In the News: Sex Trafficking of Girls in Illinois, Wisconsin, Tennessee

Two stories in the news this week shed light on the disturbing realities of sex trafficking in our city, and we wanted to share.A man in Milwaukee, Wisconsin has been charged with sex trafficking of children. According to a news article:

Sean Patrick recruited, sheltered, and turned prostitutes by force. He sent them to Chicago using bus transportation or drove them himself in a 1992 gold Chevrolet conversion van. The van reportedly was inscribed with the words “ho hauler” on the quarter front panel. These girls were property to him. Allegedly, if one of the young women missed the bus, he would choke them, stomp on them, and make them stand naked next to his “ho hauler.” Patrick paid the court $10,000 from the trafficking operation and gave up his van. He plead guilty to all charges and could face life in prison.

Another story broke about a couple from Tennessee has been charged with the sex trafficking of an underage girl they met on Facebook. Jessica Lidy and Jarrod Sanford were arrested after a 15-year-old girl told gas station employees in Lincoln that she was being held against her will in their truck. Lidy and Sanford had transported the teenage girl into Illinois to be prostituted. The couple claims that they brought her with them on trips to Illinois where Lidy engaged in the acts of prostitution alone. The U.S. Department of Justice has charged the couple with transportation of a minor to engage in prostitution.


Though media attention and circumstances differ, these stories share several elements. People are taking advantage of underage girls’ vulnerability. The most disturbing aspect of both stories is that men in our state are ready and willing to pay for girls. The reason Sean Patrick, Jessica Lidy, and Jarrod Sanford transported the girls they held captive to Illinois is because of the consistent demand for prostitution. As long as there are men willing to pay money in our city, these crimes will never end.

We applaud these efforts by law enforcement to go after pimps and traffickers. While these pimps are undoubtedly guilty of exploiting young women, the men who bought sex from these girls are fueling the never-ending cycle. No surprisingly, these news reports do not address the johns (men who buy sex). The first step in terminating this vicious cycle and ending demand in our city is simply awareness.

To continue your awareness of sex trafficking in Chicago, sign up for our action alerts here.

-This post was written by Allyson Matvey, a CAASE intern.

Photo by sciondriver.

Massage Parlors and Sex Trafficking: Hiding in Plain Sight

An update from the Chicago Sun-Times just came to our attention: “The lawyer who caused a mistrial after a masseuse testifying for the prosecution recognized him as a client – is officially off the case.”

You may remember that a witness in the sex trafficking case recognized the defense attorney as being one of her clients at the massage parlor. Although the attorney admitted to receiving massages from the witness and making an error by not disclosing this sooner, he said that there was never a sex act or inappropriate behavior during his visits.

Let’s take him at his word. No matter what happened, trafficking can indeed hide in plain sight. Businesses like massage parlors can easily become fronts for exploitation, which means they have a special role in preventing that sort of harm from occurring. And the men who were patrons at that massage parlor may not have realized that they were potentially supporting sex trafficking. The elements of force, fraud or coercion that define trafficking are not always apparent. But certainly, there are men in Chicagoland who do buy sex at massage parlors.

So what can we do to stop sex trafficking? CAASE believes that the answer involves addressing the customers who create demand for the commercial sex trade. According to the Polaris Project:

• "Johns" who frequent brothels disguised as massage parlor make it a "hobby" to buy sex and to track all massage parlors nationwide.  There are more than 5,000 brothels disguised as massage parlors nationwide.
• Standard pricing structure: Johns pay a house fee of $60 - $90 per half hour or hour plus they occasionally pay tips; the women are pressured to "please the customer" in order to receive tips.  These unpredictable tips are the women's sole source of income to pay the numerous fees and interest rates they are charged by the network.
• Standard day for a woman in a brothel disguised as a massage parlor: 10am – 2 or 3am, 7 days a week
• Estimated average number of men a woman must have sex with daily: 6 -10

Certainly, there are many legitimate massage businesses in Chicago. You can double check by asking if they are licensed and watching for signs of trafficking.

