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Sep. 06, 2007
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Outlaw industry, ex-prostitutes say

Researcher spotlights human trafficking

By LYNNETTE CURTIS
REVIEW-JOURNAL
COLUMN MENTIONS BOOK, CRITICIZES LV MAYOR

Psychologist and researcher Melissa Farley's new book, "Prostitution & Trafficking in Nevada: Making the Connections," was mentioned early this week in New York Times writer Bob Herbert's column.

Herbert also criticized Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman for setting a "tone of systematic, institutionalized degradation" of women and for supporting the establishment of "magnificent brothels" in the city.

Asked about the comments on Wednesday, Goodman confirmed saying that he supported a discussion about bringing legal brothels to Las Vegas.

"It's good to have a discussion about things," he said. "There are pros," such as being able to regulate working conditions and checkups for sexually transmitted diseases.

But Goodman said he told Herbert that the idea would not go beyond the discussion phase because "our constituents aren't interested in it" and "the community isn't ready for it," a qualification that was not included in the column.

"I have no use for him," the mayor said of Herbert. "I'll take a baseball bat and break his head if he ever comes here."

ALAN CHOATE
REVIEW-JOURNAL


Psychologist and researcher Melissa Farley talks Wednesday about prostitution during a news conference at the Sawyer Building. Farley is the author of a new book called "Prostitution & Trafficking in Nevada: Making the Connections."
Photo by John Locher.



Kathleen Mitchell, a former prostitute who helps people leave prostitution, talks about the two decades of her life she says were controlled by a pimp.
Photo by John Locher.

Kathleen Mitchell worked as a prostitute for more than two decades before her pimp was finally sent to jail.

"I wasn't a drug addict; I was addicted to a man," Mitchell, now 64, said. "That's the worst drug there is."

Mitchell, who often saw her boyfriend pimp beat up other prostitutes, escaped prostitution 18 years ago. But its effects are lasting.

"If I have a relationship, it's probably going to be a bad one," she said.

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    • Her story was one of several shared by former prostitutes Wednesday morning at a Sawyer Building news conference to announce the release of researcher Melissa Farley's book, "Prostitution & Trafficking in Nevada: Making the Connections," published by the San Francisco-based nonprofit Prostitution Research and Education.

    The event also served as the introduction of a new local anti-trafficking organization, Nevada Coalition Against Sex Trafficking.

    The women joined Farley, former Nye County Commissioner Candice Trummell and Assemblyman Bob Beers, R-Henderson, in attacking prostitution in all its forms and calling for it to be outlawed in all of Nevada, not just in certain counties such as Clark and Washoe.

    "Prostitution is not work," said Farley, a psychologist who has spent years researching prostitution and its psychological effects. "Rather, it's a human rights violation."

    The group argued that legal prostitution can be just as harmful to women as illegal prostitution because both involve kinds of abuse and cause long-lasting psychological damage.

    "What happens in legal brothels is sexual harassment, sexual exploitation and sometimes rape," Farley said. "Despite the claims to the contrary, legal prostitution does not protect women from the violence, verbal abuse, physical injury or diseases such as HIV that occur in illegal prostitution."

    Brothel industry lobbyist George Flint later attacked the idea that women who work as legal prostitutes are abused.

    "Anybody that has an ounce of brain or intelligence has to know they (legal and illegal prostitution) are two different things," he said. "We don't traffic women. We don't hire trafficked women. We don't work with pimps. We treat the girls with respect and dignity and we take care of them."

    Kate Hausbeck, senior associate dean of UNLV's graduate college and an associate professor of sociology, also differed with some of Farley's conclusions.

    Hausbeck said she supports an adult woman's right to "choose how they want to use their bodies in the marketplace."

    "My goal is to always protect the rights of women," she said. "We have to ask the women involved and take their answers seriously."

    But Farley said prostitution is "not a freely made choice."

    "When women say, 'I'm happy. I'm making money,' that's just the tiniest bit of the surface," she said. "Under duress from legal and illegal pimps, women hide their coerced status in prostitution. Many people refuse to believe just how bad it is for women."

    Hausbeck said disbelieving women who say they are happy in prostitution is "really condescending."

    "It's frankly dismissive of women as uninformed, silly children, which is exactly the perspective we should have moved far beyond."

    She said the word "trafficking" is often misused to indicate anyone who is involved in prostitution, instead of only those who are forced into sex work against their wills.

    If an adult "is walked across the state line or a national border intending to do sex work of their own free will, without any force, they are making this decision, and to me that's very different," she said.

