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Shameful Obsession: Part 2

Federal agents tell the I-team that at least 50-thousand women and children are trafficked into the U.S. every year, most of them forced into prostitution on the streets of Chicago, New York, LA, and other big cities.

Commercial sex is a supply and demand business…no different than the illegal drug trade or unlawful gambling.

The traditional method of controlling all those rackets has been the same: stop the supply.

The I-Team looks at the "Shameful Obsession" of the customers...who create the demand.

"I felt like a slave and I was a slave. I got beat when I was good and I got beat when I was bad," said Betty Prevo, a former prostitute.

And then, sometimes, they are arrested. In Chicago, police spend about $10-million dollars a year on prostitution enforcement. Most of the money is spent arresting the prostitutes themselves. In district 14, which has the city's highest number of prostitution arrests, almost 90-percent of those charged are the prostitutes. Only ten percent of the arrests are the customer or "john" and hardly any suppliers or "pimps" are ever arrested.

"You can see a huge disproportion that should not be. That should not be that way," said Andy Kim of the Chicago Coalition For The Homeless.

Many prostitutes are homeless women and children...and so the Chicago Coalition For The Homeless is pressing city officials to be more aggressive against the suppliers and the customers of prostitution.

"There's no one demanding for the people who are profiting off the sex activities...there's no one demanding that they be accountable for what they are doing. No, they're not targeted," said Sasha Simonitch, a former prostitute.

First: the "johns". Just who are these men?

"Pretty much anybody. They are psychologists, newscasters, researchers, construction workers, most often married, they are from all races," said Melissa Farley of the Prostitution Research Center.

"Demand is the customer is anyone. It is your brother, your father, your uncle," said Sandra Hunnicutt of Captive Daughters.

"I've dated a judge. I've dated a lawyer. It's all kinds," added former prostitute Betty Prevo.

"One of the oddest experiences I've had was being called, sent out on a call to a hotel and there was an Evangelical Christian conference for ministers going on and I went up to the room and you know, there was a minister," said former prostitute Sasha Simonitch.

"I've saw priests turns tricks, schoolteachers, women," said a man we'll call "Homer", a former pimp.

In a not-so-common case of a "john" caught in the act, consider a 21-year old Westside plumber. He has a girlfriend and a one-year-old son. This police report has him having sex with a prostitute in his car. He claims it was a misunderstanding but pleaded guilty anyway. He could've received a year in jail but got just 3 months supervision. "I just wanted to get out from under it," he said.

"The acceptance of prostitution is based on the mistaken notion in the US that it will always be here, that boys will be boys. I think that is the equivalent of saying that wife beating is inevitable; that incest is inevitable; rape is inevitable," said Melissa Farley of the Prostitution Research Center.

There are at least 25-thousand working prostitutes in metro Chicago according to several recent studies. Researchers say more than a third of them start turning tricks before they're sixteen-years-old.

"Traffickers and kidnappers and pimps look for discontented adolescents and street children and Chicago has a huge problem here," said Sandra Hunnicutt of Captive Daughters.

Karen Clark was only 16 when she began a 30-year prostitution career in Chicago...most of them working for pimps.

"It's like trading stock, buying stock. That's what it is-women to pimps are just like going to the meat market," Clark said.

"I caused a lot of pain and I received a lot of pain..." said Homer, a former pimp.

One man, who asked us not to use his last name, says he too was just 16 when he started pimping prostitutes in Chicago...a career that lasted more than 25-years before he says he got out.

"I think that everybody who's been in for a while wants out. They just don't know how to get out," Homer said.

Now, he says gentleman's clubs and escort services owned by profitable companies are replacing the independent street pimps. "It's corporate business now um, the street pimp is probably almost non- existent anymore, he's almost a dinosaur," Homer said.

There have been several prostitution raids by police here the Skybox gentlemen's club in south suburban Harvey. Also in Harvey, in 2000 the Cherry Club and Arnie's were raided. And in Palatine, Dancer's nightclub was raided and women were arrested on prostitution charges.

And when there are big attractions in Chicago such as the current auto show, city police detectives say sex traffickers import extra women.

"The agencies would have different operations in different cities and so different cities would be more active at different times of the year depending on conventions and stuff like that, so we would travel we would move with that, with the trend," said Sasha Simonitch, a former prostitute.

"Slavery, human trafficking and sexual servitude are crimes that wretch our hearts," said U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.

The Justice Department says it's a priority. The number of human trafficking investigations has tripled in three years.

"These crimes extend beyond the bounds of the law. They are an affront to human dignity. They are an assault on the nation's core beliefs. The nations laws are based on the belief that every human life is precious," said Dereck Ellerman of the Polaris Project.

Human trafficking is the third largest criminal industry in the world after drugs and arms dealing. It is a multi-billion dollar industry around the world and huge in the United States as well.

Homer, the former pimp, sums it up simply by saying, "lust is big business."

More Information:

* The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH) organizes and advocates to prevent and end homelessness based on our belief that housing is a human right in a just society. The toll-free number is 800-940-1119.

* The Center for Impact Research (CIR) is a Chicago-based not-for-profit organization that works towards the elimination of poverty through grass-roots research.

* Sisters Speak Out: The Lives and Needs of Prostituted Women in Chicago have released a report documenting the experiences and needs of 222 women in prostitution in the Chicago metropolitan area.
Center for Impact Research
926 N. Wolcott
Chicago, IL 60622
(773) 342-0630

* Young Women's Empowerment Project's mission is to offer safe, respectful, free of judgment spaces for girls and young women impacted by the sex trade and street economies to recognize and develop their goals, dreams, and desires - this work is personal to us, it is about our lives.
2334 W. Lawrence Ave., Suite 209
Chicago, IL 60625
Phone Number: 773.728.0127

* Individuals with information about instances of sex trafficking, forced labor, or involuntary servitude should call the Trafficking in Persons & Worker Exploitation Task Force complaint line at 1-888-428-7581. Operators have access to translation services for non-English speaking callers. For more information about the Justice Department's efforts to combat human trafficking can be found on the DOJ website: http://www.usdoj.gov/trafficking.htm.

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