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Harriet Jacobs on Marginalization, Subsistence, and Denial in "Grey Area" Prostitution and Pimping Culture

Sat, 2010-02-06 01:44 — figleaf

Harriet Jacobs of Fugitivus again, this time on an extremely prickly subject I’ve discussed previously: the blurred boundary between subsistence and dependency at the real margins of society. In this case the difference between assistance and exploitation or… well… she puts it rather pithily (emphasis mine.)

I had a social worker friend who once described a conversation she’d had with a female client who was trying to get back on her feet. She had met a new guy that she was very excited about. Oh, sure, there were problems, but who doesn’t have problems? Anyway, he was so committed to her, so committed to working out everything. The woman brushed off the few times he’d encouraged her to have sex with his friends as times that they were all just sooooooo drunk, but it totally strengthened their relationship because they’re not even the jealous types. And, of course, there were all the times that she was just trying to “help him out” on a drug deal. And then those times that she had “cheated” when a friend of his came by and locked her in the bedroom. At the end of her description, the social worker had to try and explain that this woman didn’t have a relationship, or a boyfriend: she had a pimp.

She said it here.

You wouldn’t think this kind of denial could happen. It could.

What’s really harsh, by the way, is that since in circumstances like this the pimp “boyfriend” may be trading his partner for favors or status or cargo rather than cash he may not, strictly speaking, recognize that he’s being a pimp either. Although mostly I’m guessing he’s pretty clear about he’s doing he still might not think of it as pimping.

That would be another problem with stereotypes, especially for those living really marginal lives.

As I said in my own post a couple of years ago

speaking for myself, even though I was sometimes sleeping under overpasses, in cars, or “crashing” at other people’s apartments, and even though my diet was so meager I developed nutritional deficiency diseases, it wasn’t until the 1980s that I realized I’d been homeless. And it wasn’t till very recently that I realized the people we thought of at the time as “in some kind of hot water” probably qualified as trafficked or pimped. So I’m guessing the same is true for a lot of people still in those situations. And not because they’re not there but because there’s there’s so much overlap between the aspirations and difficulties of migration/transience, smuggling, and trafficking that sometimes it’s hard to tell even when you’re in it, let alone from the outside.

I said it here: Between Transience and Trafficking, a Personal Perspective

This isn’t by the way even remotely anything like an excuse. It’s a complication in any scheme to legalize prostitution, which I would still like to see. Or to keep it illegal, which many more people would evidently like to see. Which means, at least to me, that no matter how the pro/anti activism turns out this particular issue will probably need to be addressed by separate policy initiatives.

I don’t have much else to say about it. Except maybe that I think it could be distinguished pretty unambiguously in a page, or even a sidebar, in a comprehensive sex-education curriculum. And so if anyone’s listening I’d really like to lobby for its inclusion. Of course it would also be nice if we could count on students receiving comprehensive sex education in the first place…

I’ll just reiterate that I think Jacobs writes powerful stuff.

Incidentally she closes her post this way…

it’s impossible to ignore rape culture when it calls and makes an appointment, in a whisper and obviously hiding in a closet. When it arrives late on the bus, alone and lost. When it walks in the front door, comes over to your desk, and whispers on the verge of tears, “I need, um, I need, I need the thing.” It’s hard to ignore when it’s curled up in your lobby, unresponsive and unwilling to come back, to interact with you or any representative of the world. It’s hard to ignore when it’s made manifest in a real live girl, a real live girl who has been stripped of the right to disallow strangers access to everything from the waist down. I am acutely aware that many of these girls have been violated, and that I constitute a further violation; my presence announces to them that not only are they not allowed to choose when and with whom they have sex, but they are not allowed to choose how to deal with the consequences of being abused. All I did was pass a job interview, and I am temporarily LordGodKing of her uterus. All she did was own the uterus; why should she get to decide what to do with it? It’s not like she can type up the paperwork. She doesn’t even have a desk.

Again, she said it here.

Powerful stuff.

