OPEN LETTER ABOUT THE "NO SUCH THING" CAMPAIGN
Jody Williams
www.sexworkersanonymous.com
Email –
sexworkrecovery@yahoo.com
(702) 468-4529
October 29, 2015
Los Angeles Board of Supervisors
Sheriff Jim McDonnell
McCain Institute
California Endowment
Re: “No Such Thing” Campaign
Hello:
An introduction if I may first about
who I am to be writing you about this campaign. My name is Jody
Williams. If you check the news clips at www.hightechmadam.com
you'll see what the news called a “brothel”. In reality, that
warehouse was the first safe house for adult sex trafficking victims.
The reason it was called a brothel is simple – the world didn't
believe sex trafficking was real in 1984. Linda Lovelace had tried
to raise awareness about this with her coming forward in 1980. She
was denounced loudly and across America as a “liar”.
I had stashed a woman there who was
escaping her pimp because at that time no treatment center, domestic
violence nor homeless shelter would accept a “prostitute”.
Especially because of the fear of them being a carrier of the AIDS
virus that was sweeping through the country at the time. The only
other shelter in existence for someone like her was Children of the
Night. However, they cut off at 18 years of age back in 1984. When
the pimp realized he couldn't get through the bars or security we had
at the place because we had been alerted by the CCTV surveillance
cameras we had surrounding the warehouse – he called in an
“anonymous tip” that it was a brothel. It's a long story but I
was not convicted of madaming or running a brothel.
The reason was simple. I had set up
the safe house because of women who were being sold in connection
with Iran Contra. Meaning to defend myself about why I'd set up the
safe house – it would involve national security. But the media had
already portrayed me as running this “brothel” so they were in a
bit of a dilemma back then about what to do with me. So I am not a
convicted madam.
I did have to wait until a lot of legal
matters were cleared up, and I kept searching for someone, anyone, to
have solutions to this problem other than myself. I found none. So
in August of 1987 I stepped up on that first talk show stage to
promote the first ever hotline for one to call needing help to
escape, a 12 step program for one to use for their recovery, and
further calling out for this country's system to change. In 1984, if
you called the police and spoke about someone being held,
prostituted, and sold against their will – they would hang up on
you saying “no such thing exists”. When I was having anxiety
attacks I sought professional help – who then said “no such thing
exists” and then tried to lock me up for psychiatric observation
claiming I was hallucinating.
So I started a media campaign of my own
saying “yes it does exist” and “this country needs to do
something about it”. The Mayor of Los Angeles in 1987, Tom
Bradley, received the news of our program with open arms. With the
HIV/AIDS epidemic – change was welcome. He put together a board
that included the Health Dept., Mental Health Dept., Police,
Probation, etc. That board drew up the first alternative sentencing
program for prostitutes. It set up the first HIV testing site
dedicated not just to sex workers – but one where a trafficking
victim could receive immediate assistance to leave her pimp. Why?
Because the pimps were forcing men, women and transgenders to keep
prostituting even when they'd been diagnosed as positive. He helped
an ex-porn star, Sharon Mitchell, become a doctor who then set up the
first ever dedicated testing site for sex workers – the AIM Clinic.
He found an abandoned drug treatment
center, Via Avanta, and turned that into an alternative site for
those who had to be incarcerated who were HIV positive, pregnant, or
who were trafficked. Remember the Trafficking Act of 2000 hadn't
been written yet – so we just called them “pimped” and “forced”
in that day. The program set up in Los Angeles was so successful,
that we were asked to help create one just like it back in Allentown,
Pennsylvania. That became the “Program for Female Offenders”.
From there, everything just exploded until people realized we had to
get federal recognition. Which was accomplished with the passing of
the Trafficking Act of 2000.
So you see – I'm the founder of the
modern day sex trafficking movement. I'm also the director of the
largest, and oldest, hotline and program for adult sex trafficking
survivors. Because of very disturbing calls I've been receiving from
our members here in Los Angeles – I've relocated back here after
being in Nevada for a while now rescuing women out of the legal
brothels, as well as the streets, there – and doing what I could to
stop the legal brothels from expanding outside of the tiny counties
they're in now. We defeated them from this expansion the last time
at the NV legislature in 2013. We were the only ones who appeared at
the hearing to oppose them – so I think that means we were
successful.
