NEWSPIMPING

In New York City, over twice as many people in prostitution -- many of whom are victims of sex trafficking -- are arrested than the johns, pimps, and facilitators who exploit them. But an innovative new program called "A Losing Proposition" could help solve that problem by focusing the NYPD's resources on arresting the men who buy and force women to sell sex. A hearing that could decided whether or not to expand "A Losing Proposition to all five boroughs will take place on Wednesday, October 19th, and New Yorkers and other activists have launched a Twitter campaign asking the NYPD to expand the program.

Here's an example of how broken the current system is: SG, a sex trafficking victim in NYC, was arrested 86 times for prostitution and loitering for the purpose of engaging in prostitution over the course of three years.  Her identity documents were kept in the possession of her trafficker, she was forced to sell sex in a house in the Bronx and on the streets, and she was trafficked to other states.  SG repeatedly tried to get arrested -- even asked police officers to arrest her  -- because she wanted to escape the horror of her day-to-day existence.  The police, however, never recognized her as a victim, and instead released her back to her pimp.

More than 1,000 people from around the world have joined a popular new campaign on Change.org calling on E! Entertainment’s hit show Fashion Police to end a segment titled “Starlet or Streetwalker”, which mocks and derides women and girls in the commercial sex industry.

“Starlet or Streetwalker” features a panel of celebrities who laugh at photos of scantily clad women and girls as they try to guess whether they are Hollywood stars or prostituted women.

Earlier this month, the Hartford Advocate published a story about child sex trafficking in Connecticut, citing "pimp-paid sex ads in alternative newspapers like the Hartford Advocate" as part of the epidemic. Yet despite acting on the information that the sex ads in their own newspaper have been critical tools for child sex traffickers, the newspaper continues to profit from them. Will someone at the Hartford Advocate read their own exposé and stop accepting ads for what they have identified as child sex trafficking?

For five years, Dennis Paris trafficked girls and women into prostitution in Connecticut. Some of the girls he sold were as young as fourteen, just freshmen in high school. Paris also sold adult women whose heroin addictions he exploited in order to keep the money they earned for himself and prevent them from leaving prostitution. The details of the violence and coercion Paris used to control the women and girls he sold is detailed in the book The Berlin Turnpike, including the detail that Paris's favorite place to advertise for sex with his victims was the Hartford Advocate.

If you have two minutes to spare while playing around on Facebook today, you can help stop child sex slavery in the U.S. Despite recent high-profile cases of gangs pimping young girls at Wyndham hotels, the company has still not signed The Code of Conduct to Prevent Child Sexual Exploitation in the Travel and Tourism Industry. Will you leave a message on their Facebook wall asking them to sign?

Recently, police have busted two gangs for sex trafficking young girls at Wyndham hotels. At one California hotel, Wyndham staff acted as lookouts and accepted bribes from the traffickers, while they sold over a dozen girls as young as 14. At another Virginia hotel, Wyndham staff ignored 6-7 men per night coming and going from a room where a 15-year-old girl was being held in sexual slavery. Gang-run child sex trafficking at Wyndham hotels needs to stop, immediately. Here's what you can do:

Recently, San Diego native Tim Rosner launched a campaign on Change.org asking Wyndham Hotels to prevent child sex trafficking at their properties, after a sex trafficking ring selling girls as young as 14 was discovered in a Wyndham hotel in California. Now, another sex trafficking ring has been busted using Wyndham properties near Washington, DC. Will this latest scandal finally inspire the company finally do the right thing?

Virginia resident and MS-13 gang member Alonso Bruno Cornejo Ormeno was recently indicted for trafficking girls for sex at a Super 8 hotel -- a Wyndham property --  in Manassas, Virginia. At least one of the girls was 15 when she was sold, and Ormeno advertised her as a "high school girl" and "fresh out of the box." According to the indictment, Ormeno rented a room at the Super 8 where he sold sex acts with a number of girls and women for $50 each. He told an informant his business was booming, and his cell phone was ringing off the hook. Six or seven clients a day would stream in and out of the room, but no one at the hotel reported it.

From 2006 to 2011, for at least 16 teen and preteen girls, hell was a Travelodge hotel in San Diego. That's because the staff of that hotel were actively helping members of the gang The Crips to force them into prostitution. For six years, Travelodge staff acted as lookouts, pocketed bribe money, and even let traffickers use the hotel computer to post ads for commercial sex with minors online. Now, the incident has inspired a movement asking Wyndham Hotel Group to prevent such horrific misuse of their property by signing the Code of Conduct to Protect Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism.

