SB 1110

I apologize.  I wasn't asking to be written into the Bill.  

I was asking if we could be included in the dialogue.  Our local members in Seattle have been severely threatened by members of SWOP into being afraid to speak up individually online, and also in public at any of the hearings.  They are speaking to me and I am reaching out asking that we be included in the conversation about this is all.  Being we are the oldest and largest program of survivors in this country I think that's fair.  

I also think if you're going to speak about laws regarding alcoholism, that you include AA, and people like Bill Wilson, AA's founder, in the discussion as well as the bar owner, the wine maker, and the drunk sitting on the bar stool drinking who insists he's "not an alcoholic" and "doesn't have a problem".  You will find our view being out of the industry now is going to be different than say Mary's of SWOP who has been guilty of a lot of threats and coercion of women in Seattle within the sex industry, and our members also, in order to get her views across while making it appear we don't exist.  

The reason is simple  - in 2007 we gave a press conference in Las Vegas about how sex trafficking was being over looked entirely within the legal sex industry.  We have reporters John Quinones from ABC, and Bob Herbert, of the NY Times, come to Vegas and verify this with their own eyes and then support us with their writing.  

Sheldon Adelson, who spent $40 million to try and defeat Obama, and who funds a great deal of drug treatment programs in the USA, has a very public agenda to get prostitution legalized within the USA.  For that reason, we have a stack of reporters' emails who have told us we have been "blacklisted" within the media since 2007.  

Which if you look at our clip site at www.hightechmadam.com you will see he's kept to his word in that articles stop at 2007.  There is no one that has a greater influence right now on the drug treatment programs of the USA in this country than the show "Intervention" produced by Relativity Media who receives a lot of their financial support from China as well as Mr. Adelson.  You can look this up online.  Their production company is heavily invested in misleading the public about the true nature of sex work and sex trafficking as evidenced by the fact we've gotten four shows from them yanked off air for pretending to be "reality" TV when in fact they were staged.  Relativity Media at the moment is being sued in fact by investors who were misled into thinking "8 Minutes", they also produced, was in fact "real" also.  It was not and we managed to get that off the air after only 3 episodes.

This company produces much of the advertising for drug treatment centers with the show "Intervention" and now "Codependent" - sometimes the only advertising for some.  For years, we used to hide victims escaping pimps and corrupt cops like Chris Butler to name but one, in treatment so the HIPPA laws would protect them until we could then get them relocated and into new lives.  http://patch.com/california/sanramon/private-investigator-christopher-butler-pleads-guilty0df4c86437  

I bring this up because we know that Sheldon, combined with his relationship with Dennis Hof, who has now announced running for Senate, is not only pushing to gain political control to try and legalize prostitution, but is also recruiting now right out of treatment programs for women to work in the legal brothels, legal strip clubs, and the legal porn industry.  

Which is all the more reason why "end demand" campaigns need to be mindful of the fact "demand" is not just the man buying a prostitute on a street corner arrested in a "john sting".  Things need to be considered such as how porn fuels more demand for prostitution than anything else there is.  

In fact, it's a direct connection not only with prostitution, but professionals will tell you in every single case of child abuse, child rape, child pornography, etc., there is alcohol and drugs involved.  Thus why many predators enter into drug treatment.  Then they are labeled sexual offenders.  

To get probation for their crimes - they enter halfway houses through AA licensed to accept them.  We are now hearing that prostitutes are now being put into these same houses on probation rather than being referred to us as they should be for the same reasons men like Stuart Dunnings was not telling local prostitutes they could avoid jail by coming to our program either. html  We were designed as a 12 step program in order to in fact be used for diversion and alternative sentencing through laws grandfathered in by AA.

Because he wanted them scared of jail so he could do what he wanted with them through fear.   We were told by founders of AA that this is one of the very reasons why they made AA a mandatory part of recovery for some people - because otherwise it would be avoided by people who didn't want to deal with their drinking and the connection to crime.  Going to SWA however is not required in the same way AA is within the criminal justice system however as of yet.  Even though I know of not many anyway forcing them to drink against their will as pimps, and predators, do to us.  

So we need to also open dialogues about the fact we're now hearing about rescued trafficking victims by the government who has not involved us is now putting these women into the same rooms as the very men who molested and raped them as children, and who was buying them last week as a prostitute.  

I ask you where are they going to go with rape accusations?  For many years I would go inside treatment centers and make sure they were safe enough for women who were known prostitutes, porn performers, and strippers to go inside these programs and not be raped in the middle of the night by staff or other clients.  

I would talk to their staff and we would make sure these programs were "safe" for these women.  When they would call our hotline, we would refer them to programs we therefore knew were safe.  However, predators being predators weren't too happy we were keeping these women away from their control, so men like Chris Bathrum, went and set up their own programs where we were being completely banned from the process entirely.  The end result in that case is a woman who is dead. http://www.laweekly.com/news/a-drug-rehab-mogul-built-an-empire-that-s-now-being-probed-by-the-fbi-da-and-state-of-california-6390686  Just because something is "big" and "successful" doesn't mean it's right for us to be in there.

I can also point you to every single case of a sex worker that was put into treatment with Dr. Drew.  He refused to consult with us beforehand about our differences in treatment - and as an end result not one single sex worker in his care ever got clean.  They all in fact today are still using now.  All the more reason why we want to be included in the discussion of this Bill.  

I'm hoping you understand why men like Stuart Dunnings for example, or even a Chris Bathrum might now want our voices included.  I apologize for not being as eloquent as people with millions of dollars to spend on "influencers" and "lobbyists" for the sex industry.  Which I can assure you moved in on SWOP in 2013 after Robin Few, the founder of SWOP, died.   

I'm just a woman who escaped all types of trafficking 30 years ago who has also been clean from all drugs since 1985 also.  I'm just someone that used to train drug and alcohol counselors in how to work with our community to get clean and leave the sex industry, until money for "trafficking victims" became the fad after we had helped the issue to get federal recognition with the Trafficking Act of 2000 being passed.  

An Act now even the author, Michael Horowitz, has been quoted as saying has been "hijacked" out from under us by "big money interests" of which the sex industry I would dare say might be larger of an industry than tobacco or alcohol combined.  When the TVRA of 2003 came down, no one wanting federal grant money would even use the word "prostitute" or "sex worker" - so we found ourselves suddenly being shuffled into a back corner.  

Once we gave the press conference in 2007 I spoke of earlier - well that just sealed the media's silence about us entirely.  I can show you a stack of emails we have from reporters who were then fired for even trying to write stories on our work.  Without an ad budget, well that leaves us doing the best we can to reach out to groups like yours.  

So I appreciate your understanding we're just a group of survivors trying to help others which is one thing we do know how to do.  If you look at professor Sharon Oselin's "Leaving Prostitution" you'll see her speaking highly of "Prostitutes Anonymous" (as was our name when the study started).  Thank you for making contact with us.  http://nyupress.org/books/9780814770375/  I look forward to speaking with you again on these issues.