A response to sex trafficking chicago style: Follow the sisters, speak out

University of Pennsylvania Law Review

Volumn 158, Issue 6, 2010, Pages 1831-1848

  Hoffer, Kaethe Morris ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LAW SCHOOL   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 77954733532     PISSN: 00419907     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (87)

1. Andrea Dworkin, Prostitution & Male Supremacy, Address at the Michigan Journal of Gender & Law Symposium: Prostitution: From Academia to Activism (Oct 31, 1992), in 1 MICH. J. GENDER & L. 1, 1 (1993).
2. See id. at 2 (criticizing "the feminism that says we will hear all these sides year after year, and then, someday, in the future, by some process that we have not yet found, we will decide what is right and what is true").
3. Recent examples include efforts by the National Association of Attorneys General, the ACLU, and many others to protect from federal prosecution any trafficking in persons for sexual exploitation that is not accomplished through force, fraud, or coercion. See Letter from Alexandria House et al. to Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Chairman, Senate Judiciary Comm., et al. 2 (Jan. 23, 2008) (on file with author) (writing to object to a proposal that would "redefine all prostitution as trafficking, even in the absence of force, fraud, or physical or psychological coercion" and calling it an "unnecessary, confusing, and resource draining provision"); Letter from Nat'l Ass'n of Attorneys Gen. to Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Chairman, Senate Judiciary Comm., & Senator Arlen Specter, Ranking Member, Senate Judiciary Comm. 1-2 (Mar. 7, 2008) (on file with author) (arguing that the removal of the elements of force, fraud, or coercion from the definition of sex trafficking "blurs the line between conduct that implicates the despicable crime of human trafficking for sexual purposes, and ordinary pandering and pimping").
4. Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, Nov. 15, 2000, 2237 U.N.T.S. 319 [hereinafter The Palermo Protocol].
5. See The Palermo Protocol, supra note 4, art 3 (defining "trafficking in persons").
6. See Brief for the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women as Amicus Curiae Supporting Plaintiff, Dart v. Craigslist Inc., No. 09-1385, 2009 WL 3416106 (N.D. HI. Oct 20, 2009).
7. See Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Nov. 15, 2000, S. TREATY DOC. No. 108-16 (2004), 2237 U.N.T.S. 319; U.S. DEP'T OF STATE, TREATIES IN FORCE: A LIST OF TREATIES AND OTHER INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS OF THE UNITED STATES IN FORCE ON JANUARY 1, 2009, at 419-20 (2009).
8. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA), Pub. L. No. 106-386, §§ 101-113, 114 Stat. 1466, 1466-91 (codified as amended at 22 U.S.C. §§ 7101-7110 (2006)), provides the epitome of U.S. law's undermining of the Palermo Protocol's understanding of sex trafficking. Although the definition of "sex trafficking" in the TVPA, 22 U.S.C. § 7102(9), mirrors the Palermo Protocol's definition, other subsections of the TVPA specifically limit the U.S. Department of Justice to prosecuting only "severe forms of trafficking"-those acts of trafficking that involve minors or are accomplished by force, fraud, or coercion.
9. See id. § 7102(8) (defining "severe forms of trafficking"); td. § 7106(a) (setting minimum standards for prohibiting and punishing only severe forms of trafficking).
10. That there are not enough domestically born women in well-off countries to meet the needs of the sex industry is but one fact suggesting that if every brothel, pimp, strip club, "massage parlor," or "John" in the world lost access for one year to the bodies of girls and women who were previously sexually abused (including as children) or who emigrated into the sex industry because of a lack of access to education or employment that would have allowed her to survive in her home country, it is highly unlikely that any man interested in purchasing sex would be able to find a willing prostitute.
11. -22 U.S.C. § 7102(8).
12. See JANICE G. RAYMOND, GUIDE TO THE NEW UN TRAFFICKING PROTOCOL 3-4 (2001), available at http://action.web.ca/home/catw/attach/Guideun-protocolENG. pdf (describing the process that led to the definition of " trafficking").
13. For a discussion of the debates leading up to the adoption of the Palermo Protocol,
14. see id.
15. The Palermo Protocol, supra note 4, art 3(a).
16. Id.
17. Id.
18. Id. art. 3(b).
19. Id. art. 9(b)(4).
20. Id. art. 3(a).
21. Id. art. 9(b)(4).
22. Id. art. 3(b).
23. -22 U.S.C. § 7102(8) (2006).