If you suspect that prostitution is happening at a nail spa, massage parlor, strip club or other business, you can report the exploitation by calling the National Human Trafficking hotline:1-888-3737-888. CAASE encourages responses that address customers, pimps and traffickers.

We are interested to see what happens with this sex trafficking case as it unfolds, and we hope that discussion about this issue will ALWAYS include the johns who drive demand for trafficked people.

Want to stay informed about the End Demand Illinois campaign? Sign up for our action alerts here. 

Photo from 05com.

Woman escapes trafficking in the Congo, Belgium, finds asylum in Chicago

Last month, a judge in Chicago granted asylum to a Congolese woman who was a survivor of sex trafficking. Born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the young woman’s parents died when she was 18. With no other options, she was forced into prostitution by a friend of the family in exchange for shelter. Later, a man took her as his sex slave and trafficked her to Belgium. After enduring rape, being tattooed with his name and brainwashed, she eventually escaped to the United States.

Her story is more important than ever as we gather on Monday, Sept. 19 here in Chicago for the Town Hall Meeting to raise awareness about human trafficking. Ultimately, the goal of the meeting is to raise support for the reauthorization of the Trafficking Victim Protection Act (TVPA). The protections from the TVPA are cited as part of the decision:

In the instant case, the Court finds that the respondent has established through her credible testimony that she is a victim of a "severe form" of sex trafficking under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which defines sex trafficking as "the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purposes of a commercial sex act" and lists "sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion" as a severe form of sex trafficking.

Another important facet of the judge’s decision is the recognition that because the young woman had been prostituted in the Congo, the woman faced potential persecution and trafficking if she were to return to her country. We applaud this acknowledgment that her gender, history with prostitution and trafficking would indeed put her further at risk.  

It’s worth reading the whole decision if you have time. Many kudos to the judge, Virginia Perez-Guzman, the National Immigrant Justice Center and pro bono attorneys from the Chicago office of McDermott Will & Emery LLP who all worked on this case. We found out about this through Bender’s Immigration Bulletin.

Please join us for this event to help others who rely on the protections of this law to seek justice.  To learn more about Monday’s Town Hall event, click here.

Photo by Wink.

Sex Trafficking and Prostitution Busts This Weekend in Chicago

 Two news stories broke over the weekend about charges related to sex trafficking and prostitution here in Chicagoland.

A 27-year-old Chicago woman was charged with involuntary sexual servitude of a minor and human trafficking for forced labor. She had allegedly forced a 16-year-old girl to have sex with strangers for money. The Chicago Police Department saw ads for the girl posted on the internet and discovered her during a sting. The girl was taken to a nearby hospital to be treated. (Story in the Chicago Tribune here).

A sting in Lansing, Illinois led to the arrest of four women, including one who was allegedly keeping a house of prostitution. The spa where they worked was found to be a front for a house of prostitution. The women in this case were offered services from the Cook County Sheriff’s Women’s Justice Programs. (Story in the Northwest Times here).

We applaud local law enforcement for their leadership in holding pimps and traffickers accountable, while also offering supportive services to survivors of the trade. While we don’t know the exact details of these cases, women in the sex trade sometimes turn to pimping and trafficking as a means of survival. This is the sad reality in a cycle of exploitation. By proposing an infrastructure of services and viable alternatives for women engaged in the sex trade, our End Demand Illinois campaign is working to address these issues.

You can stand up by asking your community to address demand in these situations. Who were the men buying sex in that spa? Who was purchasing a 16 –year-old girl for sex? These are the unmentioned aspects of these stories that must be talked about.

Learn how to take action by signing up for our End Demand action alerts here.

While the campaign is Illinois-specific, it has national influence and resources that can be used anywhere.
To see the new End Demand Illinois campaign website, visit www.enddemandillinois.org 

(Photo Creative Commons by roger g1)

The Whistleblower Reveals Root Cause of Trafficking

Rachel Durchslag, executive director and founder of the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, reacts to a new film on human trafficking.
 

