British National Party members outside of Liverpool Crown Court as 9 gang members sentenced for child exploitation.

Prostitution around the world is linked to organized crime. In Las Vegas massage parlors, pay day loan stores, and escort agency prostitution are known to be run by organized criminals. Across the United States, massage parlors are destination points for trafficking victims. In locations with decriminalized or legalized prostitution (e.g. New Zealand, the Netherlands and Australia) legal pimps partner with organized crime to increase their profits.

Julie Bindel's article highlights the relationship between prostitution and organized crime--and the way in which gangs select, manipulate and groom victims for sexual exploitation. She notes the societal complacency about organized sexual exploitation, which is increasingly problematic as we look at the increase of organized crime in areas in which prostitution is legal.

Bindel suggests that we listen to survivors in order to further understand organized crime--how gangs operate, where they prostitute victims, and what happens to the money they make--in order to better protect victims and secure convictions against perpetrators.

Click here to read Julie Bindel's article

Link to Nickels

Sunday October 24th 2:00pm
The Women's Building Audre Lorde Room, 2nd Floor
3543 18th Street San Francisco, CA 94110
$5-$10

Barry previously wrote Female Sexual Slavery, Prostitution of Sexuality: Global Exploitation of Women, Susan B. Anthony: A Biography of a Singular Feminist, Vietnamese Women in Transition

"How can we end war if we don't understand the makings of war? Kathleen Barry's Unmaking War, Remaking Men is a remarkable blend of history, current war-making and soul-searching that unravels the very structures of war. Her fascinating questions--ranging from "Why don't the Geneva Conventions protect the rights of combatants?" to "Why are women in the peaceful nation of Costa Rica subjected to outrageous levels of masculine violence?"--lead to her analysis that the unmaking of war requires the rehumanization of men. Read it, get energized and join us in Barry's ultimate challenge: replacing the paradigm of war with a paradigm of shared human consciousness based on empathy."
--Medea Benjamin, cofounder, CODEPINK and Global Exchange

For event information:
(415) 355-0300
nancymancias@codepink.org

Step One - 'Us and Them'

Step Two - 'Obey'

Step Three 'Do Them Harm'

Step 4 'Apathy'

Step 5 - 'Exterminate'

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.

"We'd like to do even more, and my door remains open to experts from advocacy groups and law enforcement with ideas on how we can improve," Buckmaster said.

But visitors to the site's adult services section in California "will see what clearly are children up for sale," said Malika Saar, the executive director of the Rebecca Project for Human Rights, the Washington organization that sponsored the ad.

"Craigslist is the choice of traffickers because it's so well known and there are rarely consequences to using it for these illegal acts," the ad said.

THE ADVERTISEMENT READS AS FOLLOWS
Dear Craig,
Although we have not met, we are certain you would not want what happened to us or to thousands of
girls like us to ever happen again.

Craig, I am AK. In 2009, I met a man twice my age who pretended to be my boyfriend, and my life as
an average girl � looking forward to college, doing my chores, and hanging out with my friends �
ended. This �boyfriend� soon revealed he was a pimp. He put my picture on Craigslist, and I was sold
for sex by the hour at truck stops and cheap motels, 10 hours with 10 different men every night. Thi s
became my life.

Men answered the Craigslist advertisements and paid to rape me. The $30,000 he pocketed each month
was facilitated by Craigslist 300 times. I personally know over 20 girls who were trafficked through
Craigslist. Like me, they were taken from city to city, each time sold on a different Craigslist sit e �
Philadelphia, Dallas, Milwaukee, Washington D.C. My phone would ring, and soon men would line up
in the parking lot. One Craigslist caller viciously brutalized me, threatening to dump my body in a
river. Miraculously, I survived.

Craig, I am MC. I was first forced into prostitution when I was 11 years old by a 28 year-old man. I am
not an exception. The man who trafficked me sold many girls my age, his house was called �Daddy
Day Care.� All day, me and other girls sat with our laptops, posting pictures and answering ads on
Craigslist, he made $1,500 a night selling my body, dragging me to Los Angeles, Houston, Little
Rock � and one trip to Las Vegas in the trunk of a car.
I am 17 now, and my childhood memories aren�t of my family, going to middle school, or dancing at
th eprom. They are making my own arrangements on Craigslist to be sold for sex, and answering as many ads as possible for fear of beatings and ice water baths.

Craig, we write this letter so you will know from our personal experiences how Craigslist makes horrific
acts like this so easy to carry out, and the men who carry out, and men who arrange them very rich.

