Celebs Join Somaly Mam to end Child Sex Slavery

Last week activists and philanthropists gathered in New York City to support the Somaly Mam Foundation, a nonprofit organization co-founded by trafficking survivor Somaly Mam, that supports programs worldwide to end sex trafficking. Also in attendance was Phil Kowalcyzk, President of The Body Shop North America,a company that has worked with Somaly Mam for two years and has recently launched a petition to Stop Sex Trafficking of Children & Young People, which has gathered 3.5 million signatures.

The article touched upon a point made by the event's honoree, CEO of LexisNexus Group, Andy Prozes, that the driving force behind sex trafficking is demand,and CAASE has been working to end the demand for sex trafficking and prostitution through the End Demand Illinois campaign, a multi-year organizing effort to transform Illinois's response to prostitution and sex trafficking.

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Also check out this video of trafficking survivors sharing their stories

Who Made Halloween About Sex?

Photo from Mark Strozier.

Rachel Durchslag, our executive director, is quoted in RedEye about the trend of increasingly “sexy” Halloween costumes, and I thought maybe we could chat about it over here too. Alysse, the RedEye reporter, interviewed Chicagoans about which type of costume was better, sexy or scary. We appreciate our perspective being included in the story—here’s a longer quote from Rachel on the subject:

“As our society is getting more and more hyper-sexualized, people are going over the top on Halloween to out-do the pace. It’s still really taboo to talk about sex in our culture, and yet we’re bombarded with sexual imagery.

I see this trend as our culture’s failure to create authentic ways to celebrate sexuality. Who gets to define what’s sexy and sexual? We’re letting costume companies make money off of defining our sexual desires.

Men, on their own, probably wouldn’t say that they fantasize about a woman in a skimpy firefighter outfit. And yet now that it’s accepted, women feel they need to live up to these standards.

We should think about the role we’re letting corporations play in shaping our identities. It’s frightening.”

What do you think? Is Halloween about sex because we want it to be, or because someone else tells us it should be? And, on a lighter note, what’s your costume going to be this year? Rachel was Waldo :)

Sex Slavery in our Backyard

When reading the story regarding the woman who was made into a sex slave in Kansas City, I was truly mortified. This woman apparently became a victim at the age of 16, when she ran from her adoptive parents. The couple charged with sex trafficking both stated that the victim asked if she could live with them, after escaping her adoptive parents. Unfortunately, many victims of prostitution and human trafficking are often runaways. They try to lead healthier lives by running away from abuse and then become re-victimized by pimps, traffickers, or in this case, a couple the victim thought she could trust.

To me, the most upsetting part of this story is that the victim is blamed. In the article, people who have encountered the victim have stated that she enjoyed what she was doing, which includes stripping, pornography, and being tortured during sex. In research performed by CAASE, men have admitted to buying prostituted women because they are too embarrassed to ask their partners to perform specific acts. In this case, men were soliciting this woman online and in person in order to perform BDSM. This article also stated that the woman was “mentally deficient” – therefore no consent (if consent was even given) is consensual.

A coworker of this woman stated that she looked “happy and spoiled.” Being tortured by methods of electric shock and waterboarding does not seem like a happy and spoiled life to me. A life full of physical and sexual abuse does not seem like a happy and spoiled life either, actually it sounds terrifying.

Want to get involved and help combat sex trafficking? Would you like to become a voice for millions of women and children who are victimized each year by this crime? Find out more information at www.caase.org

Sarah Jessica Parker and Gabourey Sidibe Join Fight Against Sex Trafficking

Actresses Sarah Jessica Parker and Gabourey Sidibe join the fight against sex trafficking in Brooklyn by recording public service announcements to raise awareness of sex trafficking and Brooklyn's new hotline for victims. The PSAs highlight the fact that young adolescents are trafficked and encourages use of the hotline for helping end sex trafficking.

CAASE has been a leading organization in the fight against child sex-trafficking, and was instrumental in helping to get the Illinois Safe Children Act passed, which protects victims under the age of 18 of sex trafficking and forced prostitution from being prosecuted for prostitution. To learn more about the advocacy work that CAASE engages in, visit End Demand Illinois


Listen to the PSAs here!

How Jessica Brought Down a Sex Trafficking Ring

Too often, stories about prostitution are missing something important. They detail the lives of women in the sex trade, but make little mention of the pimps and johns who drive the demand for prostitution. This article from The Boston Globe gets a lot of things right, and it’s worth a read. It profiles Jessica, a young woman who helps to bring down a child sex trafficking ring in Boston. The author also details the control and coercion of pimps, who are rarely the ones punished. Jessica said this about her pimp:

“I had nowhere to go,’’ she said. “He told me that this was it, that it was me and him and if I left that, this was going to haunt me for the rest of my life. He would find me.’’