I recently saw The Whistleblower, which portrays the horrors of human trafficking and highlights the root cause of the trafficking industry: the johns and traffickers who profit from the existence of the sex trade.  The film is based on the real-life story of Kathryn Bolkovac, a former law enforcement official who was hired by a private contract firm to help with a peace-keeping mission in Bosnia. As the film unfolds, Bolkovac is confronted with the wide-scale human trafficking of vulnerable women and girls into the country.

When Bolkovac begins to investigate the trafficking crimes, she quickly discovers the involvement of both corrupt local law enforcement officials as well as UN peace keepers- individuals whose job it is to help rebuild Bosnia from the tragedies of wars but who instead ruin the lives of trafficked women for their own sexual gain.  Some of the most emotionally challenging moments of the film are the images of the peace keepers degrading and abusing trafficked women. Some perpetrators even post pictures of their violent acts on the internet to both publicize their exploits and also to normalize their harm.

It is important when viewing a movie such as The Whistleblower to remember that these crimes are not solely committed against international victims.  Domestic victims of prostitution are often inflicted with the same type of violence and sexual trauma.  And as CAASE’s research with men who purchase sex shows, johns do not care to know if a woman is being trafficked- all they care about is finding a body to rent for the evening.
This film reminds us how important it is to address the root cause of an issue to bring about impactful change. If peace-keepers had not trafficked and purchased women, then human trafficking would not have existed in Bosnia (where it barely did exist before the end of the war). If we can stop johns, pimps and traffickers from perpetuating the sex trade in the United States, exploitation in the sex trade would simply cease to exist.  This movie is an excellent call to action for all of us to continue working to end the demand for victims in order to end sexual exploitation.


Learn more about actions you can take on our toolkit page at www.caase.org

Breaking: Gang Members to be Charged with Trafficking Young Women

This morning it was announced that a group of gang members in Chicago would be charged with the sex trafficking of young girls. The collaborative effort by law enforcement utilized the Illinois Safe Children Act, a new law our End Demand Illinois campaign created last year in partnership with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.

We are thrilled that the law is being used to take down traffickers. The Illinois Safe Children Act gives law enforcement new tools like wiretapping to build a case against perpetrators. Kudos to the Cook County Sheriff's office and the Chicago Police Department for their work on this case.

The Illinois Safe Children Act also gives all minors in our state immunity from prosecution for prostitution. We applaud this latest effort and urge the community to show their support for efforts like these that go after traffickers, pimps and johns.

A disturbing but important aspect to this story is the fact that men in Chicago are purchasing sex from young girls. The majority of men who buy sex face few consequences for their crimes, and yet they are fueling the sex trade. Efforts like today’s to dismantle organized crime address one important facet of the problem. Another is to hold johns accountable for the harm they cause when they purchase women. To learn more about men who buy sex in Illinois, read our fact sheet.

To learn more about ending demand, visit www.enddemandillinois.org

Police help 15-year-old girl who was trafficked in Chicago

Recently in Chicago, local law enforcement discovered a 15-year-old girl who had been lured into prostitution by two adults. The story is terrifying but had a just outcome: After the couple recruited the girl on the street, initiated her and tried to pimp her out, a police officer recognized that the girl was a minor. She was treated as a crime victim worthy of services and even helped identify her traffickers. It was discovered that the offender was already out on bond for involuntary servitude of a minor.

The Illinois Safe Children Act, passed last year, ensures that all minors are immune from prosecution for prostitution in our state. We send kudos to law enforcement for looking beneath the surface to recognize that this young woman needed help and that there were others behind the scenes seeking to profit. The Chicago Police Department’s Human Trafficking Task Force along with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, Salvation Army’s STOP-IT program and DCFS all helped with this sting—many thanks to them for their collaborative response to human trafficking in our community.

The End Demand Illinois campaign seeks to hold pimps, traffickers and johns accountable for the harm they cause. The people who profit from the commercial sex trade are creating a demand for young women like the one in this story. Stand up against demand for the sex trade—visit www.enddemandillinois.org and sign up for our action alerts.