Seventeen State Attorneys General Have a Problem With Craigslist

Seventeen State Attorneys General Have a Problem With Craigslist

Jill Brenneman’s response in the comments section
http://humantrafficking.change.org/blog/view/seventeen_state_attorneys_general_have_a_problem_with_craigslist

I”m Jill Brenneman, I am a former teen sex slave that was trafficked from Ohio to California. I have no illusions about the harm done to trafficking victims. I was one of them. Lured from a shopping mall into the sex industry, held against my will and used as a submissive prostitute. It was a horrendous three years that I am never sure whether or not I was lucky to survive or cursed to have had to survive it.

However, the answer to my problem and that of trafficking victims does not come in the sweeping arrest and criminalization of prostitutes. It was the very fear of arrest that was so skillfully used by my pimp that kept me from going to the police. And had I been found by a police officer and been arrested. That would not have been any better.

Often times trafficking victims have opportunities to escape but fear of arrest, fear of deportation, those are handcuffs just as real as those that were so often around my wrists. We have to think these issues through and look for real solutions, not just feel good ones that are glossy press conferences for some wannabe re-elected sheriff. The answers have to come ensuring that prostitutes have rights, have the freedom to do sex work without fear of arrest where they can see the police as allies when they are victimized by crimes rather than fear them. So that they can report actual trafficking without fear.

Let me fast forward to my life now in my early 40′s. Various major issues many going back to my days being trafficked have caused me to lose a lot of work. I currently work a job that posts the schedule so tight that it is impossible to be able to work a part time job. Needing money, I returned to the sex industry. After a few normal clients, I ran into a current federal air marshall. After a long period where he was unable to reach his goal, he pulled out a trashbag, put it over my head, handcuffed me and raped me both ways forcing me to swallow the condom.

Because what I was doing is illegal, because he is law enforcement, he won and I got the shit beaten out of me and raped violently. In a decriminalized prostitution scenario I could get justice. Instead I have the same nightmares as when I was a runaway teen.

Please, before you look at blanket criminalization as a solution to trafficking. Look again. of abolition, think it through. If you were desperate and needed help would you go to someone that would arrest you?