Jen Robinson | TEDxUniversityofNevada

We are so excited to share with you a TEDx talk by Awaken’s Co-founder, Jen Robinson. We ask you to take 13 minutes and watch this amazing, informative talk about the realities of sex trafficking and how you can make a difference in the life of one person. Who is your one?

For the first time in three years, opportunities for women around the world, in terms of education, health and politics, have closed in on those afforded to men, according to a new report released on Monday by the World Economic Forum.

At the top of the list is Iceland. Iceland, for 11 years in a row, is elevating women by closing their gender gaps. Coincidentally, Iceland is also a country I’ve been paying attention to for many years, and not just because it’s on my bucket list to visit. Iceland has been on my radar for a very different reason: their laws on human rights issues, specifically those that establish a culture free from the sexual exploitation of women.

In Iceland, prostitution is not illegal, but buying sex or profiting from prostitution is. In other words, their law decriminalizes all those who are prostituted, provides supportive services to help them exit, and makes buying people for sex a criminal offense, in order to reduce the demand that drives sex trafficking. In fact, 4 of the top 10 countries (Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Ireland) who have closed the gender gap, have this law on prostitution! That’s why it’s called the equality model. It recognizes that the person purchasing sex has an economic advantage. The sex buyer uses money, power and privilege to extract sex from someone with less money, power and privilege. “Prostitution is, in reality, very simple. It is sex between two people- between one who wants it and one who doesn’t. Since desire is absent, payment takes its place.” -Kajsa Ekis Ekman

The disparity between Iceland and Nevada couldn’t be further apart. In Nevada, it is lawful to both buy and sell sex, and one consequence of this is that Nevada has become a breeding ground for sex trafficking: Nevada’s illegal sex trade is the highest of any other state in our country. It is 63 percent larger than the next highest state. Sadly, the data also reveals that Nevada is in the top 10 states in the country for trafficked youth. The traffickers brag that recruiting in Nevada is the easiest because the laws have done half the work for them.

And those aren’t the only consequences: women in Nevada are sold, raped, beaten, assaulted, kidnapped and murdered at levels high above the national average: Nevada consistently ranks first in the nation for domestic violence fatalities, third in the nation for rape/sexual assault; fourth in the nation for women to be murdered by men. According to the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) almost half of the women (48.1%) living in Nevada have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner.

When prostitution is legitimized, then the entire practice of exploitation is normalized; when prostitution is viewed as “a job like any other,” it then gets the same access and opportunities as any other business. Pimps can run for office. A current county commissioner and pimp even came up with an event called “Hunt a Ho” where men with paintball guns get to run around the desert hunting women who work for him.

In other words, the entire community inadvertently becomes groomed. In RGJ’s recent podcast series called The City, a Reno strip club owner was portrayed as a misunderstood good guy, and a victim to be empathized with. This man owns 3 strip clubs, and is a local high school track coach.

Let me repeat myself: when prostitution is legitimized, the entire community inadvertently becomes groomed and does things like allow strip club owners to coach high school girls’ sports, and then portrays his sad childhood of being bullied as his excuse to exploit others.

The City’s portrayal of this poor powerful strip club owner, reminds me of the recent Harvey Weinstein interview where he stated he “feels like a forgotten man” and deserves a “pat on the back when it comes to women.” Weinstein’s lawyer recently asked the judge for mercy on his $45 million dollar lawsuit because it is just “too much to bear.”

The culture in Nevada accepting pimps as politicians and strip club owners into high school positions of authority is no different than Prince Andrew not regretting his relationship with child trafficker and rapists Jeffery Epstein because it proved “actually very useful.” But useful to who Nevada?

In Iceland, strip shows themselves are illegal. In fact, the promotion of nudity to attract customers to a particular venue or event, private dancing, and the fraternization of clients are also illegal. And their laws on consent are clear. Consent must be clearly and voluntarily expressed. The consent burden is on the accused – rather than the court focusing on whether the victim said ‘no’ or tried to fight back, the accused will have to prove the other person consented. By comparison, Nevada’s culture seems to be more interested in finding empathy for predators.