Craig, we know you oppose trafficking and exploitation. But right now, Craigslist is the choice of
traffickers because it�s so well known and there are rarely consequences to using it for these illeg al
acts. We�ve heard that the Adult Services section of Craigslist brings in $36 million a year by char ging
for these ads. These profits are made at the expense of girls like us, who are lured, kidnapped, and forced to feed the increasing demand for child rape. New traffickers are putting up ads every day, because they know it�s less risky and more profitable to sell girls on Craigslist than to deal drugs.
Please, Craig, close down the Adult Services section. Saving even one child is worth it. It could have
been us.
Sincerely,
AK & MC
Survivors of Craigslist Sex Trafficking

Want to Take Action � Visit www.rebeccaproject.org/site Want to Help Girls � Visit Fairfund.org, or
thenationalcrittentonfoundation.org

Paid Advertisement by The Rebecca Project For Human Rights

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.

The first trick I turned was a week after my mother died. I had just moved out of a battered women�s shelter into the home my mother was renting before she died and if I wanted to stay there I needed to pay rent immediately. I had a two year old baby to feed, no home, no car and I was presented with the choice to make money or not eat. I answered an ad on Craig�s list for online models. I had an eighth grade education and a learning disability. At the time I could barely fill out a job application and I had been refused work at McDonald�s because I couldn�t work the hours and afford childcare.
In an instant I was asking myself, would you prefer to sell your body or prefer to live in poverty? Prostitution was introduced to me, disguised as online modeling. It misrepresented itself as a lifeline for change. It was hard for me to be selective when I felt I was sinking. I was desperate, vulnerable and felt like I was drowning. When I searched for a lifeline I grabbed the first thing that came my way. At first when the money started to touch my hand I was convinced I had found my place in the world, my power. But quickly the money went through my hands and right into the pocket of my �boyfriend� or the percentage fee I had to pay to work incall [a kind of prostitution where the pimp has a cellphone and sends women to tricks� houses]. The only way my boyfriend would accept the way I was making money was if he was the accountant. So he began to mange and manipulate my money. He paid our bills, and tried to protect me. I had no say in how the money was spent. Most nights I didn�t even bother to count the hundreds I would make. No matter how hard he tried to watch my back, he couldn�t come to appointments with me and many times his protection attempts failed. Not only was I subjected to humiliation, assault and robbery, the emotional impact hit me hard. At one incall place the pimp who ran it didn�t care what the clients did to us as long as we paid our fee.

Although I was miserable and couldn�t spend my own money, I convinced myself I was powerful. Looking at me from the outside you would have thought I had it all and was happy. But the truth was, I had an eighth grade education and had never even seen a hundred dollar bill till I started working as a prostitute. I began to help support my grandma, my cousins, my boyfriend�s extended family and his seven children. I was a machine, a robot, having sex sometimes up to ten times a day or night. I worked incall many years. I felt like I held the world on my shoulders. I was Christmas, birthdays and Fourth of July for everybody but me. There was a time when I convinced myself I didn�t care that I was a prostitute. I had given up on my dream to work with children. I told myself I was good at what I did and I couldn�t see myself ever being more than what I had become. I had started having sex at ten years old; I knew how to please men, even if it killed me. But at night when I came home and I showered I scrubbed and lathered to try and get the streets off me. I hated being touched by tricks. Each time I did a call I felt as if I was being raped again. Working incall I never knew what my day would bring. My best friend was raped in the room next to me and I never heard a sound. The trick muffled her cries and walked out like nothing was wrong. Every day I would try to drown out the thought that I might be next. My mantra was get your money and get them out, but I was dying inside.

Now that I am out I have not been able to escape the effect my past has had on me. Years after I getting out of prostitution the pain stays. I still sleep with the light on. It hurt my soul that teachers, doctors, and family men paid me for sex. It haunts me to see girls being pimped and to see the men that buy them. It changed the way I look at people. Seeing men secretly pay me for sex then go back to their families made me lose respect for myself and for most men.

Everybody close to me knew I was a prostitute and not one time did anybody say no to the money I was handing out. It got to the point that I couldn�t do an appointment without being so numb with Alcohol or Zanax that I couldn�t even feel my own body as I was being touched. No family member ever said you shouldn�t be doing this,you are better than this. The pressure of having to pretend I liked the sex and the fear that I might be killed some day got to be too much for me. One night when I was ready to meet up with a trick my daughter looked at me and said, �mommy, where are you going? You look so pretty.� I looked at my daughter and I asked myself the same question, where are you going. I told myself, you are better than this and I made a decision to quit. When I quit I lost everything I had, my home, my car and I had to start from scratch.

Once again the word choose means to select from a number of possibilities or to pick by preference. Here is a choice to think about. Which arm would you like me to chop off, your right or left? Is that really a choice? Would most of us choose to have the left hand chopped off since most of us are right handed? When real alternatives do not exist, it looks like people are making bad choices. What are the basic rights that all women and children should have so that they never have to make the �choice� to prostitute?

posted by Elisabeth Rainsberger, blogger for Prostitution Research & Education