NEW YORK'S ABOLITIONIST EXHIBIT
I saw your photography project on abolitionists http://www.photoville.com/2015-exhibitions/new-yorks-new-abolitionists/ and I was
curious how you did your research for the project. I say that because I must be missing some huge
gaps in our social media. Not hard to
have happen since 99.99 % of my time is spent only working with victims of sex
trafficking directly. I don’t spend time
in things like fund raisers, awards, etc., because the work is just so
demanding of my time I don’t have a spare moment.
The only time I am not working directly with victims
directly is when I’m trying to address the traffickers, or the sex industry
itself. For example, from 1984 until
1987, I had to “lay low” because of being on probation. Why? Because
I set up the first safe house for adults in this country. I took an old warehouse I still had a lease on
when I left the sex industry myself, and converted it into a safe house. I had to as victims had nowhere safe to go if
over 18 anywhere in this country. The
fear of HIV/AIDS, combined with a total lack of recognition sex trafficking was
even real, had drug treatment programs, homeless and domestic violence shelters
all completely shunning us from being admitted for any reason – running from
traffickers included long before the term was even invented. So to the term “safe house for adult survivors”. None of these terms existed in 1984 I assure
you. Not when if you called the police
back then for help you’d be arrested, and if you called someone in the mental
health field they would literally try and lock you up for psychiatric
observation on the idea you were “hallucinating”.
After we launched our 12 step program and the first
international hotline for adults to call when they needed help for ANY reason,
including what’s now called sex trafficking, to get help to leave the sex
industry (which encompasses more than just prostitution as it includes porn,
stripping, webcams, etc.), and set up the first outreach into the sex industry
to get help to get out to those who included those needing help to leave
traffickers, the first alternative sentencing program which recognized some of
those arrested for prostitution might be victims of force, and the first HIV
testing site which had a physical set-up with security and a back-door so those
who were being trafficked could ask for help to go out the back door while
their traffickers were sent flying out the front door, etc. – we no sooner had
these programs set up when we had to take on a full scale battle with the legal
brothels out of Nevada.
Joe Conforte, then owner of the Mustang Ranch, bought
himself a staged HIV test out of the University of Berkeley. He literally set up the results so it would
appear none of his brothel employees had any HIV infection (just like how big
tobacco used to buy their research results before that trick got exposed), and
then after putting up $1,000,000 into a PR firm in California – Joe embarked upon
the media trail to get prostitution legalized in California by parading around
that test result proclaiming “none of his prostitutes had HIV/AIDS”. This was prior to the Telecommunications Act
of 1995. Meaning he couldn’t go on TV
without an “opponent” when it came to something being voted on. Which
also meant the only person who would go up against Joe on TV and oppose him after
having murdered a famous boxer in cold blood without serving one day in jail
was me. It was great publicity for our
hotline and we got literally 1,000’s of phone calls.
We also won.
California did not legalize prostitution in 1988.
This didn’t stop Joe from trying again in 1991. I think there’s maybe one line about the
whole thing mentioned somewhere in the media – but it happened. Joe
went into the Nevada legislature with the proposal he wanted to expand his
brothels in to Las Vegas. I was there talking
about how badly this would affect property values if it passed and it didn’t.
Then we had Dennis Hof, owner of the Bunny Ranch, and
ex-mayor Oscar Goodman with his idea of “magnificent brothels” as he was quoted
as saying during his many interviews he gave trying to get the whole project
approved. Not for trying, the mayor brought
in potential investors such as Gene Simmons from KISS, and even took a showgirl
on trips with him trying to find support for the whole idea of legal brothels
in downtown Las Vegas.
It was not an easy fight to push back the brothels from
being on the site where the Mob Museum now sits. We had people like Aubrey testifying about being
forced to work in them.
www.blogtalkradio.com/stopsextrafficktalk/2013/07/08/hear-from-a-nevada-brothel-prostitute
Which led to the press conference we gave with Melissa Farley calling to “abolish”
them, along with revealing that yes trafficking did also exist within the legal
sex industry openly advertised – not just on street corners and dark alley’s. In fact, Bob Herbert’s interview with us in
2007 resulted In not only him being physically threatened with a “baseball bat
to the head” by Oscar Goodman, but also in every Metro officer, university
professor, and social worker in Vegas to be fired if they even looked at the
report “Making the Connections” about
Nevada sex trafficking
We even got letters from major top Fortune 500 companies about
how much money they were NOT bringing to Nevada in conventions BECAUSE of the
brothels operating in Nevada submitted to the Legislature to show them how much
money these brothels would COST the economy, not boost it as the mayor was
promoting. It wasn’t until the President
made a crack in our favor that we were able to top the scales on that project
and finally they agreed to put the Mob Museum where they had once had an
architect draw up plans for a legal brothel.
