Released Today – Soul Destruction: Unforgivable
sexual exploitation
Literary Agency, Raimondi & Campbell, To Represent Translation Rights for Soul Destruction: Unforgivable
Originally posted on Soul
In the Booth with Ruth – Maria, Prostitution Survivor
When I was fifteen, I went to see my friend who’d moved in with her sister. I was thrown out of the house, and found myself in Piccadilly, Manchester where I met gypsies. The police put me in this hostel. There was about one hundred and ninety women in there. I was petrified. I didn’t know what to do. I ended up losing my virginity to a lorry driver for five...
In the Booth with Ruth – Magda M. Olchawska, Award Winning Film Director, Writer & Producer
In the Booth with Ruth – Jackie Summerford, Mother of Bonnie Barratt Murdered at 24 Years Old in the Sex Trade
Bonnie’s killer was a regular to all of them. He’d been rough with some of them and they’d stopped going to his flat. If there was the Merseyside model, he might have been reported to the police before. In May 2007, one of the girls was in his flat and from when she got in, she knew something was wrong with him; she didn’t feel right. She waited for him to go to the bathroom and she shot out of the street door. She never went back after...
In the Booth with Ruth – Andrew Boff, Conservative Member of the London Assembly
Some sex workers in London feel that when they report crimes, police focus on their crimes related to sex work – such as having a ‘brothel’ - over the crimes they originally reported against them. I have seen several cases like this in London. As a result of this belief in the sex industry, sex workers have told me they feel that they cannot safely report crime to the police...
Guest blog on the Merseyside model for Coventry Women’s Voices
In the Booth with Ruth – Jayne Rogers, Community Mental Health Team Leader
I come from a perspective of working in mental health; there is a long history of women with mental health problems being violently sexually abused and forced into prostitution by pimps. The police are generally of very little help and appear to think that abuses should be managed by services operating safeguarding policies to protect the vulnerable. Of course this means that women do not receive a service...
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 – David Zimmerman, Child Trafficking Survivor & Advocate
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)
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...
Ruth Jacobs 