OPEN LETTER TO NURY MARTINEZ - LA CITY COUNCIL
Dear Ms. Martinez:
I appreciate your wanting to get involved to do something about the prostitution issue in Los Angeles. http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2015/11/26/la-city-council-considers-sending-dear-john-letters-to-homes-of-men-who-solicit-prostitutes/ But please - if you're going to try and take on helping an alcoholic - it would be advisable to include Bill Wilson and Alcoholics Anonymous who made treatment for alcoholics available. Prior to AA's founding by Bill Wilson - the world viewed it as a vice and a lack of moral fiber.
It was also a disease that had a 100 percent fatality rate. There was no treatment or recovery before AA. The alcoholic used to be put into wet farms or sanitariums until they died from liver failure or wet brain. No therapist, church, prohibition, etc. made a single dent in the issue until Bill Wilson stepped up. Yes they tried "pledges" where men would promise not to drink again, and even prohibition. It wasn't working and just made the bootleggers rich like Al Capone.
Now was Bill Wilson a "perfect" person? No one is. In fact, catch this letter someone wrote about him back then. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCkPahJ0z8Q But a woman named Marty achieved sobriety in AA and founded the National Council on Alcoholism. They proved it was a disease and well now we have a whole different view on this issue. Especially when the First Lady, Betty Ford stepped up to make the world realize it could affect anyone - even her.
That said - please allow me to introduce myself. I"m the Bill Wilson of the sex trafficking movement. If you look at clips I have up at www.hightechmadam.com you'll see what the media called a "brothel" I was arrested for in 1984. The truth is that this was the first safe house for adults in the USA. I had put a woman there whose pimp had just broken her arm and nose. When he found he couldn't get her past our security and couldn't break in or shoot his way in because we were next to the police station - he reported it as a "brothel" to retaliate.
The victim testified against him and I realized I needed to raise public awareness if I was going to keep helping this population in a world that responded to the issue then as if I were to call up the authorities today saying I needed help to rescue women being kidnapped by little green aliens from Mars. That's exactly how they viewed us then when we would try and speak out that some of us were not out there by choice.
Obviously I needed to approach the issue differently once I got my legal issues from this addressed. In consulting with Edwin Meese, our Attorney General at the time for California, I founded the first hotline for adults to call who needed help for ANY reason to leave sex work not connected to the police because our experience is that most trafficking is connected to the authorities as the Chris Butler case proved - and the first 12 step program for recovery.
We started the first alternative to sentencing program, and outreach programs in Los Angeles in the late 1980's through the assistance of the visionary mayor Tom Bradley who opened up the red carpet for us. He allowed us to have whatever help we needed to address an issue that's like a table with four legs. Prostitution also involves sex trafficking, drug trafficking, corruption and HIV. You can't even begin to make a dent in this unless you address all the legs of the table. We were so effective in the programs we put together - I was asked to duplicate it back east in 1989. So I went back there for a while and we created a very successful program back there also.
We were told that once we got federal recognition this was "real" - then government money could be made available to do what we were doing for free. So we helped to get the Trafficking Act of 2000 passed. Which we then saw the movement hijacked right out from under us with the TVRA of 2003.
That's why you don't even know my name now Ms. Martinez. Because people looking for a cash cow stampeded the field I led the creation of in modern America for adults, and Lois Lee crafted for the underage victims looking for a payday and other politicians who wanted to use this to advance their careers.
I kept my focus on the members. We have some testimonials up at www.leavingheliferadio.com But a few years ago I started getting a large number of phone calls from Los Angeles from our members asking me to move back. Seems we have quite a crisis on our hands right now with respect to what I believe is an HIV epidemic that parties like Charlie Sheen have been trying to silence - as well as other diseases such as HPV, Hep C, TB and HPV.
We knew that the "fox was guarding the chicken coop" as my grandma used to say when we started finding ourselves being blocked from accessing the very victims we had started this movement to serve. This is being evidenced by articles such as http://www.latimes.com/local/
This article ties into the calls I was getting from southern California hearing from trafficking victims telling me they're being trafficked and controlled and threatened by men in law enforcement. Now in past cases like Chris Butler or Kemp Schiffer - we've been able to go to the media to write up the story and use that pressure to get something done. Only now I'm also hearing from reporters who are being threatened also about what they write or don't write. Some of them are even showing me people on the payroll of the traffickers at major media.
