Traffick Jamming

Don't miss this article by R.F. Blader at Counterpunch.

click here

Posted by mel at 08:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Zero tolerance for johns
By Birgitta Ohlsson and Jenny Sonesson, Stockholm
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/19/opinion/edsonesson.php

We have a suggestion for the new governor of New York, David Paterson. Why not enact a statewide zero-tolerance law for buying sexual services?

When Rudolph Giuliani was elected mayor in 1994, New York City was considered one of the most dangerous urban areas in the world. He introduced a policy of zero tolerance against crime and today low crime rates are a city trademark. As a hard-core crime buster, former Governor Eliot Spitzer earned the nickname "Mr. Clean." Today, he is notorious for spending large sums of money on prostitutes.

Spitzer may have fought fiercely against organized crime, but organized crime, human trafficking and prostitution are closely linked.

In our country, Sweden, Mr. Clean would be facing six months in jail for buying sexual services. While soliciting sex is not a crime in Sweden, it is has been illegal to pay for sex here since 1999. With its focus on demand rather than supply, the Swedish law is unique.

If New York, one of the world's greatest cities, could be inspired by the Swedish legislation, it would be a severe blow to the modern slave trade. The Swedish police support the law because they have seen the results. Human traffickers tend to avoid Sweden because it's hazardous to do business here. The law has also made customers more cautious. Sweden's National Criminal Investigation Department concludes that the law is a barrier against the establishment of organized cross-border prostitution rings.
The Department has called for raising the maximum sentence from six months to one year.

We don't deny that there are prostitutes who are satisfied with their choice of profession. Perhaps the escort who worked for Emperor Club VIP, called Kristen in the media, wants to be viewed as a proud entrepreneur. But satisfied sex workers constitute a sliver in the dire world of prostitution. Most people caught in the business of selling their bodies are poor and traumatized youths. The gap between the demand for sexual services and women who voluntarily want to sell their bodies results in forced prostitution at the hands of organized crime. Few real-world prostitutes live the life of the Julia Roberts character in the popular Hollywood love story "Pretty Woman."

We know what happens when society signals that prostitution is acceptable. Demand increases. The Australian state of Victoria legalized prostitution in 1984. Prior to legalization there were 40 brothels in the state, according to the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women. By 2004 there were more than 100 legal brothels, but the number of illegal ones had grown even more. A growing sex industry is a lucrative business that attracts criminals. Few Australian women want to work in the sex trade. Consequently the jobs are filled by migrants, often without work permits.

In Europe we see the same pattern. Germany legalized prostitution a few years back. Brothels in Amsterdam's notorious red light district have been legal since 2000. Few German or Dutch girls plan on making a career selling their bodies to strangers. On the other hand, many poor girls from countries such as Moldova and Ukraine are lured to Berlin and Amsterdam on false promises. According to the European Union's Police Agency, Europol, traffickers prefer business in countries with a well-developed sex industry. The reason is simple: low risk and high profit.

Sweden and New York could work together toward creating civilized societies in which the human body is not a commodity. Consider zero tolerance for buying sex services in New York, David Paterson. Without demand there is no supply.

Birgitta Ohlsson is a member of the Swedish Parliament for the Liberal Party. Jenny Sonesson is secretary general of Liberal Women of Sweden.

Posted by mel at 09:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A post about a woman who'd been brutally assaulted as part of a production at kink.com in San Francisco appeared on Luke Ford's blog www.lukeisback.com on January 10, 2008. There were 18 responses, including my own. After 5 days, the thread was removed from his site. I have reason to believe that this account is substantially true. What is really going on at kink.com? What can we do about it?
Melissa Farley

Continue reading "Report of assault at kink.com
a San Francisco torture pornography production company" »

Posted by mel at 08:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Continue the conversation here...

Posted by admin at 02:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (30)

kink.com is a torture pornography production company. In January 2007 kink.com purchased a large building in San Francisco, in the Mission District, a community that is in need of affordable housing, that has many at-risk youth, and that for many years has been identified as the Latino heart of San Francisco. In February 2007, the Mission Armory Community Collective demonstrated against kink.com's use of a large and valuable piece of San Francisco real estate - for torture pornography production. Instead of using the block-long building for torture pornography, the Mission Armory Community Collective has proposed that we use of the Mission Armory for affordable housing, a community center, and a space for community nonprofits.

Torture and humiliation are commonplace in pornography. Kink.com is where women and some men are filmed for pornography named Men in Pain, Wired Pussy, Hogtied, Water Bondage, Ultimate Surrender, Fucking Machines, Sex and Submission, and Whipped Ass. Pornography like that on kink.com is real action taken against real women. Observing the making of torture pornography at kink.com, author Stephen Elliott commented: " This is not fake. Satine and Donna are truly in role. Satine is feeling submissive and Donna is definitely on top. Donna is hurting Satine; Satine is being hurt."
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2007/02/07/kink/

kink.com advertises filmed prostitution. Prostitution is advertised online on sites like kink.com where it is indistinguishable from pornography. Pornography is a specific type of prostitution, in which prostitution occurs and, among other things, is documented. The women whose prostitution appears in pornography are prostituted women. The Internet is one way that women are trafficked into prostitution.

