Selected Organizations and Agencies Addressing Demand for Prostitution and Trafficked Sex
The following descriptions of over 50 programs that attempt to reduce demand in some way are based upon published descriptions posted on organization websites or other documentation. Some of the text is taken verbatim from the listed websites, and the remainder has been edited for length, to focus on descriptions of relevant goals and activities, or to highlight the organizations’ focus on addressing demand for illegal commercial sex. We also provide a list of over 400 programs designed to serve survivors of commercial sexual exploitation in over 200 U.S. cities and counties. Please note that new programs emerge and existing programs may cease operating, so the lists below certainly misses some programs that currently operate and might contain programs that no longer exist.
Apne Aap: Women Worldwide
www.apneaap.org
One of the core goals of Apne Aap is empowering women and children in India’s red-light districts to escape sex trafficking. In addition to its efforts in India, the organization works with governments worldwide to end the stigmatization of those trapped in prostitution and criminalize those who exploit them. Among its objectives:
· Support community-based initiatives of those trapped by the sex-industry.
· Improve the circumstances of those caught in prostitution.
· Develop survivor leadership in efforts to end sex trafficking
· Prevent inter-generational prostitution.
· Build linkages between grassroots activism and policy makers on issues related to ending sex trafficking.
· Create awareness in society regarding discrimination against women and girls, particularly on issues related to sex-trafficking, prostitution, sex, sexuality and violence against women and girls.
Demand Reduction: In 2009, Apne Aap published a handbook designed for anyone working with law enforcement to combat sex trafficking by confronting the demand for prostituted women and children, especially girls. It hopes to provide tools to law enforcement officials to increase conviction against traffickers, thereby making it harder for the sex trafficking industry to operate. Founder Ruchira Gupta appeals to member states to apply a human rights-based approach that includes putting the demand for trafficking and exploitation of victims at the center of amended laws. Apne Aap conferences feature trafficking survivors stating they want the demand for trafficked sex and labor to be addressed.
A Future, Not A Past (AFNAP)
http://afuturenotapast.org/
Supported by the Juvenile Justice Fund, AFNAP is a statewide campaign to stop the prostitution of girls in Georgia by building a barrier between children and those who seek to harm them through commercial sexual exploitation. The campaign is addressing the issue through a four-tiered strategy of research, prevention, intervention and education.
Demand reduction: AFNAP aims to make the prostitution of children less profitable for pimps and more costly and embarrassing for johns who seek out children for sex.
AMEND: Ending the Cycle of Violence
Http://www.amendinc.org
Demand Reduction: AMEND is a nonprofit organization working to end domestic violence by providing counseling to men who have been abusive, advocacy and support to their partners and children, and education to the community. AMEND’s mission is to help men stop their violence and break the cycle of abuse so that they and their partners, children, and families may live in safe and peaceful homes. AMEND’s philosophy of treatment centers around responsibility: Men are responsible for what they feel, how they act, and the consequences of their actions.
Anti-Trafficking Alliance (ATA)
http://www.atalliance.org.uk;
The Anti-Trafficking Alliance (ATA) seeks to empower survivors of forced abduction and sexual slavery, build the capacity of grassroots NGOs working on issues of abduction and sexual slavery, and prevent forced abduction and trafficking into sexual slavery. ATA has advocated and lobbied governments at the national and international levels to put trafficking on the political agenda; worked to improve legal and administrative frameworks; improved community alert systems and border controls; researched the issue and worked with the media to raise public awareness and advance the cause of the prosecution of traffickers, as well as those who facilitate it.
Demand Reduction: ATA targets the role of men as buyers of sexual services and as agents in anti-trafficking work.
Aware, Inc.
http:www.deceptionsprogram.net
AWARE, Inc. is a non-profit youth program serving Clark County, WA, since 1997 and now also serving Clark, Cowlitz, Skamania, Yakima, Benton and Kittitas Counties. AWARE offers a variety of prevention programs and presentations designed for a wide range of ages and groups held at public schools, private schools and other youth-serving organizations. AWARE’s program, “Deceptions: Exposing the Lures of Child Sex Trafficking and Internet Dangers,” promotes youth awareness of “the stark reality of sex-trafficking not only abroad, but right here in our community.”
