Community Corner

Women Wear Price Tags To Fight Sex Trafficking

A demonstration will be held in Evanston this Sunday to raise awareness of the consequences of sex trafficking in the Chicago area.

Walk through downtown Evanston this Sunday and you’ll see women standing in one store window, price tags dangling from their arms as if they were for sale.

Called “Women To Go,” this eye-opening demonstration at , 706 Church St., is designed to raise awareness of sex trafficking in the Chicago area.

“They’ll be dressed in kind of old-looking clothing and we’ll have someone do makeup so they look as if they’re beaten,” says organizer Phyllis Nutkis. “They’re not supposed to look sexy, they’re supposed to look forlorn.”

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Specifically, Nutkis is hoping to raise awareness of advertising on Backpage.com, a classifieds website owned by Village Voice Media that includes an “adult” section with such categories as “escorts,” “body rubs” and “adult jobs.” While the site offers a disclaimer for anyone trying to enter the adult section, asking that they agree to “report suspected exploitation of minors and/or human trafficking to the appropriate authorities,” the National Association of Attorneys General has said the site does not do enough to ensure that ads are policed for exploitation of minors. 

“What they really should do is remove this whole section from the website,” says Nutkis, who hopes people will sign a petition on Change.org asking the site to take down its adult services section.

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Nutkis was inspired to organize the demonstration by a similar one her brother-in-law headed in Israel, petitioning the government to outlaw the purchase of sexual services. Because of that demonstration and many others, the Israeli parliament has introduced legislation that could make prostitution a crime.

In Chicago, there are between 16,000 and 24,000 girls and women involved in prostitution on any given day, according to Kristin Claes, communications manager for the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation. Sex trafficking, she explains, occurs when force, fraud or coercion to is used to bring someone into the sex trade.

“What our culture tells us about prostitution is that it’s a glamorous lifestyle, it’s something people choose,” Claes says. But in reality, she continues, “Pimps are traffickers. They are selling people for profit, and they use tremendous amounts of violence and control to keep people in the trade.” 

In a survey conducted by the City of Chicago’s Division on Domestic Violence, 100 percent of participants reported that they had experienced violence of some kind while involved in prostitution, including rape. And among those involved in the sex trade, more than 60 percent first exchanged sex for money before age 18, according to a study by DePaul University professor Jody Raphael.

“As people grow up in the sex trade, being presented with no other options and being arrested and rearrested, they have no other choice," Claes says.

While people may imagine prostitutes walking the streets—and that does occur in certain areas—Claes says prostitution often goes on indoors, in seemingly legitimate businesses like strip clubs or massage parlors that are actually sex trade venues. People search for those services online, perhaps on Backpage.com, to find the venues where prostitution is going on.   

"Certainly in Chicago, survivors of the sex trade tell us that their pimps and traffickers had placed ads for them online,” she explains. “So that is a concern and something that we would like to see an end to."

The demonstration at Williams Next Door will take place from noon to 4 p.m. this Sunday, July 1. Volunteers are still needed to donate their time to stand in the window, according to Nutkis, and shoppers who visit should take note of the fact that 10 percent of all proceeds this Sunday will go toward fighting human trafficking.

"We are very excited to be a part of the Women To Go campaign,” says store owner Zoe Lembeck. “We have been aware that human sex trafficking is a huge problem around the world, including here in the United States, but it is sometimes hard to know how to take action. As a woman-owned independent business, we love partnering up with other women and bringing attention to different causes.”

 


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