    But Farley and others argue a clear link exists between legal and illegal prostitution and sex trafficking.

    "Sex trafficking happens when men demand the right to buy women," Farley said.

    Terri Miller, director of the Anti-Trafficking League Against Slavery, which formed last year within the Metropolitan Police Department, said that Nevada is a ripe environment for human trafficking because it is the only state that has legalized prostitution.

    "I don't believe all prostitution is sex trafficking, but I believe the majority of women who are prostitutes have been the victim of sex trafficking at some point in their lives."

    Miller said each time a prostitute engages in a sex act, "it is very much victimizing."

    "The reality is that they are having to engage in a sex act with a complete stranger as many times as 30 times a day. It is not a victimless crime."

    Those who want to leave prostitution have a difficult time finding help, especially in Nevada, Farley said.

    "Most women in prostitution want to escape it," she said. "In prostitution, the conditions that make choice possible are absent. If we really want to say it's a choice, women need a range of options."

    Jody Williams, a former prostitute and member of the Nevada Coalition Against Sex Trafficking, agreed.

    "When women quit prostitution, they ... suffer from a broad range of physical and emotional disorders," she said. "Women in prostitution suffer from the same combat stress that Vietnam and combat vets do, but they have fewer services than vets do."

    Former prostitutes "wind up on welfare, disability, public housing and on the street," Williams said.

    She joined Farley and others in calling for harsher penalties against those who hire prostitutes, instead of arresting the prostitutes themselves.

    Farley's book is based on a U.S. State Department-sponsored study of prostitution and trafficking in Nevada.

    The U.S. Department of Justice has recognized Las Vegas as one of 17 cities where human trafficking is a concern.

    The book includes interviews with and demographics of women working in legal Nevada brothels. It explores the link between legal brothels and psychological distress and disease, the trafficking of legal and illegal prostitutes in Nevada, escort and strip club prostitution in Las Vegas, advertising for prostitution and barriers to escaping prostitution.

    The Nevada Coalition Against Sex Trafficking will work to educate people about trafficking, identify services for victims and change Nevada laws related to prostitution, said Trummell, the organization's director.

    "It is way past time for Nevada to become the last state in the United States of America to finally stand against all forms of slavery," Trummell said. "It is time for Nevada to start adhering to the U.S. government's own official and very strong stance against legalized prostitution."

    Attempts to outlaw prostitution in all of Nevada have cropped up but have not gotten far in the Legislature, which has shown a preference for letting rural communities handle the issue themselves.

    Beers said he would support making prostitution illegal in all of Nevada.

    A brothel owner, he said, is "somebody who, when it gets down to the very essence, is nothing more than a slave-owner."



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    yeah only in your dreams wrote on January 21, 2008 06:41 PM: I worked a brothel and i was never force to nothing but to suport my family. No body makes do anything thing I dont want to do. The only back exprierence I had in there was two madam that are bitches and need to be on prozac. I have met the onwers of them and they are nice help you any way they can. I can say that about the madams those except for the one i am in now she is real nice lady.I dont know where our freedom of chorce is going any more pretty soon we will not have any freedom left if we the people let these religion church going hipocrips run our lifes.


    Memphis Steve wrote on December 13, 2007 07:10 AM: According to Farley's book, the United States should emulate Sweden, where a woman selling sex is protected by the law, but a man buying is a criminal. It's a dual system of law biased by sex rather than any sort of pretense of equality. I guess we should just toss the Bill of Rights in the trash and give the female supremacists anything and everything they want. Everything women do is legal, anything men do is illegal. To hell with equal rights, lets just go straight to feminist fascism. As for women in the sex industry who disagree with Miss Farley, they are clearly suffering from some mysterious syndrome (caused by men) that only Miss Farley can diagnose. They must be sent to a mental facility for reeducation immediately. Men, of course, who aren't homosexuals and thus want sex with women, should all be rounded up and placed in ovens where they will be eliminated. It's the Final Solution to the 'problem' of human sexuality, something feminism is dedicated to stamping out once and for all.


    Me wrote on October 29, 2007 12:46 PM: I just love how they always leave out those of us ladies who CHOOSE to do this of our own free will. We are called independants and do it because we want to or because we enjoy it. Where are the statistics on that?


    steven wrote on September 16, 2007 07:12 PM: what happens between two consenting adults should not be the business of the government, period. butt out.


