You don’t have to apologize for doing what you must to survive.

When Samantha tries to stop working for your pimp Johnny.  make her get out of the city.  Otherwise two weeks later Nicole, the madam who works with Johnny,  will show you Samantha’s diamond initial ring and tell you Johnny murdered her.  Though you’ll always hope she was lying, you doubt it.

You’ve lost all sense of the linear — time  disappeared and you felt it leave.  Now you’re living in the immediate and eternity.  It’s scary and bewildering, but you need this — you need each moment to stretch infinitely so that you can be acutely aware of each man’s tiny movements and shifts in expression,  which can reveal a threat before it happens.  This hyperawareness will save your life.  One day you’ll see this being untethered from time as a kind of grace.

When that shiny classical pianist you meet at Au Bon Pain says he wants to know everything about you don’t believe him.

A lot of what’s happening doesn’t make sense now but it will later.  That habit you have of writing poems in your mind to the beloved you haven’t met yet as you’re riding in cabs to calls?  There’s something to it.

Your ability to perceive beauty is part of your resilience and survival.  When a man is on top of you watch the wind-swirled leaves out his window.  Seize the gusty joy you feel as you run three blocks to a bodega to buy condoms between calls at 3 AM.  When you think for a minute you see that friend,  who’s death you never got over,  standing in the brassy light under a weeping linden, be grateful.  All this has a purpose.

Being a hooker can seem to mean you’ve lost everything you hoped to be, but that’s not true.  You’ve splintered into a million pieces, but you’re still you. You’re alive.    It’s in the spaces between those pieces where you learn to feel how other people are feeling.  It hurts so much you’re sure it’ll kill you, but it won’t.  Later when you’re out of the life it’ll be so easy to be happy.  The mundane will buoy you.

When your madam sends you to the Parker Meridien at 3 AM and you meet a British professor who says he wants to help you, believe him.  He will set you up in a beautiful condominium across from Lincoln Center that he deeds in your name.  Of course you’ll have everything to do with this — you are so “good” at being a hooker, so “good” at fucking that you can make a guy want to buy you acondo.  Shame is a hollow stone in the throat.

During the two years that this voracious man ‘keeps’ you as his private prostitute the condo will come to feel like a platinum trap.  But it’s still your chance to get out and heal. Take it.

After you’ve sold the condominium and are living in a graduate dorm atColumbia University, a man with eyes like blue shattered glass will sit beside you in the cafeteria.  When he begins to speak you know he’s the unmet beloved you’ve been writing poems to all these years.  You’ll try to run away, but he won’t let you.  Fourteen years later the two of you will be hiking through pink granite outcroppings with your Labrador retriever.  You’ll  feel like the freest woman in the world.

One afternoon when you’re twenty-one you’ll be at the Museum of Metropolitan of Art with your best friend Gabriel, who’s a hustler, a male prostitute.  When he says you ‘remind him of his death’, don’t lash back.  Even though he told you the doctor said he didn’t have that rare new virus named AIDS, it would behoove you to realize he’s still coughing.

Stop thinking about your own hurt.  Don’t lash back with that vicious phrase your mother’s said to you so many times  –” I hope you die a slow death.”  Don’t tell Gabriel  you never want to see him again and storm out of the  sculpture gallery.   Or it will be the last time you see him.  Gabriel will die of AIDS five months later.  When he said you reminded him of ‘his own death’ he was trying to tell you he was dying.   You’ll regret what you said for the rest of your life.  But even more you’ll regret running away from his friendship.

Say forgive me.

Say I love you.

Stay connected.

Love,

Stella

This is a tribute to Cheryl Strayed‘s transcendent letter to her younger self.  Her letter’s form gave me a pitcher that I filled with my life.  A big shout out toDublin Call Girl who’s thank you letter to punters is already a classic.  Re that phrase my mom used to say to me, “I hope you die a slow death.”  I’m sure she used to hear it from her dad.

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When Survivors Speak Out, Online Pimps and Johns/Punters Attack

In Dublin Call Girl, prostitution, sex work, trafficking on 2012/05/10 at 5:32 am

dublin call girl, survivors connect network, stalking, harassment, sex industry, sex work, prostitution, blogging, interactivity, pain, trauma, ptsd

Dublin Call Girl writes  about the toll of online stalking and hate.  Sex industry pimps’ and buyers’ viciousness online makes it tough for prostitution/trafficking survivors to speak out.  Here’s an excerpt:

I’m not stopping this because of the ridiculous amount of anonymous internet punter abuse I have received. I’m not stopping it because they hurt me, or scared me (like the threats to ‘out me’, heh), or anything else. They did do those things, but I’m perfectly capable of not letting some dick or dick-ess control my actions or how I feel about myself. I’m becoming okay with myself. I kind of like myself. So there.