Another reader of Elliott's Salon.com article said the site was reminiscent of African women's genital mutilation. Why is there such a great silence regarding the torture of women in prostitution during the making of pornography? Here in San Francisco some embrace torture pornography as hip, sexy, liberal. Lots of folks are afraid to criticize pornography for fear of being labelled fundamentalist, antisex, or homophobic. "Yet when we criticize McDonald's for its unhealthy food, environmentally destructive business practices, and targeting of children through manipulative advertising, does anyone ask whether we are "anti-food"? Of course not, because no one conflates McDonald's with food; we recognize that there are many ways to prepare food, and it's appropriate to critique the more toxic varieties. The same holds for pornography; pursuing a healthy sexuality does not mean we have to support toxic pornography." Bob Jensen and Gail Dines http://www.alternet.org/story/47677

The existence of state-sponsored torture is decried by social critics on the Left, yet the identical treatment of women in prostitution is ignored by those same analysts. Many view torture by the United States of prisoners at Abu Ghraib with shock and horror, yet at the same time consider the identical acts perpetrated (and photographed) against prostituted women to be sexual entertainment. Condemning the Bush administration’s tolerance for torture in the war on terror, one journalist noted the “gleeful sadism” of guards at Abu Ghraib. Yet political pundits maintain silence regarding the same gleeful sadism of men toward women and gay men like that seen at kink.com.

Specific acts commonly perpetrated against women in prostitution and pornography are the same as the acts defining what torture is according to international conventions: verbal sexual harassment, unwanted sex acts, sexual mocking, physical sexual harassment such as groping.

Continue reading "KINK.COM in SAN FRANCISCO: Women and Gay Men's Abu Ghraib" »

Posted by mel at 02:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (63)

Maggie Hays in Glasgow has put up a new website. Check it out!
Go to www.againstpornography.org

It's great to have this new site up, especially considering that Myspace just kicked 29,000 registered sex offenders off their site.
Go to www.foxnews.com

Don't you wonder how many UNregistered sex predators are still hanging out at Myspace?

Posted by mel at 04:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Go to click here

This site is a sweet firecrackerish 4th of July present. Here's to freedom from pornography and prostitution.

This site really DOES have 101 great, creative, fun, subversive action plans.
Here are the first 10 out of 101:

1. Don’t buy or use pornography or have any form of it in your house.

2. Don’t support companies that sell pornography. (I.e. Video stores that sell it, or hotels that rent or sell it. Porn-free hotels are listed at CleanHotels.com.

3. Don’t allow your partner, children, or anyone in your house to use pornography. If your partner won’t stop using pornography and it is clear they have no intention of doing so, end the relationship. (See information regarding children at the end of this list.)

4. If your partner is willing to consider ceasing to use pornography but is having difficulty doing so, and you want to salvage the relationship, insist that they get professional help. They must understand how it harms them, you, your relationship, and women. Make it clear why they need to stop and that they must do so or you will end the relationship.

5. To help ensure that a partner does not use pornography, or that they are held accountable if they do, you can use Internet filters such as the ones listed at TopTenReviews.com, and/or accountability software such as X3. If the professional help, an Internet filter, and/or accountability software doesn’t result in your partner ceasing to use pornography in a reasonable amount of time, then end the relationship.

6. If you are dating, bring up the issue of pornography early on and make it clear that you won’t tolerate a partner using it and why.

7. Don’t allow others around you to joke about pornography. Call them on it and make it clear the harms of pornography are no joke, and it’s not OK with you for them to make light of them.

8. Take the NoPornPledge, let others know about it, and encourage them to take the pledge themselves.

9. Encourage strict enforcement of rules concerning access or use of pornography in your work environment, or propose and get guidelines implemented if none exist. Solutions for filtering and monitoring pornography in business environments are available from ContentWatch.com.

10. Educate yourself about pornography so you can better educate others about its harms, and more effectively take action against those harms. (See educational resources and links throughout this list and at the bottom of it.)

Posted by mel at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

CASE LYDIA CACHO-MARIO MARIN

Justice for the abused children of Mexico!

Please contact Jorge Zepeda at zepeda@diasiete.com to sign a statement of support for Lydia Cacho and to protest the lack of Mexican criminal justice system protection for citizens who report filmed sexual abuse of children.

Continue reading "Journalist Lydia Cacho and Mexican (in)justice" »

Posted by mel at 02:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The government of Bangladesh has unlawfully detained Sigma Huda who is currently United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Aspects of the Victims of Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. The military-backed government of Balgladesh has restrained UN Special Rapporteur Huda from leaving Bangladesh, has arrested her husband, tortured her brother-in-law, and harassed her daughter.

Prostitution Research & Education joins with UN Watch click here and The Institute for Religion and Public Policy, the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women click here and other groups to demand her immediate release.

Ms. Huda has noted that it is essential for governments to acknowledge the role of men's demand for prostituted women in addressing trafficking. (United Nations, Commission on Human Rights, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Aspects of the Victims of Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, 9 U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/2006/62, Feb. 20, 2006. Sigma Huda is a powerful voice for women's human rights.

Continue reading "Sigma Huda, UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons" »

Posted by mel at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation
http://www.caase.org/

1. Work to help women gain supportive housing and jobs that pay a living wage

2. Advocate for shelters and clinics equipped and staffed to offer medical and psychological treatment for women

3. Educate young girls and boys on the harms of prostitution and how to avoid becoming a victim of sexual exploitation

4. Challenge society’s sexist views of women. Fight against pornography and other forms of media that continue to objectify women

5. Change language- stop using words such as “pimp”, “ho” and “whore” and challenge your friends when they use similar language

6. Support legislation aimed at stopping sexual exploitation and expanding options for prostituted individuals

7. Make sure the needs of sexually exploited individuals are being addressed in the domestic violence community, the sexual assault community, among homeless rights advocates and among individuals working to fight substance addiction

8. Pressure local CAPS and police enforcement to go after those purchasing sex instead of those selling it

9. Hold media and financial institutions accountable in regards to the ads they run that promote prostitution

10. Raise public awareness! Host book clubs, film screenings and art projects to raise awareness about the issue. Also join in local awareness raising initiatives such as the upcoming Rescue and Restore campaign.

Posted by mel at 09:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)