2013

In the Booth with Ruth – Ed Drain, Anti-Human Trafficking Advocate and Activist

January 28, 2013 // 7 Comments

I found out about a woman who was trafficked to a massage parlour in DC. I was disgusted to learn that she had to ask twelve ‘customers’ or johns - men who pay to use her body, for help. It was a very brave thing she did because the traffickers would have beat her severely if they knew she had asked any johns for help. The business of the trafficker is...

In the Booth with Ruth – Mary David, Anti-Human Trafficking Activist, Motivational Speaker, Model, Former UN Advisor, Miss Wyoming United States

January 28, 2013 // 4 Comments

The cruelty and gruesomeness of taking away someone’s freedom, dignity, and innocence makes me more angry than I can put into words. I have always been drawn to underserved groups and advocating for exploited people. When I meet survivors and hear what they have gone through but then also see how strong they are despite what they have endured, I can’t help but act. Their traumas are so expansive and ongoing that they propel me forward. Victims of these crimes are like any person you meet at work or a party or school. Fortunately for me, I was never targeted by traffickers, but when I meet victims I can’t help but think “that could have been me.” A realization like that comes with a heavy burden and obligation. I was lucky, so I feel called to help those who are not.

In the Booth with Ruth – Christine Stark, Child Trafficking Survivor, Award Winning Writer and Visual Artist

January 28, 2013 // 8 Comments

Various family members sold me in a prostitution and pornography ring throughout my childhood and teen years. I always wanted to get away from them but since I knew what happened to kids who ended up on the street, I never ran away. I figured my best chance at survival was to stay home and get away by going to college. If I had run away, I would...

In the Booth with Ruth – Virginia Heath, Anti-Human Trafficking Advocate and Filmmaker

January 27, 2013 // 7 Comments

As a woman filmmaker, I have always felt strongly about issues of sexual exploitation and human trafficking. In 2009, I was asked if I would write and direct a film – My Dangerous Loverboy – that would raise awareness of the sexual exploitation and internal trafficking of young people in the UK. At the time, this was an extremely hidden issue...

In the Booth with Ruth – Delores Day, Child Trafficking Survivor and Anti-Human Trafficking Advocate

January 26, 2013 // 7 Comments

I have to admit, I was just as naive as others and thought trafficking was only in third world countries. Learning more about it, I learned that I too was trafficked. First, on my sixteenth birthday, my father sold me to his best friend. I was so scared. You see, I was quite promiscuous in my teens already, stemming from the sexual abuse I endured during my childhood and not knowing what real love is. Then, as I learned more, I realized I was also trafficked when I was seeking extra income because of a college loan that my ex took out while we were married and I co-signed for it. Little did I know that trying to find a job dancing would lead me into trafficking...

In the Booth with Ruth – Nicole Rowe, Feminist, Anti Sex-Trade Activist and Co-Founder of Nordic Model Advocates (NorMAs)

January 25, 2013 // 26 Comments

As a feminist activist, you have to be wilfully blind to ignore the sex trade. I was planning a one-off activist stunt around sex trafficking at a UK activist training event, and was fortunate that those I met were passionate and dedicated enough to want to form an organisation with me to tackle the foundation that holds trafficking up – prostitution. If we lived in a world where women’s bodies were not for sale, then sex traffickers would not be able to operate. So, the best place to start alleviating the problem of trafficking is with prostitution.

In the Booth with Ruth – Michelle Carmela, Child Trafficking Survivor, Anti-Human Trafficking Activist and Advocate, Founder and CEO of Once Upon An Eden

January 25, 2013 // 11 Comments

I am a survivor of incest, child rape, child labor and child prostitution, as well as extreme child abuse. I was also born and raised in a Mafia family. I grew up in the United States. America, like every other country, is a great country, and like every other country, also has citizens that suffer greatly at the whims of others, thus having their rights violated. After a forty-one year history with human exploitation and sharing my story with the public for the past twenty-six years, I am thankful people are listening and...