A Good Time to Think About Haiti's Coerced Domestic Child Servants

Fri, 2010-01-15 16:23 — figleaf


Photo by Flickr user United Nations Development Programme. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Lurid tales of sex-trafficking around the world, and… problematic conflation of any sort of adult sex work with trafficking notwithstanding, the situation of child trafficking in Haiti is well-documented and endemic.

A very quick bit of Googling will turn up the same stories over and over. Here’s a representative sample from a reliable source, the U.S. Department of Labor:

A 1997 UNICEF study estimated that there were some 250,000 to 300,000 child domestic workers in Haiti, 80 percent of whom were girls under the age of 14. In Haiti, child domestic workers are commonly referred to as restaveks , a Creole word meaning “to stay with.” They are among the most vulnerable and exploited of all children in Haiti. Isolated from family and peers, restavek children are largely unprotected from abuse.

According to UNICEF, most restaveks reach the age of 15 without ever having been to school. Most restaveks work 10 to 14 hours per day and do not receive any compensation for their work. They are often psychologically and physically punished by the master or mistress of the house and sometimes even by their children. Girl restaveks are sometimes sexually abused by the males in the employing families. If a girl becomes pregnant, she will generally be released into the streets. Many such girls become street children or prostitutes.

They said it here.

Also by tradition even in the best of times these children, who’s parents send them from their impoverished countryside to the only scarcely less impoverished city on the usually-empty promise that they will receive an education, are worked the hardest and fed last by their owners “employers.”

This is not the best of times.

If it’s left up to the (often lower-to-middle-class) Haitan families who use them these children will receive disaster-related food, water, shelter, and medical care last. With nowhere else to go (many are brought in too young even to remember where their real homes are) these children may have no where else to turn but the families that used them before.

If you’ve ever spent a minute of your time worrying in the abstract about trafficking it might be a good time, right now, to start thinking about the very concrete problem of what to do about up to a quarter million trafficked children who are now doubly screwed.

My partner and I have already donated to Doctors Without Borders because they’re good people and not just spending all their fundraising dollars on… more fundraising. Which is more than I can say about some of the more sanctimonious “anti-trafficking” organizations. So I’m on the lookout for reputable groups able to directly address the specific needs of displaced coerced children in Haiti. If I find one I’ll post about it here.

According to the charity rating service CharityNavigator the following groups are reputable and fit the approximate criteria. Again I’ll update if I find something more specific.

Save the Children

Note: I’m advocating for donations, not admonishing. Right now there are more than enough priorities in Haiti to go around, and as long as you’re giving through a reputable organization it’s needed and will make a difference.

See CharityNavigator’s list of established organizations on the ground in Haiti now.. Note: The same page has a good list recommendations for how to make sure any donations you go where you want them to go, and how to avoid being scammed instead.

Not Quite Jocelyn Elders, Not Exactly Nixon Going to China, Still a Good Idea

Sat, 2009-11-21 12:52 — figleaf

Summary: Carrie Prejean disgraced herself by publicly opposing same-sex marriage, not for either having a sex life or camera-phoning herself. Sungold proposes an unusual but sensible way she could at least partly redeem herself. Further down, reflections by Sungold, Blue Gal, and Melissa McEwan on the way Prejean’s partner only disgraced himself.

Sungold of Kittywampus says, in all earnestness, that it would be an all-round good thing if conservative-Christian Carrie Prejean just let go of the “scandal” about the private masturbation videos she emailed her erstwhile fiance and let everyone who’s “scandalized” about it fall on their keisters.

After mentioning the disgraceful dismissal of Clinton-era Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders for recommending that we teach young people that masturbation is a safe and effective alternative to partnered sex, Sungold says

Maybe it’s time for us to catch up with history. Here’s where Prejean could play a pivotal role. She could go on Larry King and say, “I’m not here to talk about that tape, which my asshole ex had no right to release. But I will say this: What I did on that tape was perfectly normal. Self-pleasure is perfectly compatible with my Christian beliefs. It’s a great way to get to know your body before you’re ready for partnered sex. It’s a wonderful way to extend your pleasure with a partner. If you’re waiting for marriage to have intercourse, masturbation can help you wait, and you’ll be a better lover when you do say yes.”