Nevada would do right by re-examining this culture of exploitation, and how it infects our sense of intimacy: if a man tries to have sex with a woman who doesn’t want to have sex with him, we call that sexual harassment. If he goes further and has sex with her anyway, we call that rape. However, in Nevada, if he uses money to convince her to have sex with him, it seems to confuse everyone. The money the sex buyer leaves behind represents his privilege to pay to rebrand his act of rape and call it consent. Iceland is clear in their understanding of consent. His money would never serve as evidence of consent. That payment only provides the sex buyer with the narrative that he did not harm her. He even gets to think she liked it.

Allowing men to buy sex only aligns with his fantasy. It is not the reality of the survivor. The sex buyer and the community are then groomed to believe he didn’t cause any real harm and our law protects his fantasy. This only further perpetuates inequality. We as a society must end our blind loyalty to the sex buyers, the Weinstein’s, the Epstein’s, strip club and brothel owners and learn to stand for equality in our community.

The Awaken Banquet was a huge success thanks to you!

With your support, we’ve witnessed hundreds of lives changed, women and children healed, and a community begin to unite. Together we’ve accomplished so much. This year at the Awaken Banquet you blew us away by helping us raise over $340,000! Victims who once wondered if their lives mattered to anyone discovered there are people like you, who do care about them.

In case you missed the banquet, you can watch Jen share the story of one brave youth that was exploited, along with Awaken’s 2020 plan to open up a specialized holistic educational and restorative school for youth who have been trafficked. You can also watch my banquet talk where I share about the parallels of our community breaking our silence while a survivor breaks hers. I also share additional 2020 initiatives to increase our services by creating programs specific to the women we work with. These programs will offer a continuum of services that range in therapeutic opportunities so that many more women will have access to the perfect level of care they need. 

The women and children we work with come to us having experienced the darkest side of humanity. Your contribution makes our work possible. The fight to end exploitation in our community is not easy, but because of you, it’s also not ours to fight alone. You can help us stop this abuse and succeed in our 2020 initiatives by donating before the end of the year. Your contribution will help victims and get us closer to achieving our vision of one day ending the prostitution and trafficking of women and children in our community. Thank you for your support!

Sincerely,
Melissa Holland
Co-Founder and Executive Director

Today 55 survivors, all whom had been sold and exploited in Nevada unified their voices to tell the Washington D.C. City Council they wholeheartedly disagree with fully decriminalizing the sex trade. Their words below describe the horrendous results of having lived and been exploited in a state where a legal sex trade exists.

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Dear Chairman Allen and Members of the Committee:

We, the undersigned are survivors of the commercial sex trade in the state of Nevada. We have written this letter in opposition to the Community Safety and Health Amendment Act of 2019.  Nevada is the one place in the country that has implemented something similar to what D.C. is proposing to do; however, what Washington, D.C. aims to do with decriminalization is actually worse than legalization. Many in our state also believed legalizing prostitution would help make it safer. That has not been the case for survivors of the legal sex trade. Nevada’s legal prostitution has rolled out the red carpet for sex buyers from all over the world. Traffickers use many avenues to sell their victims, including legal brothels. For many of us, that meant being trafficked into and out of Nevada. For others, it meant we were groomed into prostitution simply by being raised in a state where it’s legal. 

We hope that our lived experiences and voices will be taken into consideration coming from a state where the buying and selling of sex has become normalized. The women who have shared their experiences here represent many others in the legal sex trade who are not yet free to speak their minds. We fully understand the unintended consequences when the buying of sex is normalized and prostitution is treated like a job. The verbal, physical and sexual abuse is always minimized as a result of legalization.  Numerous studies show that between 70 and 90 percent of children and women who end up in the commercial sex trade were sexually abused prior to entry. There is no other industry that is dependent upon a regular supply of victims of trauma and abuse. Prostitution is not like any other “job”; this experience is often times full of violence, trauma and pain and not one that the women or children can simply walk away from without serious danger. 

Many of us couldn’t keep count of how many times we were assaulted and too scared to fight back. To cope with the rapes, physical assaults, verbal degradation and the humiliation of prostitution, the majority of us abused drugs. Treating prostitution as a job like any other only leads the “customer” to believe he is always right and can get away with any fantasy he desires. Sexual assault is only one of those fantasies. For those of us of color, it was fantasies of racism. We can’t count the number of times we were called a racial slur. Racism from sex buyers is commonplace. Many of our sisters have committed suicide from the trauma we endure in prostitution. Decriminalization will only make this worse.   