Demand Reduction: The “Deceptions” program of AWARE, Inc. includes a segment stressing that students must avoid contributing to the problem of sex trafficking, and not to tolerate other’s contributing to the problem, through the purchase of sex.
Behavioral Treatment Providers
http://www.bipbtp.com/
Behavioral Treatment Providers (BTP) is an approved offender supervision provider for the Davidson County General Sessions and Criminal Courts in Nashville, Tennessee. BTP has obtained the following State of Tennessee Licensures: State Certified Domestic Violence Treatment Provider; State Licensed Alcohol and Other Drugs of Abuse Outpatient Treatment Facility; and, State Licensed Alcohol and Other Drugs of Abuse Twelve Hour DUI School. Additionally, BTP operates the Magdalene Prostitution Solicitation School (John School) for Metropolitan Davidson County.
Demand Reduction: Behavioral Treatment Providers (BTP) is a private counseling business that designed, launched, and operates the Nashville John School. BTP also designed the New Orleans John School, which has the same structure and educational elements as the Nashville John School. It also is similar to Nashville in generating revenue for a survivor treatment program (Eden House in New Orleans, similar to the Thistle Farms program in Nashville).
Businesses Ending Slavery & Trafficking (BEST)
www.bestalliance.org
BEST engages businesses in a number of ways to respond to human trafficking. Among their prevention efforts is a project they are initiating that will address demand for prostitution. The “Inhospitable to Trafficking Project” is designed to raise awareness about the harms of prostitution. As of the end of 2012, the same person who will be leading part of BEST’s training of hotel employees leads the Seattle john school. He's been working with survivors and buyers for over 20 years and he will be using some of the same material he uses in the john school, aimed at convincing men not to buy sex. The project will raise awareness about the penalties for buying sex in Washington--which have increased substantially. The project is also intended to clearly communicate that facilitating prostitution is a crime--and they will urge hotel managers who participate in the training to create and implement “in-house” penalties for employees who are caught facilitating prostitution. An assumption of the program is that most of the hotel-based facilitation of prostitution is when hotel employees help buyers find prostituted persons. The training will address an audience in which a large majority may have spent their careers seeing and overlooking prostitution and may view prostitution as a victimless crime. It is also intended to impact employees in hotels who themselves are buyers.
C. Edwards Concepts, LLC
http://www.charletteedwards.com/louisiana_john_school
www.louisianajohnschool.com
Demand Reduction: Charlette Edwards, a licensed therapist, founded the Louisiana John School. The program is designed to provide Education and Awareness about the dangers of soliciting for prostitutes. The first of its kind in Louisiana, the program addresses violence disease prevention and addiction. The program began operating in April, 2013.
Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation (CAASE)
http://www.caase.org
CAASE has a unique model that attempts to address demand on multiple fronts: from use of the civil court system, to policy and advocacy work, to prevention and awareness-raising initiatives. CAASE seeks legal repercussions against perpetrators of sexual harm; advocates for policies and legislation that hold sexual exploiters accountable; creates and implements prevention initiatives; and develops resources that empower individuals and communities to take actions against sexual exploiters. Along with Prostitution Research and Education (PRE) and the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH), CAASE launched a research initiative in Chicago to investigate the cognitive and behavioral patterns of men who purchase sex. In addition, they disseminate anti-trafficking research throughout the state of Illinois with an emphasis on Chicago.
Demand Reduction: CAASE developed “Empowering Young Men toward Ending Sexual
Exploitation,” possibly the first curriculum in the country that directly addresses demand deterrence for commercial sexual exploitation and human trafficking with young men. It specifically targets young men in high school. CAASE is the lead agency of the End Demand Illinois (EDI) campaign, which seeks to refocus law enforcement’s attention on holding pimps, johns and traffickers accountable while proposing a network of supportive services for survivors of the commercial sex trade.
Cincinnati Union Bethel
http://www.cinunionbethel.org
Cincinnati Union Bethel (CUB) is a nonprofit organization that began in the 1830s, and is one of the oldest operating social service agencies in the U.S. The mission of CUB is to provide supportive services and education programs that assist urban women, children, families, and communities. CUB operates three core programs: Early Childhood Education at four Head Start preschools, which provide kindergarten readiness and care for children ages three to five; the Anna Louise Inn, which provides low-income housing for women; and Off the Streets, which provides support and rehabilitation services for prostituted women.