I’m still not snarking. If we could just get all those “good Christians” to admit they do it, all of us might be able to have open conversations about it without anyone getting fired or censored.

Read the quote in context here.

Incidentally I’m not snarking either. I’m aware that Prejean might decline to do so, but I’m… pretty sure she’s got the really, seriously, no twits-vs-substance credentials to do so. It would be doing the world a favor and, very likely, do more to promote alternatives to intercourse and other forms of partnered sex than any number of conventional abstinence messaging.

—-

On a side note I’d add that the less-than-forthright way Prejean has dealt with the revelations seem to have been more damaging to her reputation than the existence of the tapes themselves. They were, after all, perfectly ordinary communications with a partner she was committed to and trusted… which means pretty much the only thing the partner “revealed” was that not only should no future partner trust his honesty, integrity, or discretion but neither should any future employer or client. Further down in her post Sungold nicely addresses the issue of the former partner by the way.

Update: Although see also Blue Gal’s The Donald advises Carrie to become “major porn star”? I’m not going to say the fact that Trump’s recommendation is diametrically opposite Sungold’s is itself a demonstration that she’s on the right track. But…

Update: And also see Melissa’s awesome dissection of Prejean and twits vs. substance at Shakesville.

Ensign and Vitter Scandals, etc.: It's About Integrity and Competence, not Hypocricy or Morality

Fri, 2009-06-19 10:01 — figleaf

Laura Clawson of Daily Kos delves into why, by Republican standards, it’s fine for Sen. Vitter to keep his committee appointments after fetish-y sex with prostitutes even though Sen. Ensign felt obliged to resign from his assignments after an vanilla love affair with a campaign staffer.

The most obvious interpretation is therefore that what Ensign did was worse (though Vitter’s was still a very serious sin!). But a Louisiana pollster quoted in Roll Call has another theory:

“I don’t think this will help or hurt Vitter,” Pinsonat said. “If anything, it leans towards helping him because … the more this stuff happens the more it becomes ho-hum. You can’t say it’s just David Vitter. ... It happens so often, I don’t think it’s as stunning an event as it was 15 years ago.”

So two lessons to keep in mind when planning your adultery: Better a professional than an employee, and if you’re lucky enough to be a Republican lawmaker, thanks to the efforts of Vitter, Larry Craig, Newt Gingrich, John Ensign, and so many others, you are now good to go.

She said it here.

To be honest that’s probably, approximately, right. Neither Ensign nor Vitter should resign anything because their sex lives don’t match conventional demands. Although they probably ought to resign for continuing to advocate legislation and policy that contradicts their direct knowledge and experience.

If you set aside snark, priggishness, twittery, and sarcasm the issue isn’t moral hypocrisy, it’s a question of — as I first said in the case Bush-era “AIDS czar” Randall Tobias — how they can continue to advocate public health, education, and legal programs intended to sometimes-harshly enforce abstinence, monogamy, and, say, heteronormativity when their personal experience makes it clear that those policies aren’t, and perhaps can’t be effective.

There’s an integrity problem here, but it’s not about who wets his whistle where.

Snipping Away Misperceptions About Men's Interest in Contraception

Mon, 2009-03-23 09:13 — figleaf

Amanda Gardner, HealthDay Reporter forMSN.COM says

FRIDAY, March 20 (HealthDay News) — Doctors around the United States are reporting a sharp increase in the number of vasectomies performed since the economy soured last year, with one noting that many of his clients are from the beleaguered financial industry.

...

“Nobody came in and said they were having a vasectomy because the [stock] market crashed,” Goldstein added. “Most are saying, ‘We’ve been thinking about it for a long time,’ and [the crash] influenced their decision. They’re saying with the cost of private school for three kids, they can’t afford to have another one.”