In the Booth with Ruth – Winnie Small, Radical Feminist/Abolitionist and Ally to Victims of Sex Trafficking & Sexual Exploitation

January 24, 2013 // 4 Comments

I must admit my opposition to pornstitution was largely academic at first, not felt in my gut to be wrong until I read anti-pornography/anti-prostitution feminist books, especially radical feminist books, like Gloria Steinem’s Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics, Joan Smith’s Misogynies - I read all these at twelve years old. Another book I read at the same age, Patrick Roscoe’s Birthmarks, is a collection of semi-autobiographical stories about prostitution, child sexual abuse, homelessness, trauma re-enactment, and so on - that is what really hit me in the gut/tear ducts. Before that, I was...

In the Booth with Ruth – Nikolaos Al-Khadra, Child Trafficking Survivor and Anti-Human Trafficking Activist

January 24, 2013 // 8 Comments

While I was doing a research project for one of my classes, I noticed so many loopholes in state policies when it came to prosecuting those involved in youth prostitution. The victims, being the kids, were prosecuted and the adults, johns and pimps, were just fined. Then I saw something in my own past being a possible key as to why these laws existed in the way they did. Since my past involved corrupt politicians being some of my johns, it sparked me to contact a reporter and share my story.

In the Booth with Ruth – Natasha Sandy, Ally to Victims of Sex Trafficking & Sexual Exploitation

January 23, 2013 // 49 Comments

Survivor voices deeply touch my heart and my sense of humanity. There’s no way I can sit idly by knowing the horrors endured inside the sex trade and the deep bio-psycho-social-spiritual wounds it creates. I like, respect, and want to be part of a movement that cares about the well-being of a population that society dismisses and deems disposable, because nobody is disposable. The massive ignorance around, and ignoring of, the prostituted is something I want to help change.

In the Booth with Ruth – Anna Malika, Child Trafficking Survivor and Anti-Human Trafficking Activist and Advocate

January 23, 2013 // 5 Comments

Unfortunately, I was trafficked at the age seventeen by a co-worker who was forty years old. I was in that situation while still attending high school, until I was nineteen. During that time, I was forced to do unthinkable things and experienced extreme sexual violation through manipulation and brainwashing while participating in his ‘art project'. I didn’t find out until years later that what I was actually doing was pornography.

In the Booth with Ruth – Sheila Quigley, Author and Ally of Human Trafficking Victims

January 23, 2013 // 3 Comments

My first novel, Run for Home, is about a family living on what some people call a sink estate. Thirteen-year-old Claire is enticed away by the delectable Brad, thinking she is going to be part of a film. He leads her to the docks where she’s taken prisoner. There, she finds two other girls on the boat. All are to be sold into the sex trade...

In the Booth with Ruth – Barbara Amaya, Child Trafficking Survivor, Author, and Educator of Human Trafficking

January 22, 2013 // 7 Comments

I had the classic ‘aha moment’ or an epiphany last spring as I watched a newscast about trafficked teens in my neighborhood here in Virginia. At that moment, I realized that all those years ago when I’d been in the streets of New York, the man who’d exploited me had actually been trafficking me. He had been a pimp, true, but for years I’d been thinking all that happened to me had been my fault, the abuse I suffered before I ran away from home, the beating he gave me to make me compliant and more. I had truly believed all of those things were my fault and I’d carried it with me for decades...

In the Booth with Ruth – Servaas Hofmeyr, Anti-Human Trafficking Advocate

January 21, 2013 // 3 Comments

While busy studying in 2008, I browsed around the web (as one does) and came across an article discussing the effects criminalisation and, alternatively, legalisation of prostitution has had in various countries. I was quite shocked to learn what conditions most of the prostituted women found themselves in – varying from being drug addicts, to suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder, to being victims of regular abuse by both their pimps and clients.