Stories like this happen because people like you help exploited women cross over into freedom. Will you be a bridge to freedom today and help us meet our $250K year-end goal? Your gift will send expertly trained outreach teams to hotbeds of commercial sexual exploitation around the world and transform lives in 2020. Give Freedom “Are you being held here in Moscow against your will?” the stoic Russian judge asked...
Read
Stories like this one happen because people like you help exploited women cross over into freedom. Will you be a bridge to freedom today and help us meet our $250K end-of-year goal? Your gift will transform lives in 2020. Give Freedom We waited for the guard to open the clunky iron door of the "pod"—a large holding space for anywhere between 10 to 70 women—where inmates sleep, eat, and hang...
Read
She had it coming. She was asking for it. She consented to this. She never said her safe word. These phrases are being used at an alarming rate not only to diminish the severity but to condone violence against women, and it’s not something that’s only started happening in the last decade. The “rough sex” defense has been around since the 1980s but has become an increasingly popular plea since...
Read
After being trafficked in porn for nearly a year, a 15-year old girl is finally free. The crimes perpetrated against her are clear because they were recorded and posted on porn websites. Sex trafficking has been most often associated with prostitution, but as this case reminds us sex trafficking also happens in porn. Last week the New York Post reported that “a teenage girl who had been missing for nearly...
Read
A few days ago the D.C. Council held a hearing to help decide whether or not they'll pass the Community Safety and Health Amendment Act of 2019, a deceptively named bill that would fully decriminalize the sex trade in that city. This would include not only the sale of sex, but buying sex, pimping, and brothel-keeping. During this very long day, the council listened to testimonies from the pro "sex...
Read
Several years ago, I attended a film screening hosted by a reputable anti-trafficking organization. The documentary was about the reality of prostitution and the commercial sex trade. At the end of the film, the event organizers introduced a panel of subject matter experts and invited the audience to ask questions. The very first question was, "so this is why we need to legalize prostitution, right?" I looked around at the...
Read
I met my trafficker in high school. He was in the grade above mine. He lured me out of high school with promises of a good life, assuring me I could just get my GED and become successful. He started advertising me online, without my knowledge, and that’s when men started coming to our apartment to rape me. I didn’t know I was being trafficked, prostituted, then. When I ask...
Read
In the city where our Supreme Court of justice resides a bill is being considered to fully decriminalize prostitution in Washington, D.C. They call it “The Community Safety and Health Amendment Act of 2019,” but it will not make prostituted women safe. And legalizing sex buying, pimping, and brothel keeping of vulnerable women is not justice. It is a human rights disaster. “Council members would do well to look beyond...
Read
Last week Congresswoman Ann Wagner (R-MO-02) and Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY-08) jointly introduced the bi-partisan Sex Trafficking Demand Reduction Act HR 4326 in Congress. This important bill will strengthen the United States government’s efforts to ensure that nations around the world are effectively preventing sex trafficking by working to eliminate the demand for commercial sex. In practice, this means passing laws that greatly reduce the number of sex buyers. Upon...
Read