Dr. Harry Fisch, a professor of clinical urology at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, in New York City, said: “The issue about kids is often a financial one, and, if finances are low, it makes sense that people would be less likely to have more kids. And if they’re thinking about it, this is the time.”

Read the quote in context here.

It’s also worth considering that the lifetime cost of a vasectomy is substantially lower, not to mention enormously lower risk to the man, than any comparable form of contraception available for women.

The drawback, obviously, is that vasectomies are generally** irreversible and therefore inappropriate for men who aren’t ready to give up on future reproduction: a vasectomy is not fertility control, it’s fertility termination.

And yet…

And yet…

An awful lot of men get them, making them, incidentally, one of the more popular forms of contraception in the U.S. and elsewhere around the world. How common? Well, as the author of this article at Vasectomy-Information.com

The uptake rate of vasectomy is not entirely straightforward, owing to the way statistics are calculated in the USA. For years, vasectomy figures have been calculated from data about the birth control methods women rely on – not a straightforward count of the number of procedures. It’s currently guestimated based on this method of calculation that annually 500,000 men in the USA undergo the procedure, and about 12% of the male population between 18 and 65 years of age have had a vasectomy. In other countries the rate is higher, with New Zealand topping the table at 20% plus of men in that age group being vasectomized. Personally, I feel that if the same method of calculation (a straightforward count of procedures performed annually) was used, the figures in the USA would be higher.

The author said it here.

I’ve mentioned several times lately that intense, and I think intensely conservative cultural biases frame contraception entirely as a women’s issue. I think the tendency to track vasectomy entirely in terms of “methods women are protected by” rather than “men who’ve had them” is a symptom of that bias.

12-20% of adult men is a lot of men! Furthermore, 12-20% of adult men is a lot of men not to be exactly sure about… not even to bother tracking separately! (Note: While I was Googling around… and I had to Google a while to find this article… most sources simply lumped vasectomies and tubal ligations together under “women protected by sterilization. The Guttmacher Institute does a better-than-average breakout.)

And yet…

And yet…

We still hear, over and over, there’s no market for male contraception because men are neither interested in or responsible enough to use contraception.

Even though, estimating conservatively, sooner or later at least 10% of men are interested enough, and responsible enough, to choose a form of contraception that involves getting their testicles cut open, usually in front of their eyes to have it done permanently.***

And considering that an economic downturn is enough to nearly double the rated suggests maybe men are subject to, you know, rational decision-making when it comes to contraception.

Gee, I wonder how many more men would choose a method that was less permanent and less surgical? A moot question at this point, I know, since there are still only two methods available for men. (The more recently introduced of the two methods for men, vasectomies were first mentioned in medical literature in 1830. 179 years seems like a very long time to have to wait for a third!)

[** I had mine reversed, and I’m glad I did, but it wasn’t… exactly… effortless. —fl]

[*** Some of us are interested enough, and responsible enough, to have done it twice! (10 days after our final planned, wanted child was born I had an appointment to have my vasectomy reversal reversed.) —fl]

No, Will, Contraception Isn't Just About Abortion

Fri, 2009-03-20 11:24 — figleaf

Kirsten Moore of RHRealityCheck.org says Will Saletan’s “more in fear of the right-wing sorrow than in anger” approach to supporting abortion rights is thought-provoking, sure, but also missing a lot of the point.

Today it is this recommendation

“For liberals, that means taking abortion seriously as an argument for contraception. We should make the abortion rate an index of national health, like poverty or infant mortality.”

Abortion as a rationale for contraception? Why not women as the rationale for contraception? Why not children as the rationale for contraception? Why not healthy sex as a rationale for contraception? My support for birth control education and services is grounded in my belief that everyone has to make their own decisions when it comes to the most intimate, important, life altering aspects of human experience – sexuality, pregnancy and parenting – regardless of whether I agree with their decision or not.

Read the quote in context here.

Or why not even — the ignored elephant in the room — men as a rationale for contraception?