We just witnessed a whole bogus sham with the filming of "8 MInutes" and Pastor Kevin Brown which would have been impossible to pull off without the media running stories about this where no independent investigation was done. A man supposedly a retired OC cop. At our members' request I moved back here and started filming what they're reporting to me is happening. Only to find myself threatened by cops and our crew threatened.
Why? Don't want people to find out that "8 MInutes" was a complete fraud. There was no outreach. His "success" stories were paid actors as was the "rescues" he was supposedly doing for the camera actually staged with paid actors also. Actors who are now suing the production company.
We actually had started an outreach campaign last year using the new law requiring that sex industry businesses hang a sign with the National Trafficking Hotline phone number on it. Our members, and myself, started receiving threats from the traffickers and even law enforcement to have us locked up on "5150" charges. We turned to people such as the Board of Supervisors, Mayor Garcetti, Senator John Kerry, Attorney General Kamala Harris, and even Jackie Lacey to name but a few people we called up to give some kind of support to our members going out into the field to massage parlors, strip clubs, and adult modeling agencies with the free signs we had donated who were then started to get stalked and threatened - and we received no support whatsoever. This left us with no choice but to abandon doing an outreach campaign we've known to work for three decades now in many different cities until we can get some type of support behind us when we start antagonizing these pimps with outreach.
Ms. Martinez - I read about your desire to start sending out these letters to "johns" and I assure you that this is going to create a lot of damage. It will get men fired, evicted, and possibly even divorced. It will have as much impact as prohibition had on the alcoholic.
In founding Sex Workers Anonymous - I studied other programs ESPECIALLY Sexaholics Anonymous. SA is a program designed not just for the sex addict - but for those men who were addicted to buying prostitutes. I assure you they have a disease no different than any addict or alcoholic.
I wouldn't dare tell you how to be a politician because that's just not what I do. What I do know is this subject. There is NO ONE in this town, let alone the USA, that knows more about this and has been in this field longer than myself with respect to adults. Lois Lee of course has a few years on me with respect to underage victims - which is a whole different world actually than adults. I learned that when I tried to duplicate what she was doing for them with that warehouse - and wound up with a big mess on my hands. I spent one solid year being mentored by Roy K., the founder of Sexaholics Anonymous, a program that is very effective with men with this addiction - and I can assure you based on my research over three decades, across the USA, and into other countries, and my own experiences with experiments and programs done over the years - this is more than a waste of time and money - but also it will make the problem worse. It always has.
Ms. Martinez - I've spent 30 years already inventing the wheel here. Nothing existed before us - so we've already done the experiments, and made the mistakes in order to find out what does work and what DOESN'T. For example, I understand what people are attempting to do by not arresting juveniles for prostitution - however, the alternatives in some cases are worse. http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/County-Making-Changes-to-Juvenile-Halls-After-Rosemary-Summers-Suicide-351958371.html Also, we don't have any HIV statistics on juvenile prostitutes now for 2015 - and there isn't enough beds yet to put these kids. All the more reason frankly why our program was so effective before when we were incorporated into the system - our "sponsors" were able to keep tabs on the newer members no matter where they went to make sure they were properly looked after without having to add one dime to the budget nor pass one law or create another committee.
That's why I say what Tom Bradley did was truly revolutionary and visionary. When he saw the crisis we were in here in the 1980's - he just gave us an office to meet in freely. Then he named someone from each department - police, sheriff, social services, mental health, CDC, and even us, to meet together in a committee that wasn't broadcast over the news so there was no posturing nor worry about one's career. Everything was "informal" and basically "off the record". He also didn't pay anyone a dime. This removed all motive for profit or fame and allowed us to just buckle down to do the work needed. The studies, and also I can tell you from experience, proved we were making a huge impact. So effective - I'm going to invite you to listen to Jewell. http://traffickingandprostitutionservices.blogspot.com/2015/10/come-listen-to-original-member-of-our.html We also set up a system in Phoenix in the late 1980's. Then people with a profit motive came in and started up Project Rose. Hear for yourself the difference between a system where we were included - and where we were not.
Please allow me to offer my help so that the same mistake don't keep being repeated. I assure you MANY have tried what you're suggesting here - very well intentioned - and it's just created more problems. You will in reality just make these men actually act out more if you tear at their family support system like these letters would do.
I've attached some materials for you to look at on my background. I'm at your disposal as a consultant to do anything I can to help you address these issues. I have people who want to monetize this work trying to make sure people like you don't know we exist. Well we do and I can show you some programs that have proven very effective over the years if you're interested.
Thank you.
