Community Based Research With Criminalized Sex Workers and Sex Trafficking Survivors

Bella Robinson, Robyn Linde, Tara Burns

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!!ACTION REQUIRED!!

After this session we hope you will:

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• Use community based research to bring the voices of marginalized people in your community to policymakers.

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• Find out if there is an Immunity Bill for sex workers and sex trafficking survivors in your state and if so, write a letter of support for it.

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Immunity In Reporting Crimes for Sex Workers and Sex Trafficking Survivors

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The problem: sex workers, sex trafficking survivors, and our clients who are victims or witnessed of violent crimes usually don't report out of fear of police, arrest, and losing their housing or kids.

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• We quantified it with community based research in Alaska.

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• The solution: immunity in reporting.
• For sex workers, sex trafficking survivors, and our clients.
• Report all kinds of crimes against people.
• Immunity from EVER being charged with evidence from the report.
• Just say NO to affirmative defense bills.

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How did we learn about the problem?

Sex Workers are a Hidden Population

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• Sex workers rarely exist openly in society or the media.
• Special interest groups tend to speak “for” sex workers and sex trafficking survivors about their realities and their needs.
• Anti-prostitute agenda doesn't help sex workers or sex trafficking survivors.

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What are other hidden populations?

Why is it so hard to get the voices of hidden populations to policy makers?

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• Why sex workers are afraid to speak up: police, landlords, family members, coworkers at other jobs, your kids friends parents, etc, could find out they are a sex worker. They could lose their housing, bank account, child custody, and future career.
• What specifically are they afraid to do? Show their face, their legal name, or other information that could identify them.

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Community-Based Research is the Answer!

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• Effectively communicate the things we already know or wonder about.
• Starts with conversations with the hidden communities
• Overcome some of the limitations of hidden populations in public advocacy
• Working with academics
• Legitimacy v restriction
• IRB

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Storybank RI

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• RI: Immunity Bill
• We needed data and stories
• Survey
• Volunteers read stories in legislative sessions
• Packaged for media and public consumption
• Toolkit

Do Sex Workers Report Crimes?

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Statistics of violence against sex workers

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What percent of sex workers have been victims or witnesses of serious crimes they didn't report to law enforcement?

• Alaska: 74%
• Rhode Island: 47%
• Nationally: 52%

A lot of information about serious crimes like assault, sex trafficking, and murder is not making it to police.

This is horrible for public safety.

What Happens When Sex Workers Do Report Crimes?

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Turned away without having their report taken:

• Alaska: 66%
• Rhode Island: 79%
• Nationally: 44%

Threatened with arrest or arrested:

• Alaska: 39%
• Rhode Island: 27%
• Nationally: 24%

Research as Story Bank:

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I was working for an agency that send me on a residential Incall. When I arrived the man was really high and had a plate of cocaine laying on the coffee table. As he led me into the bedroom, I saw a women tied up who had bruises all over her face. I was able to trick the man into going into the bathroom, and I was able to locked him in. I untied the woman and helped her escape. We did not report this to the police because we knew the police would be more interested in the fact that we were escorts, then the violence this man committed against this women. I believe that the man could have been a serial killer.

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I was threatened with a gun by my manager when I asked him what the cut was (he took different cuts of our money depending on the mood). The other workers and I found out he had been extorting sex out of one of our migrant colleagues under the threat of getting her deported for prostitution. At that point we fired him and he retaliated with blackmail and trying to call the police on us. Since we were doing illegal work (full body sensual massage–hand jobs), We did not report any of this to the police.

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I have been raped by clients on three separate occasions. Once was with a knife to my throat, another time I was tied up and blindfolded, and another time I was held down with force. I have also been robbed by a client. None of these instances did I go to the police for help, as I believed that they would not take it seriously. A few of my sex worker friends had tried to go to the police with similar stories, and were laughed at, told that they could be arrested too, or were just not taken seriously. Another friend was raped by a cop. Cops also set us up for stings, and harass us on the street, so I wouldn't trust them to actually help. I also was afraid that the police may demand to know the location where I worked, and that would jeopardize the safety of that location for the other workers. I have heard that police sometimes document rape of sex workers as "theft of services", which feels minimizing and humiliating, and I didn't want that to happen to me.

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In COYOTE’s 2022 survey, 77% of sex workers said that they would report violent crimes to police if there were an immunity law in place to protect them.

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https://coyoteri.org/legislation-campaigns/

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What hidden populations might you partner

with?

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Questions? Comments?