Oh wait! If we started talking about men in discussions of abortion we’d have to

- Acknowledge that neither abortion nor contraception is entirely a women’s issue since… um… duh. Which means we might have to…

- Acknowledge that contraception for men is thwarted, repeatedly, by persistent but persistently false myths about men’s reluctance to use them.

We’d also have to – Acknowledge that anti-feminist insistence that men are incompetent, incapable, irresponsible, brutal, nasty, and… somehow… naturally superior desperately compounds the problems of… well, all sorts of issues really, but in this context both abortion and contraception.

- Confront how deeply culture is hooked on the idea that the kind of sex that can result in pregnancy isn’t simply for the enjoyment of men but a reward that’s fairly “earned” or violently “taken.”

- And confront the corresponding cultural idea that contraception, like pregnancy and abortion, is a burden or price women pay for (prudent or imprudent) bestowing her charms, booty, and/or some other wealth-equivalent term in exchange for… whatever it is besides erotic enjoyment women are supposed to get out of it.

I think I’ve mentioned this elsewhere but the cool thing about framing the discussion in terms of contraception and unplanned, unwanted pregnancy avoidance instead of the (right-wing benefitting, right-wing maintained) frame of after-the-fact abortion is that the spotlight comes off the whole woman-as-vessel ideology that Saletan’s PTSD-ing over. Which in turn makes it possible to ask the questions about everything (health, choice, bilateral heterosexual enjoyment) and everyone (women, children, men.) And therefore makes it possible to involve them.

Or, as Moore puts it

For me, the value of this work is not solely about reducing abortions, or even unintended pregnancies. It is about creating a sense of ownership among women and men — old and young — about their own body and their relationships with others because this ownership is a key to healthy bodies — bodies free of substance abuse; healthy relationships — relationships free of coercion or violence; and healthy children — children who are born to parents who are ready to commit to their obligations as providers, caretakers and role models.

Which is putting it very nicely indeed.

Self-Interest in the Public Interest: Trojan Ranks Colleges By Commitment to Student Sexual Health

Wed, 2008-12-17 18:25 — figleaf

Ellen Friedrichs of gURL Sex-Ed Blog points to a nice convergence between corporate self-interest and public health:

When I was in grad school, I was pretty amazed by how many sexual health services were available to students. We had peer counselors, a health center that freely gave out condoms, did on-site HIV testing and offered workshops covering everything from breast health to how to have an orgasm.

It was a far cry from my undergrad experience, where if there were any sexual health services I sure didn’t know about them.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who noticed the huge disparity in sexual health at different schools. The makers of Trojan condoms also identified this issue and, in light of what they call a “sexual health crisis,” decided to survey 140 schools and rank them on their sexual health.

She said it here.

Yeah, Trojan has involved itself in ranking schools by sex-health services because they have a direct interest in selling more condoms. But then every year U.S. New and World Reports ranks colleges because they have a direct interest in selling… oh wait! More magazines. Which might explain why Trojan’s list is actually helpful while U.S. News’s list, um, isn’t.

Anyway, the top ten places to go to school and stay healthy would be…

1. Stanford University
2. Columbia University
3. Cornell University
4. University of Iowa
5. University of Denver
6. University of Connecticut
7. West Virginia University
8. University of South Carolina-Columbia
9. University of Georgia
10. University of Wyoming

While the worst would be…

130. Marquette University
131. Utah Valley State College
132. Brigham Young University
133. University of Toledo
134. Baylor University
135. Louisiana Tech University
136. University of Notre Dame
137. Providence College
138. St. John’s University-New York
139. DePaul University

Hmm… looks like you can go to Stanford for an education and sexual health, or BYU for… basketball, I guess.

No to Hagel or Lugar as Secretary of State

Thu, 2008-11-06 19:52 — figleaf

Jane Hamsher of firedoglake, reposting posting at RHRealityCheck.org says

There are rumors that Richard Lugar and Chuck Hagel are seriously being considered for the Secretary of State gig, and Sam Stein reports that Lugar has the inside track (although Lugar has said he’s not interested).
One of the biggest challenges the new Secretary of State will face is dealing with whatever replaces the Kyoto agreement.  Hagel has a 9% 2008 rating from the League of Conservation Voters.  Lugar scores 18%.  (PDF) Are they really the best people for the job?