Legalized prostitution has increased the market for commercial sex in our community; this increase benefits criminal enterprises that profit from sex trafficking. Your community will become a playground for men to live out their fantasies, just like ours has. Please understand that just because the sex was paid for does not mean it was consensual. Passing this bill will hurt the very people you are claiming you want to protect.  

Many supporters of the bill testified about harsh treatment by law enforcement.  Let’s put serious effort and funding into training law enforcement officers to respectfully help the victims, add accountability measures for those who act out of line and violate women and children and punish the criminals: the pimps and buyers.

We ask that you listen to survivors; pimping and buying sex are behaviors that should not be encouraged or tolerated. The premise of decriminalization and legalization is wrong. Legalization has given men who buy sex permission to be degrading, harmful and violent to women. Full decriminalization does not make prostitution safer. Being bought for sex is not harmful because its’ illegal, it is illegal because it’s harmful. We know firsthand the life-long trauma that occurs from being bought and sold for sex. We urge the committee not to pass the cleverly disguised Community Health and Safety Act of 2019.

Article Two: What Exactly Is Coercion And Why Does It Seem To Be Working?

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By Shontell Brewer

It seems every time we open our internet browser we find a news article about someone new being arrested for human trafficking and abuse. Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein who was accused of hiring minors as masseuses and other roles, 308 unnamed offenders responsible for sexually abusing children online, attorney Alan Dershowitz accused of partaking in Epstein’s parties and bad mouthing victims, Gigi Mitchell who trafficked an 11-year-old in Las Vegas, and R. Kelly who is facing charges on child pornography and trafficking, to name a few in the last several weeks. We recently gave you the introduction to this series that will unveil a deeper understanding of these current cases. This week, we are working to explain some of the terminology found in the laws and used by the courts that surround these news events. 

One of the buzz words in these trafficking cases is “coercion.” I want to explain what it means and why accused parties seem to throw that word around like it’s a leg to stand on. 

Essentially, these traffickers and abusers are using the age old “I didn’t do it” defense. They don’t mean they didn’t commit the crime. There’s been a little too much evidence for them to claim that. What they mean is, “I didn’t coerce her. She wanted it.” 

There’s just one big problem with this argument.

If you pay money for sex, it’s coercion.

If you offer food to a starving person in exchange for sex, it’s coercion.

If you pay rent for or give a home to a homeless runaway in exchange for sex, it’s coercion.

If you threaten harm to someone or their family unless that person has sex with you, it’s coercion.

If you are a billionaire and you have your assistant collect some women and children and have them waiting at your house to massage you and do other things in exchange for money, it’s coercion (and sexual assault in the case of the child.)

If you are a belligerent attorney who has defended some of the worst rapist and abusers, and you hire a girl to massage you in exchange for money and her reputation, it’s coercion.

If you offer anything on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to someone who is lacking that thing in exchange for sex, it’s coercion.

These things alone are not a problem. But they become damaging when a person is told, “You can have this (fill in the blank item) if you have sex with me/him.” 

So saying, “I won’t pay you money/give you food/keep you safe unless you give me sex in return” is clearly coercion. Why does anyone seem to be falling for coercive tactics? This strategy works because traffickers focus on vulnerability in people. People like Epstein and his cronies know that they have very little to be worried about as long as they pick the right girls.

It’s easy to see why someone would agree to sell themselves for sex when we use this lens. If you’re literally starving, what you will do for food comes with the desperation of being fed. It’s even easier to understand why so many women agree to any of this when we realize saying no means going without having that need met and often threats of violence toward them or their family members.

This understanding is the cultural shift you can help bring about. As you speak about these cases at the water cooler and on back porches over dinner, take this new understanding of coercion and pass it along. Speak to the men, women, and children who are marginalized and help them move from unseen and vulnerable to seen, heard, and safe. When the opportunities present themselves, vote to increase the penalty for pedophiles when they buy a child for sex. Use your vote to bring healthy change and protection for the vulnerable.

Speak to the men, women, and children who are marginalized and help them move from unseen and vulnerable to seen, heard, and safe.

Bringing light and understanding to the idea of what coercion is and why it’s not a justification for the behaviors we are seeing in the news is the best form of partnership you can make with us right now. Teaching others in your circles gives us the reach we do not have on our own. 

Looking for more ways to get involved? Contact us at AwakenReno.org