Traffick Jamming

May 20, 2010
United Press International

SAN FRANCISCO, May 20 (UPI) -- An advertisement placed in a California newspaper said Craiglist's adult services section is "the choice of traffickers" in sex with underage girls.

The half-page ad, addressed to Craigslist founder Craig Newmark in Wednesday's San Francisco Chronicle, calls for Craigslist to discontinue its adult services section, which generated $36 million in revenues this year, and included the experiences of two teenage girls who said they were forced into prostitution via Craigslist, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Thursday.

Continue reading ""Craigslist is Trafficking Women" open appeal to Craig" »

Posted by Melissa Farley at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

by Nekome, a survivor of prostitution
February 2010

They say prostitution is a choice? How did I choose prostitution? I didn’t choose prostitution, it chose me. Just as child sexual assault and neglect had chose me. I was not a willing participant, but lured into a life I saw as my only option. The words choose means to select from a number of possibilities; pick by preference. Choose is a term loosely used when referring to woman in prostitution, most of the time poverty ignorance or pimps lure women into prostitution by selling them dreams. Most of the times a lifetime of poverty play a role in the choice.

My story is about a childhood cut short, quickly interrupted with sex, drugs, neglect and mental abuse. Some people inherit money, ethics, values or property from their family. I inherited generations of ignorance. My grandmother and mother were uneducated, neglected and abused. Early on the torch was passed down to me. My story is about a child who knew before she could reach the tall shelf in the kitchen, that my greatest asset was my body.

Continue reading "How Prostitution Chose Me" »

Posted by Melissa Farley at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

This is an extremely helpful guide available in Spanish and English from Women's Justice Center, Santa Rosa, California.

A Guide for Mothers, Grandmothers, and Others, for Helping a Girl Caught in Prostitution or Sex Trafficking. download manual

Guía dirigida a madres, abuelas y otras personas para ayudar a jóvenes atrapadas en la prostitución o la trata. download manual

Posted by mel at 01:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Let’s clear up a misunderstanding. Men do not go to strip clubs and use prostituted women so that they can have sexual pleasure. All you have to do is turn on the television to know the truth. The often repeated scenario on television goes like this: man is angry with girlfriend or wife, and in response he goes out with the guys to use a woman in prostitution. It makes him feel like he is getting even with a woman he is angry at. Men use women in prostitution including strippers to express their anger at women.

Several times a year we hear about serial killers who kill large numbers of prostituted women, but they are not found until they kill a non-prostituting woman. That’s because the murder of women who are prostituting is still a low priority for law enforcement, just as the prosecution of Johns is a low priority. It is law enforcement’s failure when they fail to recognize women in prostitution as humans or the men who victimize them as predators. If law enforcement understood the real reason men used women in prostitution, they might be more effective.

In Milwaukee, over a two decade period, 20 women who had prostituted were found strangled. It wasn't until this year that, that police confirmed that a serial killer had been on the loose. The police even had the DNA of the perpetrator, but could not find him until this year. 20 women, human beings, strangled to death, with the perpetrator leaving DNA, and still the police could not find the perpetrator. Let me re-phrase that. 20 women, human beings, strangled to death, with the perpetrator leaving DNA, and the police did not want to find the perpetrator. I know that some police do recognize women in prostitution as human beings, but in this case, it took 20 years for those police officers to appear.

I propose that if Johns were rightfully treated as sexual predators, we would have their DNA, and they would be less likely to get away with numerous sexual crimes without being caught. Law enforcement doesn’t like this idea. Why? Because many in law enforcement use women in prostitution including strippers. They don’t want to have that taken away from them. It is a conspiracy of men. Men continue to protect each other’s “right” to sex from women, even at the cost of women's lives - women who could be their daughters, sisters, mothers and wives.