Further, the Bush Administration has been murderous in its policies regarding women’s health, choice and reproductive rights around the world.  Lugar and Hagel are both rabidly anti-choice.  

Women turned out big in this election — unmarried women in particular voted 70-29 for Obama.  I don’t imagine Dick Lugar, Chuck Hagel and Larry Summers were exactly what they had in mind when they turned up at the voting booth.

Susan Rice and John Kerry are also in the mix, and the decision has evidently not yet been made.  If we really are intent on cleaning up our image around the world, please let’s send someone who represents our best and brightest in such a critical post.  Let’s not have some Republican relic who sends the wrong message about women’s rights.

I found it here.

Look, I completely get why after a transformational election it really is important to find places for able, relatively sympathetic opposition members left behind as their party burned it’s way out towards the margins. I really get that in a don’t-just-pay-lip-service way.

But seriously, this is an area where simple respect personal integrity that let genuine conservatives like Lugar or Hagel make it unseemly to ask them to compromise those principles on the job… and therefore make them unsuitable for those jobs.

Or to put more schematically, based their stated personal values they’ve supported policies against family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention that have directly led to the deaths of millions or tens of millions of women, men, children, and infants.

- If they have supported such policies then out of personal integrity they would be unable to execute the Progressive policies their President was elected to serve and of the branch of Congress that will vote to confirm them. Therefore they’d be inappropriate choices for the position.

- If instead they’d waive their reservations and agree to carry out those policies they have no integrity. (Nor would we if we overlooked millions or tens of millions of dead thanks to their insincerity.) Therefore they’d be inappropriate choices for the position.

QED.

Update: Even with Presidential Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, an ardently pro-choice and highly effective, um, disciplinarian manager riding herd on them.

"Pro-Life" and "Anti-Abortion" Not Being Synonyms...

Sun, 2008-10-26 13:46 — figleaf

While discussing where the United States stands in terms of infant mortality Sungold of Kittywampus says

I know this has been said before, but it obviously needs to be said again: Before we start conferring legal personhood on zygotes, how ‘bout we pour some resources into at least catching up with Cuba on infant mortality? We all ought to be able to agree on that as a goal – apart from those folks who care about constraining women’s sexuality more than saving babies.

She said it here.

Excellent illustration of the difference between pro-life and “pro-life” (a.k.a. anti-abortion, period) priorities. It’s not that there can’t be both. Nor that there aren’t people who are both. It’s also clear, however, that those who are both have had no, zero, none impact in terms of policy, effort, interest, or even visibility.

In case anyone on that side wonders why most of the rest of us find their rhetoric so unimpressive they might take a look at those numbers. For reasons too numerous to mention we’ll always need choice to be human, but it seems like…

I dunno…

If you really were pro-life and not merely anti-abortion then don’t you think one great way to reduce the rate of unplanned, unwanted pregnancies would be not just to work with pro-choice people to make it easier not to get pregnant when you didn’t want to but also to make the choice to remain pregnant not just easier but also less dangerous, stigmatizing, infantilizing, economically difficult, medically riskier. As opposed to the current “pro-life” position that the risk of pain, disability, or death, the stigma, the cost to health and career, the tragedy of infants or children suffer or dying without sufficient health care are all features of “the wages of sin” instead of bugs in the social fabric wherein all children grow up to be everyone else’s peers or else everyone else’s burden.

That we hear none of that from the “pro-life” side speaks volumes.

See also: – Teen Moms Displeased At Double Standard Glorifying Bristol Palin and Jamie Lynn Spears. “It’s ok if one of our children does it” is not evidence of moral consistency sufficient to sustain the mainstream anti-choice position.

New York's Safe Harbor for Exploited Youth Act Signed Into Law

Fri, 2008-10-17 13:18 — figleaf

Nick Confessore, former political blogger and now of The New York Times, says

September 26, 2008

[New York] Gov. David A. Paterson on Friday signed into law a bill shielding sexually exploited girls and boys from being charged with prostitution.