But you know what, it is shit. It’s horrible to read such vile and personalised things. You practically spill your entire heart out and you get some dickhead punter getting off on hurting me, or scaring me, or upsetting me. I have to read them before I delete them you see. If someone is particularly unpleasant repeatedly I can ban them and they just end up in spam and then self delete, but I’d really prefer to just have let it all out so you could see all of it. Punters and others that used to be in my life are not going to be fully out of my life while I’m still online as this person that I was. I know it’s ‘me’ but it’s a certain part of ‘me’ that I’m supposed to be getting away from. The internet is the problem here, the anonymity, the speed of it, the paranoia and the interactivity.

I’m stopping writing this because it’s just too interactive. My heart would break to stop people from sharing whatever they want to say to me about their own experiences, so I didn’t want to just take off commenting entirely, but then it’s still too interactive. The interactivity of it is creating another weird secret world again, and I’m trying not to have a secret world. I am communicating with people here all the time, but it’s secret communication to the rest of my world.  I am talking about issues about prostitution constantly. It’s in my head constantly. People who have been involved or are involved in the industry are also leaving messages. I always respond to them, I have time for everyone. My therapist says that it and the stuff I went through previous to it, is all consuming. And it is. Because I’m finally dealing with it. Writing this definitely helped get things out and get them out exactly how I wanted them to be out, but I think it’s over now. I’m always thinking about if a punter has left a stupid comment, or if any of my escort names have been discovered, or what I’ll write about next, and if I should delete that last one because it was too much emotional exposure etc. I did not realise at all how popular it would get. I had no idea. I was completely shocked by it. For nearly the whole month of February it got 1000 views a day. It freaked me out and amazed me at the same time. What is also amazing about it is how far it has travelled around the world. My favourite feminist blogger, Nine Deuce, likes it :) . Discovering that was a very proud moment.

Read more at Dublin Call Girl’s blog

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Survivors Must Lead the Anti-Trafficking Movement

In prostitution, sex work, Stella Marr, trauma on 2012/05/09 at 4:41 am
survivors connect network, stella marr, human trafficking, exploitation, feminism, sex work, sex positive, recovery, ptsd, trauma, women, demand abolition, swanee hunt

All for one and one for all

Survivors Connect Network, an international online network of trafficking/prostitution survivors, now has 44 members from seven different countries. It’s been recognized that the absence of survivor leaders in most major anti-trafficking NGOs has created a void. Survivor knowledge and insight is essential. With survivor leadership the movement’s success would be inevitable.   Demand Abolition recently set an example by inviting seven survivors to participate in their Arresting Demand colloquium May 3rd and 4th in Boston. We are extraordinarily grateful.

An exciting example of collaboration among survivor groups involves the Bedford case. Sister survivors in the Aboriginal Women’s Action Network, Educating Voices, LaCLES, and SexTrade101 have been valiantly educating the public about the harms of the Bedford ruling — which upholds the criminalization of prostitutes on the street — who are almost always crime victims- while it empowers and legitimizes their predators, the male and female pimps who own brothels and escort services.

So we survivors recently voted to issue a statement against the Bedford decision. Dozens of us joining our voices in political action is a big deal. Here’s the statement:

We the members of Survivors Connect Network stand with the women of the Aboriginal Women’s Action Network, SexTrade101, La Concertation des Luttes Contre L’Exploitation Sexuelle (CLES), and Educating Voices. We are sad and shocked by the Bedford ruling. It’s especially troubling that this decision upholds the criminalization of prostitutes selling sex on the street, as these women are almost always traumatized crime victims who need support not arrest. Meanwhile the ruling empowers the male and female pimps who terrorize and exploit women in prostitution by making it legal to own brothels or escort services.

Researchers have found the women in prostitution suffer from the same levels of trauma symptoms as the victims of state-sponsored torture. It forever changes how we face the world. After going through trafficking/prostitution everything you do is an act of will — you must summon and form a new self from your fragments. And yet as the survivors of torture or trafficking/prostitution rebuild our selves and find our voice, we can develop extraordinary abilities to connect with, inspire, and understand others.

Nelson Mandela exemplifies this type of rebirth. Most everyone understands that Mandela’s experiencesof being held 27 years in a prison infamous for torture make him unique. When he was finally released few denied the vast injustice done to him. No one expected him to act like everyone else. Instead South Africa and the world stepped back, and waited to see how this extraordinary man would transform the terrible wrongs he’d been through — they gave him a chance to bring something new into being.

As more trafficking/prostitution survivors speak out, the public will recognize we’re people society has wronged. They’ll understand we’ve been changed by the pain and harshness we’ve experienced. At present public denial of the sex industry’s violence and prostitute-blaming forces many of us into hiding. But as more survivors lead, we’ll be empowered to bring something new and beautiful into being.

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