Read the whole story here. What’s your reaction?

Speak Out Against the Mobile App for Pimps

A mobile phone app has been created called PinPointsX that enables users to "locate and interact with erotic partners and facilitators.” In essence, this means that users will be able to check out adult advertisements presented on a GPS map. What this means for sex trafficking is that pimps will be able to sell women and children with zero traceability, as blogger Amanda Kloer describes on change.org:

“With PinPointX, pimps can advertise and sell girls with absolutely no barriers or traceability. They don't have to risk using an IP address to post on a static website, they can continuously move their "product" around while simultaneously advertising them, and, unsurprisingly, the PinPointsX company has put exactly zero safeguards in place to prevent the use of their product for exploitation.”

We must not let this happen. PinPointsX has even been directly marketing the app to johns who formerly bought sex on Craigslist until the adult services section was removed.

In the past, Apple has removed numerous apps that contain sexually explicit material (ie. pornographic images and videos). The app appears to be awaiting approval by Apple while Android has already adopted this app for U.S. customers. The question of the day is will all phone carriers block an app that will encourage and facilitate the sex trafficking of women and children?

We encourage everyone to speak out against this application, as it enables perpetrators of sex- trafficking and exploitation everywhere to hurt women and children.

Sign the petition to stop this app over at Change.org. To help end the demand for prostitution in Illinois, visit www.enddemandillinois.org.

-This post written by Genevieve Shannon, an intern with CAASE.

Meet Serena Curry: Student Activist, Intern and Volunteer Extraordinaire

The epitome of student activist, Serena Curry balances an overflowing course load, multiple student leadership positions and an internship at the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation. A self-described feminist who is wrapping up her senior year at Loyola University Chicago, Serena’s work as an activist is really just beginning.

Serena first learned about human trafficking when an attorney visited her high school class. She immediately began doing research and writing papers about the issue. "I'm a total maniac who doesn't stop talking and educating people,” Serena said. “I'm passionate about it, and I'm interested in pursuing this type of work for my career.”

At Loyola she has gravitated toward people and causes that aligned with her beliefs: She co-founded Loyola's chapter of Free the Slaves and became a member of Women in Leadership. Her junior year, Serena sought out an internship at the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation. She was drawn to CAASE's mission to end sexual harm and hold perpetrators accountable. "CAASE is dedicated to issues that are so prevalent in our society, but not enough people are paying attention," she said.

Serena worked with CAASE's advocacy director, Lynne Johnson, to bring resources to rape crisis centers in Cook County. First, she mapped out rape crisis services by district. She then worked with Lynne to lobby the county commissioners to allocate more funding to centers that needed it. As she sat in meetings and observed, Serena soaked up all she could. "It was a really cool experience," she said.

Their advocacy efforts paid off, with $275,000 being allocated to the rape crisis centers. Now Serena's following up by interviewing staff members and survivors to find out how the funding has helped. The experience of interviewing survivors of sexual assault in these crisis centers made big impression on Serena. "Women have told me that without these services, their lives would be very different,” Serena said. "It's cool because that funding is something I worked on for a long time, and now these women are getting what they need."

Serena is also very interested in the End Demand Illinois campaign. “We're pioneering a movement to end the demand for prostitution," she said. "We're the only organization of our kind doing this work. It's incredible because we have made Illinois a model for the rest of the country for how women and children should be treated.”

When Serena's classmates and friends ask her about her work to fight sex trafficking, she has stats ready to share. "I usually talk about the number of people who are involved. There are as many as 25,000 people involved in prostitution in Chicago alone. I explain that this is something happening down the street."

Serena is well-versed in the issues surrounding victims of prostitution, and she’s very persuasive. “Just like we work to raise awareness for survivors of rape, we need to raise awareness about survivors of prostitution," she said.

Last year at Loyola, Serena worked with Women in Leadership at Loyola to put together a panel discussion about sex trafficking. She also worked with the Bandana Project, which raises awareness about sexual assault among migrant farm workers. "Women working in the fields cover their faces so they'll be less susceptible to sexual assault," she said. She rallied a group to decorate bandanas and display them to raise awareness, and the project will continue this Spring.

Serena will graduate in December, and she's looking for internships, fellowships and other positions so she can continue to work on the issues of sex trafficking and modern day slavery. Her dream is to do a year of service, then to get her master's degree in social work so she can ear more about working in the nonprofit sector. "I'm trying to be as involved in the movement as I can," she said.

To learn more about interning with CAASE, visit www.caase.org.