2013

In the Booth with Ruth – Jennifer Domenico, Author

February 21, 2013 // 0 Comments

I’ve written off and on since I was a child. As an adult, I’ve written for blogs and online magazines but never undertook a full-length novel. I always had the dream but never seemed to have the perseverance. Then, in July last year, I had the most spectacular, vivid dream. It played out like a movie and when I woke up, I decided to try writing it down. The idea...

In the Booth with Ruth – George S Geisinger, Author

February 20, 2013 // 0 Comments

I was a young adolescent boy, and started writing, trying to figure out which girl in my school it was that I really liked the most at the inconsequential age of thirteen. It was a toss-up between two different girls, and writing about it did not get either one of them to ever go out with me, but it did help me feel better than the wretched, depressed soul I had...

In the Booth with Ruth – Nic Taylor, Author

February 5, 2013 // 0 Comments

I would hardly say I have a writing background at all; I was rubbish at English at school, despite that my mother was an English teacher (not mine thank God). The first thing I wrote in years that was not an email or a proposal or such was my PhD dissertation. That ran to, I think, about 25,000 words, which I tried to keep ‘un-dry’, the polar opposite to every...

In the Booth with Ruth – Craig Douglas, Author

February 4, 2013 // 2 Comments

A boy of fourteen began to flourish when given English homework. It was the creative kind that made me explode with ideas. My teacher inspired me when she said I had talent. I've got her to thank for that. In my 20s and 30s it has been hit and miss due to a frenetic time in the army, but now I'm out it's even more hectic...

In the Booth with Ruth – Darren Sant, Author

February 4, 2013 // 5 Comments

My writing, generally, is drawn by ideas and scenes that pop into my head. I try not to think in terms of genre if I can help it. An interest in human nature and what makes us tick are perhaps the things that drive me to drift towards crime on occasion...

In the Booth with Ruth – David Zimmerman, Child Trafficking Survivor & Advocate

January 31, 2013 // 6 Comments

My involvement began as I was receiving EMDR trauma therapy to recover from lifelong posttraumatic stress disorder. I was overwhelmed by flashbacks, night terrors, anxiety and depression that were triggered by the passing of my father, who began grooming and sexually assaulting me at the age of three, and then trafficked me on a regular basis, mostly in...

In the Booth with Ruth – Rachel Lloyd, Founder and CEO of Girls Educational & Mentoring Services (GEMS)

January 31, 2013 // 5 Comments

We get a lot of people who want to go ‘rescue’ girls on the street – (a) we’re about empowering girls and young women, not rescuing or ‘saving’ them and (b) places like Big Brother Big Sister are always in need of healthy, consistent adult mentors, and long term, the impact you could have in a little girl or boy’s life will make a true difference in actually preventing children and youth from being vulnerable in the first place...

In the Booth with Ruth – The Sophie Hayes Foundation (Anti-Human Trafficking)

January 31, 2013 // 4 Comments

The Sophie Hayes Foundation became involved in the combat against sex trafficking and exploitation when a survivor from the UK named Sophie Hayes wanted to make a difference after her horrific experience of being forced into the sex industry. Like many, Sophie had a very normal life, good education, stable job, and wonderful people surrounding her...

In the Booth with Ruth – Founding Member of The NO Project (Anti-Human Trafficking)

January 31, 2013 // 5 Comments

About twelve years ago, I happened to read an article in a Sunday paper, which described a young woman, eighteen years old, who had hung herself in a toilet using her own stockings. She was a young foreign woman – a girl really - being used for commercial sexual exploitation in a city in northern Greece. That article pretty much changed my life - kudos to...

In the Booth with Ruth – Anne Bissell, Sex Trafficking Survivor, Author, Executive Director Voices for Justice/Silver Braid

January 30, 2013 // 5 Comments

When my book, Memoirs of a Sex Industry Survivor, came out in 2004, I found myself on the frontline regarding issues of child sex trafficking and the commercialized sexual exploitation of children. Towards this end, I have worked for many years to create a strategy, which I call Operation Silver Braid...

In the Booth with Ruth – Dedee Lhamon, Anti-Human Trafficking Advocate and Non-Profit Founder

January 30, 2013 // 8 Comments

In 2008, I was watching a program about sex trafficking of children in Cambodia on MSNBC. When watching this program, they started talking about sex trafficking of children in the United States. The thought that this was happening here pierced my heart. I have two daughters and so the thought of girls being victimized in such a way deeply disturbed me...

In the Booth with Ruth – Stella Marr, Sex Trafficking Survivor, Anti-Sex Trafficking Activist and Advocate, Executive Director and Founding Member of Sex Trafficking Survivors United (Survivors Connect)

January 29, 2013 // 15 Comments

I was trafficked in prostitution in New York City for nearly ten years, from the early 1980s to the early 1990s. Two of my friends from the life were murdered. My beautiful friend, April, died of suicide because the madam she'd called promised to send help then did nothing. April died waiting - to me it feels like another murder. My best friend Gabriel, who'd been trafficked from age sixteen, died of AIDS at age twenty-four. His family kicked him out when they found out he was sick, so he had to spend his last days living with a john who made him buy life insurance with the john as beneficiary. I fill with tears when I think of it...

In the Booth with Ruth – Erica Greve, Anti-Human Trafficking Advocate and Non-Profit Founder

January 29, 2013 // 3 Comments

I first came into contact with children who had been sold for sex in America a few years ago, while I was completing my MSW degree from UC Berkeley. At the time, I was interning as one of the emergency department social workers, and my job was to conduct the initial interview of physically and sexually abused youths who were brought into the emergency...

In the Booth with Ruth – Jody Williams, Founder of Sex Workers Anonymous (formerly Prostitutes Anonymous) and Trafficking and Prostitution Services

January 29, 2013 // 8 Comments

I was in the middle of this in Los Angeles during the 1980s, which was during the whole Iran-Contra fiasco. This meant I saw government, CIA, police, and other politically connected people pumping guns and drugs into Los Angeles using the gangs as a front for what they were doing. I was on the trucks full of crates of cocaine off the boat from Columbia when I saw the coast guard wave them on through, because everything had been already arranged within our own government to happen. I watched how the prostitutes were used as mules to carry the drugs or to have sex with potential purchasers of the guns to make sure they were not cops...