Jody Williams
www.sexworkersanonymous.com
(702) 468-4529 Telephone
I appreciate your wanting to get involved to do something about the prostitution issue in Los Angeles. http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2015/11/26/la-city-council-considers-sending-dear-john-letters-to-homes-of-men-who-solicit-prostitutes/ But please - if you're going to try and take on helping an alcoholic - it would be advisable to include Bill Wilson and Alcoholics Anonymous who made treatment for alcoholics available. Prior to AA's founding by Bill Wilson - the world viewed it as a vice and a lack of moral fiber.
It was also a disease that had a 100 percent fatality rate. There was no treatment or recovery before AA. The alcoholic used to be put into wet farms or sanitariums until they died from liver failure or wet brain. No therapist, church, prohibition, etc. made a single dent in the issue until Bill Wilson stepped up. Yes they tried "pledges" where men would promise not to drink again, and even prohibition. It wasn't working and just made the bootleggers rich like Al Capone.
Now was Bill Wilson a "perfect" person? No one is. In fact, catch this letter someone wrote about him back then. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCkPahJ0z8Q But a woman named Marty achieved sobriety in AA and founded the National Council on Alcoholism. They proved it was a disease and well now we have a whole different view on this issue. Especially when the First Lady, Betty Ford stepped up to make the world realize it could affect anyone - even her.
That said - please allow me to introduce myself. I"m the Bill Wilson of the sex trafficking movement. If you look at clips I have up at www.hightechmadam.com you'll see what the media called a "brothel" I was arrested for in 1984. The truth is that this was the first safe house for adults in the USA. I had put a woman there whose pimp had just broken her arm and nose. When he found he couldn't get her past our security and couldn't break in or shoot his way in because we were next to the police station - he reported it as a "brothel" to retaliate.
The victim testified against him and I realized I needed to raise public awareness if I was going to keep helping this population in a world that responded to the issue then as if I were to call up the authorities today saying I needed help to rescue women being kidnapped by little green aliens from Mars. That's exactly how they viewed us then when we would try and speak out that some of us were not out there by choice.
Obviously I needed to approach the issue differently once I got my legal issues from this addressed. In consulting with Edwin Meese, our Attorney General at the time for California, I founded the first hotline for adults to call who needed help for ANY reason to leave sex work not connected to the police because our experience is that most trafficking is connected to the authorities as the Chris Butler case proved - and the first 12 step program for recovery.
We started the first alternative to sentencing program, and outreach programs in Los Angeles in the late 1980's through the assistance of the visionary mayor Tom Bradley who opened up the red carpet for us. He allowed us to have whatever help we needed to address an issue that's like a table with four legs. Prostitution also involves sex trafficking, drug trafficking, corruption and HIV. You can't even begin to make a dent in this unless you address all the legs of the table. We were so effective in the programs we put together - I was asked to duplicate it back east in 1989. So I went back there for a while and we created a very successful program back there also.
We were told that once we got federal recognition this was "real" - then government money could be made available to do what we were doing for free. So we helped to get the Trafficking Act of 2000 passed. Which we then saw the movement hijacked right out from under us with the TVRA of 2003.
That's why you don't even know my name now Ms. Martinez. Because people looking for a cash cow stampeded the field I led the creation of in modern America for adults, and Lois Lee crafted for the underage victims looking for a payday and other politicians who wanted to use this to advance their careers.
I kept my focus on the members. We have some testimonials up at www.leavingheliferadio.com But a few years ago I started getting a large number of phone calls from Los Angeles from our members asking me to move back. Seems we have quite a crisis on our hands right now with respect to what I believe is an HIV epidemic that parties like Charlie Sheen have been trying to silence - as well as other diseases such as HPV, Hep C, TB and HPV.
We knew that the "fox was guarding the chicken coop" as my grandma used to say when we started finding ourselves being blocked from accessing the very victims we had started this movement to serve. This is being evidenced by articles such as http://www.latimes.com/local/
This article ties into the calls I was getting from southern California hearing from trafficking victims telling me they're being trafficked and controlled and threatened by men in law enforcement. Now in past cases like Chris Butler or Kemp Schiffer - we've been able to go to the media to write up the story and use that pressure to get something done. Only now I'm also hearing from reporters who are being threatened also about what they write or don't write. Some of them are even showing me people on the payroll of the traffickers at major media.
We just witnessed a whole bogus sham with the filming of "8 MInutes" and Pastor Kevin Brown which would have been impossible to pull off without the media running stories about this where no independent investigation was done. A man supposedly a retired OC cop. At our members' request I moved back here and started filming what they're reporting to me is happening. Only to find myself threatened by cops and our crew threatened.