Demand reduction: CUB teamed with partners in law enforcement and public health agencies to begin a “john school” program in Cincinnati in 2006. The John Education Program is a companion to the Off the Streets program for women involved in prostitution and sex trafficking.
Citizens Against Trafficking
http://www.citizensagainsttrafficking.org
http://www.citizensagainsttrafficking.org/About.html
Citizens Against Trafficking is a broad-based coalition formed in 2009 to combat all forms of human trafficking. CAT advocates for effective public policy and law to combat human trafficking. CAT played a major role in 2009 to pass the prostitution bill and to advocate for the inclusion of "forced labor" in the human trafficking law in Rhode Island. CAT believes prostitution is inherently harmful and fuels the demand for sex trafficking. CAT believes decriminalized prostitution in Rhode Island enabled the expansion of the sex industry, an industry vulnerable to trafficking.
Demand Reduction: CAT proceeds from the premise that human trafficking is a market, driven by demand. CAT is committed to combating demand for commercial sex that drives both prostitution and sex trafficking.
Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST)
http://www.castla.org
CAST works exclusively with trafficked persons by offering social services, legal services, and training and advocacy programs. In addition, CAST partners with law enforcement and government agencies to ensure criminal prosecution of traffickers.
Demand Reduction: CAST has an anti-trafficking task force in the United States that administers and conducts an educational program through a nationwide training effort targeting non-government organizations, law enforcement, and government agencies.
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW)
http://www.catwinternational.org/
The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) is a non-governmental organization that promotes human rights. It works internationally to combat sexual exploitation in all its forms, especially prostitution and trafficking in women and children, with an emphasis on girls. Founded in 1988, CATW was the first international non-governmental organization to focus on human trafficking, especially sex trafficking of women and girls. CATW is composed of regional networks and of affiliated individuals and groups. It serves as an umbrella that coordinates and takes direction from its regional organizations and networks in its work against sexual exploitation and in support of women's human rights. CATW brings international attention to all forms of sexual exploitation, including prostitution, pornography, sex tourism, and mail order bride selling. Working with national and international policy makers, women's rights and human rights advocates, and the United Nations, it promotes the fundamental human right of women and children to be free from sexual exploitation.
Demand Reduction: CATW has been a leader in the effort to establish and enforce laws against men buying sex. They advocate a model decriminalizing the women in prostitution, and criminalizing men’s purchasing of sex from women and children.
The Code: We Protect Children from Sex Tourism
www.thecode.org
The problem of commercial sexual exploitation of children and its connection with the tourism trade is extremely complex. While the tourism industry is not accused for encouraging this unwanted phenomenon, it has been asked to collaborate and to react against the use of its networks and establishments for this purpose. All tourism companies who suspect or are aware that they are being used as vehicles to carry potential sex offenders are indirectly responsible for their acts at the destinations. The tourism professionals' networks, their knowledge and high skills in interacting with the customers can make a difference at the destinations in the way the child-tourism phenomenon is prevented and combated. As the tourism industry provides travelers with transport, accommodation and services, those working within the tourism industry have unique possibilities to observe, increase awareness of, and report on, the commercial sexual exploitation of children.
Demand reduction: Suppliers of tourism services adopting the code commit themselves to implement six criteria, including two whose implementation should involve addressing demand: (1) establishing an ethical policy regarding commercial sexual exploitation of children, and (2) training the personnel in the country of origin and travel destinations. Among the materials developed pursuant to the code are posters and other outreach materials intended to discourage men from buying sex while traveling, especially sex with children.
The Defenders USA
http://www.thedefendersusa.org/
http://www.thedefendersusa.org/truck_stop_toolkit2.asp
The Defenders USA is a coalition of men that are opposed to all forms of commercialized sex. Through various Defender campaigns, the coalition’s objective is to provide care for exploited victims through restoration centers. In addition, they strive to end demand for commercial sex – and thus for sex trafficking – by educating and equipping men to speak out, encourage public discussion, and empower activists, political leaders, members of the media, civil society groups, faith-based organizations, and churches to stand against sexual exploitation. The Defenders USA has several initiatives designed to combat commercial sex, including its Truck-Stop, Host Your Own Event campaigns, and Defender Film Festivals. The Defenders USA, founded in 2006, is an initiative of Shared Hope International, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.