Did Missing DNA Thwart Hunt For Serial Killer

posted by Jeanette R, blogger for Prostitution Research & Education

Posted by mel at 04:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The president of City College, Gregory H. Williams has asked Elliot Spitzer to teach a course in Law and Public Policy. Meanwhile, Ashley Dupre, a victim of Elliot Spitzer, blogs about how she finds earning a living difficult because she has been unable erase the stain of scandal from her own name. In response, critics of Ms. Dupre post messages like, “You are nothing but a prostitute”.
Elliot Spitzer, you are nothing but a misogynist and shame on City College. The reality is that Ms. Dupre does not have opportunities because she is a woman, not just because she was prostituted. She does not benefit from secret alliances with District Attorneys or College Presidents. If she wants any favors from them, it will have to be in exchange for sex.
Ashley Dupre's Blog
Spitzer's new job

posted by Elisabeth Rainsberger, blogger for Prostitution Research & Education

Posted by mel at 12:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

“Someplace safe,” she said. “Someplace to be a girl. Someplace where I won’t have to have sex with men anymore.”

Article link below

Continue reading "What do girls need to stay out of prostitution?" »

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

Bob Herbert
Behind the Facade
New York Times July 3, 2009
Herbert describes US culture, like Jackson, as extremely immature, grotesquely irresponsible, and as refusing to know the truth of things. Herbert sees a misogynist, pedophiliac U.S. of the 1970's through the 1990s as hidden behind a "spasm of the culture opting for fantasy over reality."

"We don’t want to look under the rock that was Jackson’s real life. As with so many other things, we don’t want to know."

Herbert article here

Check out readers' responses to Herbert's notion that many people insist on fantasy, adamantly refusing to know what is painful, sexist, and racist in the world. here

Excerpts from a few comments are listed below.

Continue reading "US Culture Disconnected from Reality, Obsessed with Adolescence, Michael Jacksonesque" »

Posted by mel at 04:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This story was all over the U.S. press in late June. No one seems to be noting what is obvious.
MAYBE SHE WAS HUNGRY. Why was her name and photo released but her john stays invisible? Why was she fined but the john was not fined? Has anyone noticed that she is one of the people who are most hard-hit by the triple whammy of sex, race, and class in the sex industry? Where are the social justice activists who could speak out in support of her? There's a deafening silence out there.

Woman pleads no contest in chips-for-sex case
Wednesday, June 24, 2009 (Associated Press)

A woman has been fined $1,142 after pleading no contest to prostitution charges after she was accused of accepting a box of chips for sex. Police said they arrested 36-year-old Lahoma Sue Smith in southeast Oklahoma City after finding her in her car with a man who told officers he knew he could find a prostitute in the area.
Smith told officers the man said he didn't have any money so she agreed to accept a $30 case of chips as payment.
The man was not charged and his name hasn't been released.
Information from: The Oklahoman, www.newsok.com
article here

Posted by mel at 10:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

by Jackson Katz

Two excerpts:
One need not argue that boys and men who listen to Eminem will become rapist-murderers in order to maintain that misogynous music and lyrics play an important role in legitimating men's mistreatment of women by making it culturally acceptable and even "cool" for men to express sexist rage against women and then hide behind the pretense that "it's only a joke" if anyone takes it too seriously. That argument has long been discredited when it comes to racism. What's the difference when the oppression in question is sexism, or heterosexism?

In domestic violence advocacy, there is a term used to describe a situation where people contribute to an abusive man's behavior by their conscious actions, by their minimization of his crimes, or by their silence. It is called "colluding with the batterer." It is hard to avoid the conclusion that a society where radio stations continue to play Eminem's records, people continue to buy them, and critics continue to write about them while leaving out any condemnation of their vicious sexism, is a society that is in profound collusion with the batterer.

full article here

Posted by mel at 11:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sydney Morning Herald

June 6, 2009

A Japanese software industry body has decided to ban computer games in which players simulate sexual violence against females, a spokesman said.

The industry move came after a Japanese computer game maker attracted furious protests from US rights campaigners against the game "RapeLay," which lets players simulate stalking and raping young girls.

In the game players earn points for acts of sexual violence, including following girls on commuter trains, raping virgins and their mothers, and then forcing them to have abortions.

US online retailer Amazon in February took RapeLay off its websites, but the game's Yokohama-based maker Illusion brushed off the protests, saying the game was made for the domestic market and abided by laws in Japan.

full article here

Posted by mel at 09:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)