Thongs for 10-year-olds that say “eye candy.” Shirts with slogans like “Who needs brains when you have these?” and “Do I make you look fat?” Ads touting group sex to sell clothing to teens and preteens. When it comes to sexualizing children, Abercrombie & Fitch is among the worst corporate offenders.

That’s why it’s so egregious that Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio is planning to rename its emergency room The Abercrombie & Fitch Emergency Department and Trauma Center in exchange for a $10 million donation. These naming rights will entwine an institution of healing with a company whose advertising is notorious for undermining children's wellbeing and will promote the exploitive Abercrombie brand to children in a hospital setting.

Please take a moment to tell Nationwide Children's Hospital not to sell naming rights to Abercrombie and Fitch.

Farley, Melissa (2006) Prostitution, Trafficking, and Cultural Amnesia: What We Must Not Know in Order To Keep the Business of Sexual Exploitation Running Smoothly. Yale Journal of Law and Feminism 18:109-144.

This article discusses and analyzes empirical data on the harms of prostitution, pornography and trafficking. This information has to be culturally, psychologically, and legally denied because to know it would interfere with the business of sexual exploitation.

Continue reading "Prostitution, Trafficking, and Cultural Amnesia"

A new fact sheet on legal prostitution in Nevada is available on the Nevada Coalition Against Sex Trafficking (NCAST) web site. Click here to read it. (pdf format)

Continue reading "Myths & Facts About Nevada Legal Prostitution"

India Weeks and her husband from Monterey, California are activists working against the flood of misogynist, propedophile US media. She's an inspiration! See her video about her campaign against the Mikey Show at youtube

What about addressing the physical and sexual abuse of children as a national emergency?

Andrew Vachss wrote in Mask Market, pages 103-104:

"Producers spun their Rolodexes, and the lucky winners got to be on television, “analyzing” what happened. None of them went near the truth. I knew that truth. The kid was a member of a bigger tribe than you could ever find on a reservation. My tribe. The Children of the Secret. We know.

The experts droned on about “communication” and “reaching out” and “peer rejection.” But this kid hadn’t flown under the radar. Everyone around him knew he was buried in despair. They probably figured they knew the outcome, too—the suicide rate on reservations is right up there with the alcoholism level.

That kid was just another of the invisible ones—bullied, beaten, and belittled every day of his marginalized life. If anyone had the slightest idea that he might be a danger to someone other than himself, they would have unleashed a snowstorm of “services.” Suicide, well, kids do that kind of thing. Homicide—now, that’s serious.

Every high school in America has them, the invisible ones. They all silent-scream the same warning: If you won’t see us, you’ll never see us coming.

But nobody ever starts the analysis until after the autopsy.

New book to be released May 2007
Order from Captive Daughters click here

From a conference sponsored by Captive Daughters and DePaul University in Chicago

Essays by: Catharine MacKinnon, Esohe Aghatise, Julie Bindel, Robert Jensen, Gail Dines,
Anna Agathangelou, Neil Malamuth, Eileen Pitipan, Melissa Farley, Christopher Kendall,
Diana Russell, Vednita Carter, Chris Stark, Annalisa Enrile, Chyng Sun, Ken Franzblau,
Michelle Dempsey, Janine Benedet, Rebecca Whisnant, Rus Ervin Funk.
Edited by David E. Guinn with Julie DiCaro

For the latest in events and conferences, analysis of popular culture, and discussion of community activism in response to prostitution/pornography/trafficking, see the PRE blog, Traffick Jamming at www.prostitutionresearch.com/blog

It's easy to post comments and we look forward to hearing from you.

Melissa Farley (editor) 2003 Haworth Press

With 32 contributors, this book offers an analysis of prostitution and trafficking as organized interpersonal violence. Even in public health and criminal justice, prostitution is often misunderstood as "sex work." The book includes clinical examples, analysis, and original research that counteract common myths about the harmlessness of prostitution to those in it. Prostitution, Trafficking, and Traumatic Stress documents the violence that runs like a constant thread through all types of prostitution including escort, brothel, trafficking, strip club, and street prostitution. International in scope, the book’s contributors include clinical experts in traumatic stress, attorneys and advocates who work with trafficked women and children and prostituted women. The book addresses:
•The connections between prostitution, incest, sexual harassment, rape, and wife battering
•Clinical symptoms common among those in prostitution, including dissociation, posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and substance abuse
•Peer support programs for women escaping prostitution
•Culturally relevant services for women escaping prostitution
•The connection between prostitution and trafficking, including trafficking from Mexico to the United States, and brothel prostitution of Cambodian adolescents.
•Online prostitution
•How gay male pornography harms gay and bisexual men and boys
•Ways to access public assistance funds for survivors of prostitution