Prostitution may be decriminalized in SF (San Francisco, Mecca: for sale, apartment, crime)

[MisterMark]

Prostitution measure makes it onto SF ballot

A measure that would make it more difficult to investigate and punish prostitution crimes in San Francisco qualified for the November ballot on Friday, opening another passage in the city's long fight over decriminalizing the sex-trade industry.

Prostitution measure makes in onto S.F. ballot

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Good! Although I think prostitution is a state law, I'm glad to see SF leading the way, once again. I hope this passes in November.

[Palmer Eldritch]

It's about time.

[gizmo980]

I'm with you two... couldn't care less about busting prostitutes, and I think Nevada has the right idea when it comes to the sex industry. It's safer when "legal" and I think we're wasting time and money when it's not. Just my humble opinion, of course.

[tkindred]

Originally Posted by gizmo980

I'm with you two... couldn't care less about busting prostitutes, and I think Nevada has the right idea when it comes to the sex industry. It's safer when "legal" and I think we're wasting time and money when it's not. Just my humble opinion, of course.

In the article it says it would be more difficult to fight sex trade if the law is in effect. I do not get that. To me if you make it legal and regulate it the process would be easier. But I do not know enough about it.

""It would make it very challenging to investigate and prosecute human trafficking," agreed San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris. "We need to use police resources to investigate where there is a suspicion that women and children, in particular immigrants, are being exploited."

At any rate SF is one of the worst cities in the U.S. for human trafficking and sex exploitation. I stopped flying to Amsterdam for that very same reason. I refused to spend a cent there. I quit flying to Rio de Janeiro too but the sex industry there is at a totally different level. Many people aren't too concerned about it but it is horrible for the young women who suffer so much, are so far from home and are trapped. I don't have anything against prostitution if those selling are not forced into it through violence, fear or economic reasons.

I have talked to a few of them, even became friends with a couple, but overseas. I always ask them how they ended up doing what they are doing and what they would do if they had the opportunity? For example, I became friends with a beautiful young Brazilian girl in Rio who was a prostitute. At first I would just pay her hourly rate just to talk with her (no sex) because I knew she needed the money. Her family basically left her on the streets of Rio to survive on her own. You can imagine how difficult it was for her. I tried to help her as much as possible. All she wanted was to go to college, get married and have a normal life. I actually met her "pimp", another young girl who convinced her she was her friend but only made matters worse for her. She eventually learned to speak fluent English and found a descent job after I convinced her she was able too.

Many prostitutes have some history that explains how they ended up where they are at. Many men just use them and that effects their minds and spirit in a profound way. In the red light district in Amsterdam I actually talked to a few of them out of curiosity. I would ask them where they were from? and how they got there? They were from all over the world. None from the Netherlands. Most are from poorer countries with less opportunities. Many are brought there with false hopes, have been lied too or kidnapped. And then the dumb _ss Americans and Western Europeans who go there to the red light district bragging about their experiences there annoy me. Some places do little because the sex tourism brings money to their city, eg.

SF is suppose to be liberal but in some areas it is too much so. I know it is almost impossible but they should put forth more effort to shut it down.

[tkindred]

Just some insight on what goes on in SF. Just to clarify. I have never used the services of a prostitute. But these are "legitimate" women too and I have compassion for them. And some are being victimized. That is why I have said sometimes SF is too open to some things and it opens the door for undesirable results. So before voting for some measure that could change someone life make sure you read up on it. Here is a little info on prostitution and the sex trade business in SF. It is a hotbed for it and an ideal social environment for it to fester.

" There's a reason San Francisco is a tourist destination. Beautiful scenery, fabulous restaurants, cosmopolitan culture and shopping make the city a favorite location. The famous Union Square is lined with sidewalk "bling" and dripping in haute couture. But treasures bought and sold are not always displayed in protective glass cases. Sometimes they're hidden in plain sight, behind shrouded windows and locked doors.

Using a cell phone camera, David Batstone and his partner from the "Not For Sale" campaign -- a grass roots movement to map human trafficking -- are posing as businessmen shopping for sex in of all places, that shopping Mecca: Union Square.

It's no secret some of San Francisco's 135-plus massage parlors offer more than advertised. What is secret is how some of the women come to work there. Modern day slavery exists today across the globe, including right in the heart of one of the most progressive cities in the world: San Francisco. A destination city for travelers -- and traffickers.

Batstone said the women he talked to inside the massage parlor didn't even know they were in Union Square and had never seen the Golden Gate Bridge.

"That tells me they have to rely on the trafficker to survive," Norma Hotaling said.

Hotaling was trafficked as a child. She founded the SAGE Project to dedicate her life to helping others in the same situation."

NBC11 Special Report: Does Sex Slavery Still Exist? - News Story - KNTV | San Francisco


"Many of San Francisco's Asian massage parlors -- long an established part of the city's sexually permissive culture -- have degenerated into something much more sinister: international sex slave shops. Once limited to infamous locales such as Bombay and Bangkok, sex trafficking is now an $8 billion international business, with San Francisco among its largest commercial centers.

San Francisco's liberal attitude toward sex, the city's history of arresting prostitutes instead of pimps, and its large immigrant population have made it one of the top American cities for international sex traffickers to do business undetected, according to Donna Hughes, a national expert on sex trafficking at the University of Rhode Island.