The Crips gang in San Diego ran a child sex trafficking ring of at least 16 girls out of various area hotels, two of which were owned by the Wyndham group -- a Travelodge and a Howard Johnson. At the Howard Johnson, hotel staff neglected to take any action to protect the long parade of children who were being ushered in to be raped, but the Travelodge staff actually assisted the pimps. Two members of the Travelodge staff, both of whom were indicted for their crimes, allowed the gang members to use the hotel computer to post online ads advertising sex with minors. They also knowingly rented rooms for use in prostitution, charged higher rates for rooms to be used for child sex trafficking and pocketed the difference, and warned the pimps if police were nearby.

An ordinance that would strengthen regulations on massage parlors in Pittsburgh will be voted on within the next couple weeks. If this bill passes, it has the potential to seriously curb sex trafficking in Pittsburgh and provide a model to the rest of the country. Change.org spoke with Jessica Dickinson Goodman, a student activist at Carnegie Mellon University who is doing research on anti-trafficking issues and helping rally support for this proposal.

Liebelson: How did you get involved with anti-human trafficking advocacy?

Dickinson Goodman: I worked on human trafficking during two summers in Washington, D.C. with the World Organization for Human Rights USA. There, I spent weeks reading the legal documents about their clients, some of whom were survivors of sex trafficking, and writing layperson-accessible stories about their lives for the website. Additionally, as a fellow with the Polaris Project last summer, I had the privilege of supporting their incredible staff and running my own high-impact projects.

There will soon be a new population trained and ready to fight human trafficking: tattoo artists. Tattoo artists are in a unique position to stop a disturbing trend -- pimps using the art of tattooing to abuse and control women and girls. But now, after being urged by more than 2,000 Change.org members, the National Tattoo Association has invited anti-trafficking organization Polaris Project to give a human trafficking training at their next conference. This training will mark the first ever national program to encourage tattoo artists to join the fight against trafficking.

Tattoos as a tool of branding and control of sex trafficking victims are becoming frequent in media reports of trafficking cases. For example, in one recent case in Brooklyn, a local pimp wanted to gain control over a 15-year-old girl he had just started to "break-in" as a child sex trafficking victim. So he took her to a tattoo studio, presented himself as her legal guardian, and forced her to get his nickname tattooed on her body. The tattoo was a permanent sign of ownership, making the pimp feel more powerful and the victim feel more helpless. And it's a scar that won't fade; even once victims are free from trafficking, a tattoo is often a permanent reminder of the trauma and abuse they suffered.

The newest Priceline.com commercial opens with a familiar site -- William Shatner asking for an absurdly low price on a hotel room. But a new character named "Big Deal" who acts as the muscle behind Shatner's request has some Priceline customers saying the choice of new spokesman is a huge deal to them. Why? Because in dress and manner, Big Deal is clearly a pimp.

Matthias Giorgio is one of those Priceline.com customers who was upset when he learned Shatner's newest sidekick dressed and behaved like a stereotypical pimp. According to Giorgio,

Over 800 Change.org readers are asking a Missouri paper to apologize for printing a sensationalist story that places blame on a woman tortured in a horrific sex trafficking case — and you should too. Last September, five Missouri men were indicted for trafficking a 16-year-old mentally deficient girl and forcing her to sign a “sex slave contract.” For four years, the men allegedly made her work as a stripper, sexually abused her and tortured her on webcam. She had a barcode tattooed on her neck, and the letter “S”—for slave.  So far, two of the men have pleaded guilty (if you have a strong stomach, go ahead and read this press release on the plea, published by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. It’s disgusting.)

But on November 5, 2010 The St. Louis Post-Dispatch published a story by Todd C. Frankel about the case that is sensationalist at best, dangerous victim-blaming at worst. Entitled, “A Missouri Town's Doubts About a Sex Torture Case,” the article reports the story from the traffickers’ point of view. Frankel paints the married Bagley couple — who have since both been charged for sex trafficking — as loving adoptive parents with an unorthodox sex life. Marilyn Bagley is described as a woman who believes “family is everything,” and relates her “wonderful relationship” with the trafficking victim to the HBO Show, “Big Love.” It’s all rather touching until one remembers that Bagley has since been accused of helping her husband, Edward Bagley, “beat, whip, flog, suffocate, choke, electrocute, cane, skewer, drown and mutilate” a 16-year-old girl.