That didn’t stop them from continuing to try however to
expand into Las Vegas. In fact, right up
to 2013 when they tried to push through an “off calendar” unscheduled hearing
to get the brothels approved to operate in the downtown area. That’s when we brought in Aubrey again to
testify about what really goes on inside the brothels to get a win there. http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nevada-legislature/prostitution-bill-not-nevada-legislatures-agenda
Only you won’t find a word about her bravely going in there to testify against
them by herself because they’re put a bomb in our outreach RV so we couldn’t
make the hearing, and how they then threatened the lives of her and her
children so badly after this win at the legislature, that she had to flee the
state with them to stay alive.
Why not a word?
Because Sheldon Adelson has been controlling the Review Journal for many
years now before coming out in the open now about buying it. He had a reporter tell me after our press
conference in 2007 calling to “abolish” the industry we had a “lifetime ban” on
any publication he had any control over ever printing our name, or the name of
our program or phone number “no matter how many women die for not knowing where
to find help” was the quote delivered us from his reporter.
True to his word too.
Now he’s got John Hambrick in as speaker of the house, he’s now got
Dennis running for senator, and Ron Paul backing up Derek Ellerman, who helped
put Polaris on the map (virtually ensuring no calls from the brothels go into the
national trafficking hotline) while Polaris further keeps shutting down their
competitor, and he’s spent a reported $100 million dollars trying to get Obama
shot down at every turn over his work helping trafficking victims. I mean they’ve even now managed not just
Samoly Mam to distract the public from the message of “real” survivors, but
they even now got another “catfish” Lexie Smith put right into Obama’s home
church so he’ll “think” he’s hearing from a trafficking survivor, but in
reality he’s not. I mean let’s go on
making more laws that already exist against pimps while making sure REAL
victims who are being trafficked by men with badges not only stay immune from
prosecution – but get to retire with their pensions. https://www.change.org/p/congress-hold-trusted-officials-responsible-for-crime
We certainly don’t want them seeing what’s going on right in
front of their eyes what with Sheldon’s “prostitution policy” going into effect
right now trying to get prostitution legalized like it’s a separate issue from
sex work itself which is why not only has Dennis now started running for
Senate, but it’s why Polaris has now partnered with Google and Palantir Technologies. What a great way to make sure that no calls
reporting being trafficked while working at Oculus hits the media than to try
and get everyone thinking Polaris runs the ONLY hotline victims call for
help.
Because while one hand is putting all that money into
focusing on “ending demand” and the “johns” – no one is realizing they’re just
pushing the market right into Oculus’s front doorstep all in the name of “fighting
trafficking”. An identical strategy to
how big tobacco rolled out their “youth prevention project” to stop teens from
smoking which was in reality a clever brainwashing to GET youth to smoke. I mean what’s the best way to get someone to
think about a pink elephant? Tell them NOT
to think of a pink elephant of course!
I mean why else celebrate women who got their recovery in
the first place in our program, but not our program or the founder of it in the
first place?
Because it’s all hoopla, bells, whistles, and a big brass
band to distract from the message the actual founder has been saying since day
one – that we’ve always been able to call the cops on pimps and get help for
those victims. What we couldn’t get
then, and still can’t, is to address victims of those who are like Joohoon David
Lee, or the victims of that DEA owned strip club, or the NY cop pimp, or all
the other traffickers like Chris Butler, Kemp Shiffer, etc., who STILL CAN’T
CALL THE POLICE for help.
Now maybe when they stop pushing all the callers into
calling Polaris so Palantir Technologies, i.e,. the CIA, can collect data on
people instead of recognizing that REAL victims of trafficking CAN’T call
Polaris because that’s essentially calling their traffickers, the very reason I
set up that first safe house in 1984, and setting up some REAL help which
includes either abolishing the whole industry entirely OR setting up a system
for them to call which has a separate check and balance system for victims of
men like Joohoon Lee, then we’re making some progress.
But most people don’t even have a clue that while they’re
out focusing on “ending demand” – Sheldon is going to push prostitution to be
legalized in this country right alone with medical marijuana he’s also
pushing. Which is why he’s completely
taken over the drug counseling training field while everyone was out chasing “johns”
down the street thinking that’s some kind of solution suddenly when it wasn’t
30 years ago either. Or maybe no one
has noticed that Polaris has refused to demand their hotline signs be in the
legal sex industries such as the legal brothels, porn agencies and studios,
strip clubs, massage parlors, etc., while making a big fuss about how they’re
in truck stops! While I can assure you
if they can get into a truck without their trafficker around – they’re not
being trafficked.
Anyway, I was wondering if you had a way I could reach out
and introduce our program and myself to the lovely people you’ve highlighted in
your photography project. I only seem
to know a few of them. Again, I guess I
spend so much of my time either answering our hotline, or working with our
victims – I don’t get out to events much to meet others in the field to meet
them and was wondering if you could help me find a way to reach them?
Thanks for your time and assistance.
Jody Williams
PS – any help with the petition signing appreciated!
Comments
Post a Comment