From the Madness and Hell of Life as a Heroin and Crack Addict with Countless Failed Overdoses, This is My Story on Getting My Life Back on Track
activist
In the Booth with Ruth – Magda M. Olchawska, Award Winning Film Director, Writer & Producer
Cry for the Merseyside Model: Crimes Against People in Prostitution/Sex Workers Must Be Treated As Hate Crimes UK Wide
These very real women photographed above are dead. They were murdered, and most of their cases remain unsolved. Women in prostitution suffer higher rates of murder [the mortality rate for women in prostitution in London is twelve times the national average - Home Office 2004a], higher rates of rape [more than half have been raped and/or seriously...
In the Booth with Ruth – Aashika N. Damodar, Anti-Human Trafficking Activist, Advocate and Non-Profit Founder
So many events in my life have culminated to this point: a life dedicated to combating sexual violence and trafficking. When I entered university, I learned about a trafficking case that took place right across from my dormitory at UC Berkeley. Lakireddy, a Berkeley landlord and restaurant owner, came under investigation when a young woman died in one of his apartment buildings. He was convicted for both sex and labor trafficking...
In the Booth with Ruth – Rachel Lloyd, Founder and CEO of Girls Educational & Mentoring Services (GEMS)
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)
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)
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 – Dedee Lhamon, Anti-Human Trafficking Advocate and Non-Profit Founder
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)
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
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 – Ed Drain, Anti-Human Trafficking Advocate and Activist
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 – Christine Stark, Child Trafficking Survivor, Award Winning Writer and Visual Artist
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 – Delores Day, Child Trafficking Survivor and Anti-Human Trafficking Advocate
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)
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.