Why? Don't want people to find out that "8 MInutes" was a complete fraud. There was no outreach. His "success" stories were paid actors as was the "rescues" he was supposedly doing for the camera actually staged with paid actors also. Actors who are now suing the production company.
We actually had started an outreach campaign last year using the new law requiring that sex industry businesses hang a sign with the National Trafficking Hotline phone number on it. Our members, and myself, started receiving threats from the traffickers and even law enforcement to have us locked up on "5150" charges. We turned to people such as the Board of Supervisors, Mayor Garcetti, Senator John Kerry, Attorney General Kamala Harris, and even Jackie Lacey to name but a few people we called up to give some kind of support to our members going out into the field to massage parlors, strip clubs, and adult modeling agencies with the free signs we had donated who were then started to get stalked and threatened - and we received no support whatsoever. This left us with no choice but to abandon doing an outreach campaign we've known to work for three decades now in many different cities until we can get some type of support behind us when we start antagonizing these pimps with outreach.
Ms. Martinez - I read about your desire to start sending out these letters to "johns" and I assure you that this is going to create a lot of damage. It will get men fired, evicted, and possibly even divorced. It will have as much impact as prohibition had on the alcoholic.
In founding Sex Workers Anonymous - I studied other programs ESPECIALLY Sexaholics Anonymous. SA is a program designed not just for the sex addict - but for those men who were addicted to buying prostitutes. I assure you they have a disease no different than any addict or alcoholic.
I wouldn't dare tell you how to be a politician because that's just not what I do. What I do know is this subject. There is NO ONE in this town, let alone the USA, that knows more about this and has been in this field longer than myself with respect to adults. Lois Lee of course has a few years on me with respect to underage victims - which is a whole different world actually than adults. I learned that when I tried to duplicate what she was doing for them with that warehouse - and wound up with a big mess on my hands. I spent one solid year being mentored by Roy K., the founder of Sexaholics Anonymous, a program that is very effective with men with this addiction - and I can assure you based on my research over three decades, across the USA, and into other countries, and my own experiences with experiments and programs done over the years - this is more than a waste of time and money - but also it will make the problem worse. It always has.
Ms. Martinez - I've spent 30 years already inventing the wheel here. Nothing existed before us - so we've already done the experiments, and made the mistakes in order to find out what does work and what DOESN'T. For example, I understand what people are attempting to do by not arresting juveniles for prostitution - however, the alternatives in some cases are worse. http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/County-Making-Changes-to-Juvenile-Halls-After-Rosemary-Summers-Suicide-351958371.html Also, we don't have any HIV statistics on juvenile prostitutes now for 2015 - and there isn't enough beds yet to put these kids. All the more reason frankly why our program was so effective before when we were incorporated into the system - our "sponsors" were able to keep tabs on the newer members no matter where they went to make sure they were properly looked after without having to add one dime to the budget nor pass one law or create another committee.
That's why I say what Tom Bradley did was truly revolutionary and visionary. When he saw the crisis we were in here in the 1980's - he just gave us an office to meet in freely. Then he named someone from each department - police, sheriff, social services, mental health, CDC, and even us, to meet together in a committee that wasn't broadcast over the news so there was no posturing nor worry about one's career. Everything was "informal" and basically "off the record". He also didn't pay anyone a dime. This removed all motive for profit or fame and allowed us to just buckle down to do the work needed. The studies, and also I can tell you from experience, proved we were making a huge impact. So effective - I'm going to invite you to listen to Jewell. http://traffickingandprostitutionservices.blogspot.com/2015/10/come-listen-to-original-member-of-our.html We also set up a system in Phoenix in the late 1980's. Then people with a profit motive came in and started up Project Rose. Hear for yourself the difference between a system where we were included - and where we were not.
Please allow me to offer my help so that the same mistake don't keep being repeated. I assure you MANY have tried what you're suggesting here - very well intentioned - and it's just created more problems. You will in reality just make these men actually act out more if you tear at their family support system like these letters would do.
I've attached some materials for you to look at on my background. I'm at your disposal as a consultant to do anything I can to help you address these issues. I have people who want to monetize this work trying to make sure people like you don't know we exist. Well we do and I can show you some programs that have proven very effective over the years if you're interested.
Thank you.
Jody Williams
www.sexworkersanonymous.com
(702) 468-4529 Telephone
Comments
Post a Comment