The law, known as the Safe Harbor for Exploited Youth Act, will divert children under the age of 18 who have been arrested for prostitution into counseling and treatment programs, provided they agree to aid in the prosecution of their pimps.

He said it here.

[Via $pread magazine online. —fl]

The law has evidently been held up for year in the New York state legislature by law-n-order types, Senate Republicans and NYC Mayor’s office who believed it would just make it harder to “crack down on prostitution.”

The compromise bill allows charges to be reinstated for child prostitutes who refuse to cooperate with court mandates and also includes a sort of “one strike you’re in” provision where reoffenders just go to jail.**

While I’m actually, eh, sympathetic with qualms that if poorly administered the new law could just provide new avenues for gaming the system, on the other hand system-gaming-wise it’s already pretty much nickel night at the casino. So what’s wrong with attempting an approach that sidesteps that system?

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere there’s a bit of a disconnect between the standard protective impulse “OMG, here’s an underage victim who’s been conscripted into prostitution” and the standard response which is “arrest the little whore.”

Whichever way we might feel viscerally about sex work we can not be proud of the pure oxymoronics of “criminal victim.***” And on the face of it, anyway, this looks like a step away from punishing victims and towards punishing (silly me for asking, I know) the actual criminals in such cases: pimps, traffickers, and customers who buy and sell children’s bodies.****

—-

Next up, one hopes, would be diversion initiatives along Safe Housing / Safe Environments lines? The answer would appear to be… yes. According to a summary of the bill from something called the (randomly via-Google) Polaris Project Action Center there are provisions for…

Safe Houses

  • Every local social services district is required to provide a short-term safe house to sexually exploited children who live in its district. In addition to secure housing, the facility should include 24-hour crisis intervention and access to various medical care and other supportive services. Existing resources, including respite beds or runaway and homeless youth programs, can be used if appropriate, and local social service districts may work together to provide these resources on a regional basis.
  • The Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) is required to contract with an appropriate agency with experience working with sexually exploited youth to provide at least one safe house for longer-term care, in a geographic area that would meet the needs of sexually exploited youth and that cannot be readily accessed by perpetrators of sexual exploitation.

Planning
Every local social services district is required to:

  • Determine the needs of sexually exploited children in their respective districts;
  • Include the determination of the need in the integrated county plan;
  • Provide crisis intervention and community-based programs to meet the determined need; and
  • Recognize and plan for the separate and distinct needs of girls, boys, and transgendered youth who have been sexually exploited.

Oh, but wouldn’t you know? Perhaps the bigger objections to the bill weren’t so much about about law ‘n order as some people not wanting to pay to do the right thing.

A recent study conducted by the state Office of Children and Families reports that counties are currently not equipped to handle the needs of this victim population. The study, New York Prevalence Study of Commercially Sexually Exploited Children, was released April 18, 2007. It examined 159 agencies from a sample of local departments of social services throughout the state, including New York City. Among its conclusions, the study details the service availability and capacity, as well as the problems preventing local departments of social services from providing the necessary services.

Hmm… should we help victims or lock them away? Yeah, “which one’s cheaper” is always a moral choice.

[** If convicted. If I’m not mistaken one of the big problems for pimped or trafficked sex workers of any age is that their pimps and traffickers a) know the ropes and b) can afford good successful lawyers. —fl]

[*** I believe I’ve mentioned elsewhere my strong preference for a different, more appropriately focused construction… like treating customers of child prostitutes as Level 1 or Level 2 lifetime-registerable child sex offenders. The act, incidentally, mainly covers children under age 16 so “chilling effect” on what really ought to be legitimate adult sex work customers? Not so much. —fl]

[*** Oops, maybe I’m not so happy: Based on Confessori’s article it looks like Bloomberg et.al. pressed for requiring cooperation against traffickers but… as usual no mention of prosecuting the customers of pimps and traffickers. —fl]

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