"It makes me sick to my stomach," said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. "Girls are being forced to come to this country, their families back home are threatened, and they are being raped repeatedly, over and over."

"Although it's not known how much money the San Francisco market generates for sex traffickers, federal agents confiscated $2 million in cash from 10 Asian massage parlors during a San Francisco raid in summer 2005."

"City officials were taken aback that all 100 masseuses removed from the 10 parlors in San Francisco were Korean, just like the 45 others arrested statewide on charges of running an international sex trafficking ring. The federal case is pending."

SEX TRAFFICKING / San Francisco Is A Major Center For International Crime Networks That Smuggle And Enslave / FIRST OF A FOUR PART SPECIAL REPORT

[tkindred]

More info if anyone cares, this is another example of what is going on in SF, many South Korean women are lured here with false promises:

"Ivy Lee, an attorney with Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach in San Francisco, said the immediate tasks would be getting the women health care, counseling and help for their children and finding them a safe place to stay, likely in a shelter for victims of domestic violence.

"We would focus on stabilizing her situation and trying to explain to her what her situation is," she said. "A lot of them are going to be confused about what the hell is going on. 'What's happening to me What are my options Am I going to jail And also, who are all these people' "

If law enforcement requires them to stay in the United States to help with the investigation, the women are entitled to the same health coverage, cash assistance and English classes that refugees and those seeking asylum receive, Lee said.

The women can at any time decide to return to South Korea, although law enforcement officials could then declare them a "material witness" to the case, forcing them to stay in the United States without any benefits. The women can simultaneously apply for visas, which will allow them--as trafficking victims willing to cooperate with law enforcement--to stay for an additional three years. They are then eligible to apply for green cards.
Lee said one of the biggest threats to the women is if the alleged traffickers hire attorneys to find the women and offer them legal assistance. In the past, she said, lawyers for alleged traffickers would lure the women back into a sex ring."

Exodus of sex trade workers to Canada (http://www.asianpacificpost.com/portal2/402881910674ebab010674f56f1b1bf3.do.html - broken link)

[tkindred]

Originally Posted by MisterMark

Prostitution measure makes it onto SF ballot

A measure that would make it more difficult to investigate and punish prostitution crimes in San Francisco qualified for the November ballot on Friday, opening another passage in the city's long fight over decriminalizing the sex-trade industry.

Prostitution measure makes in onto S.F. ballot

---------------------------------------------------------

Good! Although I think prostitution is a state law, I'm glad to see SF leading the way, once again. I hope this passes in November.

Here is some reading about this that provides a different view:

"The prostitution decriminalization resolutions are well-meaning theories that have been proven completely wrong over the past decade and are harmful to women. Global trafficking of human beings is a huge problem in the 21st century. The Board members may honestly feel they are promoting tolerance, but the end result of these policies would be cruel indifference to human suffering.

Background

Resolution #071642 commends a group called US Prostitution Collective for their work 11 years ago getting the Task Force on Prostitution to urge decriminalization of prostitution in San Francisco. That Task Force Resolution was thankfully never implemented, but there seems to be new efforts to push prostitution decriminalization onto the citizens of San Francisco.

* A huge body of research has been collected which clearly shows that prostitution is harmful to the prostituted woman.

* Research has shown that sex trafficking and organized crime iINCREASE wherever prostitution is legalized. Once an area is open for business, the law of supply and demand kicks in and traffickers get rich serving up a supply of younger and more desperate women to feed the demands of johns.

* In 2000 Amsterdam legalized prostitution. In September 2007, the city of Amsterdam spent $15 million Euros ($22 million U.S. dollars) to purchase and shut down one third of the brothels in the red light district.

* On December 4, 2007 the California Alliance to Combat Trafficking and Slavery (CA ACTS) Task Force released its final report. The 18 month study found that California is a top destination for for traffickers bringing women and girls in for forced prostitution. Over 80% of the trafficked people discovered were women and children."

Trafficking & Prostitution in San Francisco: Dusting off an old decriminalization proposal - still a bad idea 11 years later


You can see above the reference Amsterdam. Do a little research on Amsterdam and see how screwed up it is as far as human trafficking in an environment where it is easier.

[Happy Cells]

Sure, why not?
Everything else is leagal in S.F. why not prostitution?
If you don't plan to enforce the law, then do away with it entirely!

[aqualung8705]

Awww...if this passes there won't be any reason to go over the hump to Pahrump.

Contrary to popular opinion, prostitution is illegal in Clark (Las Vegas) and Washoe (Reno) counties.

[City Boy]

The generalization that most of the Asian girls who come here to work are slaves is a lie. Especially the South Korean women who work in Apartment parlors and store fronts. I have a friend who is on the Vice Squad in SF who has raided many of these places and the reality is these girls pay a house fee of 1/4th what they make and pocket the rest. They come here a few months and are free to come and go as they please. Many of these girls drive expensive cars and have thousands of dollars worth of Hand bags. Don't believe the hype of the sex slave. Only a small percentage in storefronts chinese parlors are slaves. They know what they are getting into ahead of time. Many work in these places already in their home land before coming here.