24. In collaboration with Jody Raphael-an established researcher on issues related to violence against women-the following self-identified survivors of prostitution have played critical roles in much of the research that is exposing truths about prostitution in Chicago: Olivia Howard, Brenda Myers-Powell, and Claudine O'Leary.
25. CLAUDINE O'LEARY & OLIVIA HOWARD, CTR. FOR IMPACT RESEARCH, THE PROSTITUTION OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN METROPOLITAN CHICAGO 30 (2001). The hidden nature of most prostitution makes it difficult and frequently impossible to make definitive assertions about figures, as it makes it impossible to clearly assert the existence of representative samples for social research. With these caveats, O'Leary and Howard's research suggests that a reasonable one-day snapshot of women and girls working in prostitution in Chicago would identify approximately 16,000 such girls and women, with the acknowledged possibility that the figure could be much larger if calculated across an entire year.
26. RAPHAEL & SHAPIRO, supra note †. at 4, 13. The overwhelming majority of adult women in one Chicago sample of 222 women interviewed in 2002-more than sixty percent-were first purchased for sex as children.
27. Id. at 13 & chart 3.
28. Id. at 4.
29. O'LEARY & HOWARD, supra note 23, at 3.
30. Id.
31. RAPHAEL & SHAPIRO, supra note t, at 24.
32. Id. at 19.
33. Steven D. Levitt & Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh, An Empirical Analysis of Street-Level Prostitution 3 (Sept 2007) (unpublished manuscript on file with author).
34. RAPHAEL SC SHAPIRO, supra note †, at 19. Again, it is important to note that it is supremely difficult to identify representative samples of girls and women working in prostitution. Much of the research done in Chicago, therefore, is appropriately qualified by the researchers as being definitive only for their samples.
35. Id.
36. Id.
37. Id. at 19-20.
38. See STEVEN D. LEVITT & STEPHEN J. DUBNER, SUPERFREAKONOMICS 38 (2009) (examining the impact of working with a pimp, or "pimpact," in a chapter entitled "How Is a Street Prostitute Like a Department Store Santa?").
39. See Levitt & Venkatesh, supra note 30, at 14 n.17 ("Pimps, however, hurt their prostitutes enough to roughly equalize the number of injuries.").
40. Catharine A. MacKinnon, Prostitution and Civil Rights, 1 MICH. J. GENDER & L. 13, 14 (1993).
41. See, e.g, MELISSA FARLEY, PROSTITUTION AND TRAFFICKING IN NEVADA: MAKING THE CONNECTIONS (2007) (analyzing sex trafficking and prostitution in Nevada).
42. While arguments authored by Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon continue to be lied about, intentionally misrepresented, and dismissively characterized as "controversial," Chicago is fast becoming a place where the misogyny and inequality of prostitution is regarded as self-evident-the diametric opposite of controversial.
43. The Palermo Protocol, supra note 4, art 3(a).
44. RAPHAEL & SHAPIRO, supra note †, at 20-21 & chart 5.
45. Levitt & Venkatesh, supra note 30, at 15.
46. JODY RAPHAEL & BRENDA MYERS-POWELL, DEPAUL UNIV. COLL. OF LAW, INTERVIEWS WITH FIVE EX-PIMPS IN CHICAGO 4 (2009).
47. See JODY RAPHAEL & JESSICA ASHLEY, III. CRIMINAL JUSTICE INFO. AUTH. & DEPAUL UNIV. COLL. OF LAW, DOMESTIC SEX TRAFFICKING OF CHICAGO WOMEN AND GIRLS 10-17 (2008) (recounting the ways in which women are coerced into prostitution).
48. RAPHAEL & MYERS-POWELL, supra note 43, at 5.
49. See id. at 5 (confirming, through interviews with men who sold sex, the roles played by "legal businesses" in Chicago that facilitate prostitution, mostly by supplying women for prostitution through strip clubs and escort services).
50. RAPHAEL & ASHLEY, supra note 44, at ii.
51. See O'LEARY& HOWARD, supra note 23, at 2 (reporting that sixty to one hundred percent of the women in area drug-treatment centers regularly traded sex for drugs or money).
52. See RACHEL DURCHSLAG & SAMIR GOSWAMI, CHI. ALLIANCE AGAINST SEXUAL EXPLOITATION, DECONSTRUCTING THE DEMAND FOR PROSTITUTION: PRELIMINARY INSIGHTS FROM INTERVIEWS WITH CHICAGO MEN WHO PURCHASE SEX 6 (2008) (concluding that the demand side of prostitution must be studied to end prostitution effectively and selecting Chicago as the subject city because of its strong commitment to ending the sex trade).
