Pending bill would stop prostitute prosecution
Local activists: Focusing on pimps is a positive step
Local anti-sex trafficking activists applauded a pending New York City bill that would hold pimps, not prostitutes, accountable.
The Sex Trade Survivors Justice & Equality Act, introduced by Sen. Liz Krueger, a Manhattan Democrat, with input from survivors and their advocates, would decriminalize prostitution in New York while holding pimps, sex traffickers and buyers accountable.
Sex trade survivors, who experts say are often preyed on as children, would have any prostitution and loitering charges expunged from their criminal records, removing obstacles to employment or other opportunities enabling them to have a fresh start.
Every year in the U.S., between 70,000 and 80,000 people are arrested for prostitution, costing taxpayers approximately $200 million. The breakdown of arrests — 70 per cent female prostitutes and madams, 20 per cent male prostitutes and pimps, and just 10 percent “Johns.”
Solano County Supervisor Erin Hannigan, a stout activist against sextrafficking, said Thursday that “it appears to me, not having read the bill, that Senator Krueger recognizes that sex workers are victims and not criminals.”
“We know in Solano County that sex work and commercially sexually exploited children intersect,” Hannigan continued. “In other words, sex workers’ bodies are exploited at an early age and for the financial gain of a perpetrator and not the worker. Most are in a ‘chattel relationship’ with their ‘pimp.’ They do not have autonomy to run their ‘business’ and are at their mercy for basic needs such as housing, food, clothes and protection. Sex workers are forced to ‘work’ long hours, in unhealthy conditions and are at great risk of danger physically and mentally inflicted by their perpetrator and ‘customers.’”
The true criminals, said Hannigan, “are the pimps who exploit them and the Johns who demand their services.”
Joe Kreins, interim Vallejo Police Chief, said he agrees with Hannigan “and I could not have said it any better.”
“As for prosecution, that is clearly up to the DA to determine policy and direction,” Kreins continued. “As for arrest, I will
say that every case is different and warrants an individual assessment, but in the majority of cases, we will approach the case from a standpoint of trying to asses the human trafficking aspect and trying to provide assistance to the sex trade workers who are generally true victims. An arrest in most cases is definitely not the solution or the best approach. Arrest treats a symptom, not the underlying problem.”
Les Higashi, a 26-year Benicia resident has been with the Contra Costa County-based nonprofit Pillars of Hope for seven years. The organization was founded for the the purpose of providing a restoration center/housing in San Francisco Bay Area/Northern California for victims of Human Trafficking. It also works to raise an awareness of the Human Trafficking industry.
“Seems logical to some that by legalizing prostitution human trafficking would decrease. People look to countries like Sweden and Finland as a good example of how we in the U.S. adopt what is sometimes called ‘the Nordic Mode’l or ‘Swedish model’ — where a pimp and buyer is criminalized but sex worker is not,” Higashi said. “The closest thing we had have is Nevada. However, year after year, Nevada is always in the top ten in human trafficking incidents. Also missing from this is the fact that children are very often the victims of trafficking.”
Another long-time antisex trafficking activist, Benicia’s Art Stine, favors decriminalization of prostitutes.
However, he quickly noted, “I don’t have all of the statistics at my fingertips, but legalization — including Amsterdam — does not stop sex trafficking. It merely gives it a ‘legitimate face,’” Stine said.
“While I am glad that the one’s being prostituted are being released, the legalization doesn’t prevent the men who create 95 percent of the ‘need’ for buying sex/enslaving women, girls, men, and boys from treating women, girls, men, and boys as property,” added Stine.
In other words, Stine emphasized, “slavery doesn’t end because the government makes it legal to have slaves.”