That said – I heard about the “No
Such Thing” campaign online and became quite upset. Why? Because
now I'm hearing once again someone who is not us saying that “we
don't exist”. Now I understand the intent of your campaign. I
really do. However, if I was to step up and tell the public what to
call anyone that I'm not a part of that community – it would be
offensive. If I was to step up to Malika Saar for example and tell
her that I don't believe she should be called “African American”
- there would be a huge backlash because I appear to be white (in
reality I am descendant of a freed slave). We were not invited to be
a part of this campaign in any way – and after taking a toll of our
members they say none of them were invited to input this campaign
either. In fact, the campaign was sponsored by the McCain Institute
and the California Endowment – NOT survivors.
I also beg to differ with the premise
in that in Nevada there are 16 year old girls who can obtain a
license to work in the brothel or the strip club. That is too young
to drink, smoke or vote. You know why? Because 16 is a “child”.
Yet they can become a “child prostitute” at the brothel and they
can become a “child sex worker” at the strip club next door.
This means “such a thing” DOES EXIST. To ask the public to say
it “doesn't exist” is sweeping their existence, and their plight,
right under the rug.
Because arrest is the only way they're
going to get out of there. Yet they're deprived of that because it's
a “legal” brothel. Arrest is the only way I was removed from my
captors. In fact, arrest is the only way I was able to be free of my
captors when they got arrested and I was free. I wasn't the one who
“snitched” on them – someone else did. But if they hadn't of
been arrested – I never would have been able to walk away myself.
This county can't take care of the kids it's cost within the social
welfare system. Might I ask where they are to go when you already
don't have enough beds for kids? For some reason you insist on not
utilizing Children of the Night for trafficking victims –
preferring to say in the media “there are no beds” while Lois has
plenty of room. But the ones not labeled as victims are instead put
in places like the Youth Welcome Center – which by the way Mr.
Thomas I still haven't seen the report promised on that shelter. A
shelter where supposedly the pimps are preying on young 12 year old
girls like “shooting fish in a barrel”.
I'm hearing reports from mothers that
their young daughters are disappearing out of the psychiatric
hospitals where they're pimped until they're used up and then dumped
back home after a year or so. I've got a report from a boy who was
16 years old at the time telling me his mother was carted out of
their home in front of him by two Pasadena police officers when she
said she didn't want to prostitute anymore and then slapped with fake
prostitution charges. When I stepped in to help her – our attorney
and myself were threatened by another attorney and another Pasadena
officer. I STILL don't have anyone from any office answering me about that case either by the way.
Our program is effective – yet I
don't see us being consulted on any of your trafficking programs –
not just this one. A ten year study was done by Professor Sharon
Oselin verifying our program is what “works” for long term
success. I've had three independent journalists out to verify our
program's effectiveness – whose clippings are on our clipping site.
I just saw a report by Dr. Thomas Naylan that our program's use of
“exposure therapy” is highly effective for those with PTSD. So
why we're not being consulted nor incorporated into any of your
recent trafficking effects deeply concerns us.
But this is the last straw. We will
not stand by while those who are not us label us without us.
Especially since it wipes away the existence of “child prostitutes”
in Nevada where something needs to be done about the fact besides
changing the label so it appears they “don't exist”. Especially
since removing arrest, in some cases, removes the only way these
victims have to get out. Plus sometimes it's the only way their pimp
will be prosecuted. Especially since we do not see a system in
place that will provide an alternative to find them, help them
escape, and provide them with recovery – while you want to just
wipe away the only thing that, in some cases, is all we have.
Arrest was the only thing that got me
out. When Kathleen Mitchell wrote me from an Arizona jail – it was
after being arrested over 50 times. She found recovery through us
from that jail – and founded the Dignity Program. When Brenda
Myers-Powell had also been arrested numerous times – she was
court-ordered to attend Genesis House. A program which has since
folded – but she's gone on through Sex Workers Anonymous to become
quite renowned for her work with helping victims in Chicago.
I've gone and talked to our members and
we are DEEPLY offended by this “No Such Thing” campaign, as well
as having very serious questions about the intent behind it.
Especially when it removes the one way many pimps will be prosecuted,
and removed from harming other children. We also feel it sweeps
under the rug a very real problem in Nevada. This was not a “local”
Los Angeles campaign – but one that was national in reach.
Therefore, it affects them too. An effect I don't see anyone
connected to this campaign seeming to really care much about how the
survivors in the movement that created this subject started, who
belong to the oldest and largest group of survivors in the world
feel.
If you'd like to talk to me about this
– I can be reached at the above number. My previous attempts to
speak to the organizers of this campaign such as Malika, the McCain
Institute and the California Endowment having been ignored. Thank
you for listening to how WE feel about this.
Jody Williams
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