53. Id. at 20.
54. Id.
55. Id.
56. Id. at 21.
57. Id. at 22.
58. Id. at 23.
59. Id.
60. Id. at 22.
61. O'LEARY & HOWARD, supra note 23, at 30.
62. Levitt & Venkatesh, supra note 30, at 25.
63. RAPHAEL & SHAPIRO, supra note †, at 8.
64. RAPHAEL & ASHLEY, supra note 44, at iii, 19, 41.
65. DURCHSLAG & GOSWAMI, supra note 49, at 9.
66. See Levitt & Venkatesh, supra note 30, at 15 ("Roughly half of the tricks are done for repeat customers.")
67. The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless has long played a key role in developing much of the grassroots survivor-led advocacy dealing with prostitution in Illinois, by creating and managing the Prostitution Alternatives Round Table (PART), a network of governmental and private nonprofit organizations and prostitution survivors. For more information,
68. see Chi. Coal, for the Homeless, Creative Alternatives for Women in the Sex Trade, http://www.chicagohomeless.org/what/prostitution (last visited Apr. 15, 2010).
69. -740 ILL. COMP. STAT. 128/1 to /99 (2007).
70. Shay-Ann M. Heiser Singh, Comment, The Predator Accountability Act: Empowering Women in Prostitution to Pursue Their Own Justice, 56 DEPAUL L. REV. 1035, 1049-50, 1050 n.112 (2007).
71. See Samir Goswami, From Street Corner to Statehouse: Survivors' Struggle for Civil Rights, in A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE OF PROSTITUTION WITH IMPUCATIONS FOR RESEARCH, POLICY, EDUCATION, AND SERVICE (R.L. Dalla et al. eds., forthcoming).
72. See The Dreamcatcher Foundation, http://www.thedreamcatcherfoundation. org/index.html (last visited Apr. 15, 2010);
73. Women of Power Alumni Association, http://www.womenofpoweraa.org (last visited Apr. 15, 2010). For a fascinating documentary about the efforts of survivors to establish the PAA,
74. see DVD: Turning a Corner (Beyondmedia Education 2005), available at http://www.beyondmedia.org/catalogue.html#turningacorner.
75. See generally CITY OF CHI. MAYOR'S OFFICE ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, THE INTERSYSTEM ASSESSMENT ON PROSTITUTION IN CHICAGO (2006).
76. Id. at 45.
77. See id. at 23-24.
78. COOK COUNTY BD. OF COMM'RS, THE REALITIES OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN COOK COUNTY: STRATEGIES FOR ENDING THE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN AND GIRLS (2007).
79. Id. at 3.
80. Id. at 10.
81. Cook County, Ill., Ordinance 09-O-08 (2008) (codified at COOK COUNTY, ILL., CODE § 46-5 (2009)); Cook County, Ill., Ordinance 09-O-09 (2008) (codified at COOK COUNTY, ILL., CODE § 58-167). According to the Director of the Division of Women's Justice Services for the Cook County Sheriffs Department, this particular ordinance was used to obtain at least $500 each from more than fifty men seeking to purchase sex between September and December 2009 (picked up in stings conducted by the Sheriffs office). All of the money is being allocated to pay for services for survivors of prostitution. Drv. OF WOMEN'S JUSTICE SERVS. OF THE COOK COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE, STATISTICS (2010) (on file with author).
82. See Dart v. Craigslist, Inc., No. 09-1385, 2009 WL 3416106, at *7 (N.D. Ill. Oct, 20, 2009).
83. See Press Release, Craigslist, Inc. et al. (Nov. 6, 2008) (on file with author) (issuing a "Joint Statement" with the attorneys general of numerous states and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children regarding ways to combat the use of Craigslist for illicit purposes);
84. see also Letter from Lisa Madigan, Att'y Gen., Ill., to Craigslist, Inc. (Apr. 27, 2009) (urging Craigslist to comply with its promises and seeking to ensure that Craigslist donates the monies generated locally to Illinois-based providers of services to exploited women and children).
85. For more information about End Demand Illinois,
86. see End Demand Illinois, http://www.enddemandillinois.org (last visited Apr. 15, 2010).
87. This constitutes a shift in focus to those (mostly) men who have excess money, food, or shelter and who condition the sharing of those goods with mostly poor, undereducated, desperate girls and women on their willingness to provide them with a blowjob, hand job, or vagina or anus to penetrate. This is not to say that girls and women in prostitution are without agency because they are taken advantage of and victimized. Rather, the shift emphasizes that their agency-which they are using to do whatever it takes to stay alive-does not and cannot, excuse what people do to them.