    Iamcuriousblue wrote on September 16, 2007 12:10 PM: I should also note that the "legal brothel" model of prostitution is NOT one that's favored by most sex workers, even those that strongly favor decriminalization of both the buying and selling of sex. Basically, the legal brothels as they're now constituted significantly compromise a the brothel worker's freedom of movement and other basic liberties, and disempower them in ways that can lead to all kinds of abuses. There are several good articles on the subject here:

    http://www.sexwork.com/legal/NevPimpHouses.html

    Also, the sex worker rights blog Bound Not Gagged will be responding to Farley's report in a blog-in about this planned for the evening of Monday 9/17. More info here:

    http://www.scapa-lv.org/whats_hot/lv_call_to_action.htm


    Iamcuriousblue wrote on September 16, 2007 12:06 PM: Before passing judgement based on this report, it might be a good idea to read up on Melissa Farley's background and where she's coming from ideologically.

    Basically, she's a very extreme radical feminist that believes any buying of sex under any and all circumstances amounts to an act of rape. Also, her research methodology is highly questionable and she's been called on this before. To say that she represents the interests of women in prostitution is debatable – there is a contingent of ex-prostitutes (who mostly have been involved in particularly abusive situations vis a vis prostitution) that support her. However, there's also a large sex workers rights movement who are very opposed to her.

    The following Wikipedia page offers a good introduction to Farley:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melissa_Farley

    In particular, follow the links to the articles featuring her debates with social scientist Ronald Weitzer, which should provide good background info for evaluating her recent report. Also note that this report is self-published, meaning its not a peer-reviewed study. There's good reason why Farley's questionable methodology has a hard time making it through the peer review process.

    I comment more fully on this on my own blog:

    http://bppa.blogspot.com/2007/09/melissa-farleys-latest-bound-not-gagged.html


    Lucille wrote on September 10, 2007 04:04 PM: There is so much misinformation here it is kind of funny. The point of the original research for the U.S. Department of State was to look at trafficking in Nevada. And guess what? There is a lot of it. Some legal brothels specialize in small asian women. Where do you think they come from? Now if you think that trafficked women with no documentation have so many "options" that they get to make a "choice" you are kidding yourselves.

    Conditions for women in the legal brothels are horrible. How would you like to be out in the middle of the desert servicing at least 5 men a day, some of whom insist on not using condoms. Then half your money goes to the brothel owner, who also gets to have sex with you whenever he feels like it. You aren't allowed to leave, your car keys are confiscated. You have to sign a contract to stay at least 2 weeks (sometimes longer) and if you "choose" to leave before it is up, you don't get paid any of the money you've earned up to that point. Plus you have to pay the brothel owner outrageous prices for your water and food and for 'fines" if you act some way he doesn't like (like if you "choose" not to service a violent customer.) You have to pay cab and limo drivers a kickback. You are lucky to keep 20% of what the john pays.

    Wake up and take a look at what is really happening beyond the cartoon illusion the brothel industry is trying to sell us! The legal brothel industry is a cesspool. It's not something for Nevada to be proud of.


    Bob Beers wrote on September 08, 2007 08:46 AM: If find the comment that "no one owns these women but themselves" to be interesting. If this thought is carried further, than the historical fact of slave ownership up to the Civil War was a lie. No, you are wrong. Brutal, souless men owned and abused the women I met at that press conference. They related their stories. I spoke with the head of the Brothel Association, George Flint and he admitted that there are "bad players" in this business. If a woman trully wants to be a prostitute than there should be laws rigorously enforced to prevent her abuse by anyone, and avenues created for her exit if she changes her mind. If Nevada finds a man has abused her as a pimp of a john than this state has the obligation to come down on those men with every punishment we can conceive and use their assets to pay for that woman's recovery and retraining. It is a matter of choice, and if anyone thinks that there are coherced sex acts going on, than I have some beach front property in Pahrump for you at a good price.


    Lucky wrote on September 07, 2007 10:01 PM: I could see why Miller would be scrutinized about the Club Paradise property. A cynic might suggest he is so headstrong about "beating a dead Horse," that it could be in support of one Chicago crime family over another. Sorry Steve but the Club Paradise thing and their ties to Chicago makes me suspect.


    Richard E of D wrote on September 07, 2007 12:57 PM: It's not just the right wing of a political party or religious group, that wants to do away with it. This sounds like a lunatic fringe activist group, exploiting it to further a hidden agenda, and using the slavery issue to do, so. It could be either far right or far left, and all it is is hate mongering. They carefully hand pick certain individuals, ones that have been affected negatively and only tell that side of the story for propaganda purposes. Those (former working girls) that have been affect negatively by it, do not speak for the whole group. Every body has a different opinion. It's called independent thought.


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