My Sister’s House Helps Save Lives

Jasmine says My Sister’s House saved her life.

“I was totally a slave in his hands,” she said. Jasmine says when they met in India, her husband talked about a life of promise in America.

When she arrived, there was no home, no car. She discovered a mistress and an abusive husband.

“Emotionally, I was shattered,” she said. “Negative thoughts would overcome me and I would cry but there was nothing.”

Jasmine felt isolated. English was her second language and she had no one.

“He wouldn’t let me talk to people. He wouldn’t let me go outside so I couldn’t find somebody from India so I couldn’t tell my situation to anybody,” Jasmine said.

The beatings went on for years until he broke her leg. Police sent her to My Sister’s House, a domestic violence shelter for the Asian Pacific Islander community.

“It’s not that unusual unfortunately. I often hear their stories and wonder about the other Jasmine’s out there that may not have been so lucky,” said Executive Director Nilda Valmores.

For a decade, the shelter has housed women and children in crisis.   It also provides counseling and a women-to-work program.

 

Read more: http://fox40.com/2013/05/17/my-sisters-house-helps-save-lives/#ixzz2ToWYKs

 

Monterey woman gets 10 years for human trafficking

A Monterey woman charged with human trafficking was sentenced Wednesday to more than 10 years in prison.

Aaliya Solange Ali Person, 36, also known as Lisa Louise Banner, admitted to pandering a 17-year-old who was brought to Monterey for purposes of prostitution. Person admitted to charges of pandering, human trafficking and kidnapping. Her sentence of 10 years and 8 months in prison was stipulated as part of her plea agreement.

Acting on a tip, Monterey police found the girl in a Monterey hotel on Feb. 8, 2012. A search of Person’s residence revealed evidence linking her to the girl, a runaway who has since been reunited with her family in the San Francisco Bay Area and is doing well, Deputy District Attorney Todd Hornik said.

Hornik said Person took the girl to the hotel room, took her belongings, including her car, and left her stranded there for purposes of prostitution to pay off a debt the girl owed to a pimp in Oakland.

Hornik said Person was the pimp’s “regional manager” for prostitution in the area and “was involved in this business and this lifestyle.”

Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel

Human Trafficking: California Attorney General Kamala Harris Vows Crackdown

California Attorney General Kamala Harris and other law enforcement officials vowed Friday to crack down on human trafficking — both sex trafficking and forced labor — that they said has become the world’s fastest growing criminal enterprise.

During a news conference at the University of Southern California, Harris warned that with organized criminal networks and street gangs expanding their operations to sell not only guns and drugs but also people, it is imperative that law enforcement “counter the ruthlessness of human traffickers with our resolve, innovation and collaboration.”

She said human traffickers have been able to snare more victims than ever before by using the Internet and social media to recruit and advertise. She said they lure vulnerable boys, girls, men and women from their homes with promises of a better life, only to exploit them and turn them into modern-day slaves.

According to a report released Friday, “The State of Human Trafficking in California 2012,” California is one of the nation’s top four destination states for human trafficking, believed to be a $32 billion a year global industry.

Source: Huffington Post

Legal Challenge to Prop 35, New Sex Trafficking Law

A day after California voters approved Proposition 35, a federal judge Wednesday temporarily blocked the new law’s requirement that the state’s 73,000 registered sex offenders must immediately give police a list of their online screen names and Internet service providers.

U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson issued the temporary restraining order in San Francisco in a federal civil rights lawsuit filed Wednesday morning by two registered offenders and a nonprofit group.

The temporary order will remain in effect until a Nov. 20 hearing on whether Henderson should grant a longer-term preliminary injunction against the disclosure requirement.

Source: Half Moon Bay Patch

Prop 35, Although Well Meaning, Is Opposed by Many in the Anti-Human Trafficking Community

The U.S. State Department estimates that over 17,000 people are brought into the country to be exploited in some way, whether in people’s homes as domestic help, in factories, as agricultural laborers or in the sex industry. California, which is a popular destination for trafficking victims and traffickers, passed a law in 2005 called the California Trafficking Victims Protection Act to make trafficking illegal as well as help promote the rights of victims.

Proposition 35, rather than building upon the current law to aid victims of trafficking, instead seeks to broaden the definition of trafficking by labeling more people as traffickers, especially those working in the sex industry. Opponents feel that the Proposition unfairly targets sex workers. Anyone financially supported by sex workers, including children or spouses of prostitutes could be labeled as traffickers. Sentences for sex trafficking would be much harsher than any other types of trafficking.

Source: Uprising Radio

Prop. 35 backers say human-trafficking measure is needed; foes argue it’s badly flawed

Dellena Hoyer says she was 12 years old, a runaway in Oak Park with nowhere to go, when she met her first pimp.

She describes a life in tatters: a neglectful mother, sexually abusive relatives, a growing résumé of group and foster homes. Having fled yet another, she said, she stood on the street that night, not knowing where she would sleep.

The big man in the big Cadillac was nice to her. He offered a ride. She went.

As a child, Hoyer wanted to be a professional dancer. What she became was a prostitute – and it was not by choice, she argues today.

Now 50 and a licensed drug and alcohol counselor in the Sacramento region, Hoyer has been sharing her story with lawmakers and voters in hopes of shedding light on the many forces, including life circumstances and manipulative men, that she says might compel children to sell their bodies for money.

“I didn’t choose that. I hated what I was doing,” Hoyer said. “I didn’t see any way out.”

Source: SacBee

Los Angeles City Council Votes Unanimously To Support Proposition 35, Stop Human Trafficking in California

On Friday, August 17^th, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to support Proposition 35 – Stop Human Trafficking in California. Slated for the November 2012 ballot, Proposition 35 is an initiative that will fight against human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of women and children in the state. Today’s action by the City Council carries special significance given that Los Angeles is one of three cities in the state recognized by the FBI as high intensity child sex trafficking areas.

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry led the motion to support Proposition 35, saying: “By supporting Prop 35,Los Angeles is fighting back against human trafficking of vulnerable women and children that is happening in our community. Unfortunately, Los Angeles is a center for child sex trafficking, but we can fight back against these terrible crimes by passing Prop 35 and putting in place tougher penalties for human traffickers. We urge all voters in Los Angeles and throughout the state of California to join us in supporting Prop 35.”

Source: U.S. Politics Today

In California, An Effort To Fight Human Trafficking

In California, An Effort To Fight Human Trafficking

This November, California voters will decide on a ballot initiative that would strengthen penalties for those involved in the sex trafficking of women and children. The CASE Act — or Californians Against Sexual Exploitation — would make those cases easier to prosecute. And if it passes, those convicted of the crime would have to register as sex offenders, which they’re not currently required to do.

Los Angeles is a major hub for child sex trafficking in the state, though the LAPD does not give out numbers on how widespread the problem is because it is such an underreported crime. The average age of victims, according to Lt. Andre Dawson, head of the LAPD’s Human Trafficking Unit, is 13 years old.

Pulling up the website, Backpage.com, Dawson reads from a posted ad.

“It says ‘Stunning, beautiful, sexy, no disappointments.’ It shows the age of being 22, but when you look at the pictures, you can that tell this picture is not of a 22-year-old girl,” he says.

On the Internet or the street, it’s the same story.

CASE Act, California

Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley speaks during the Victory Outreach Church’s candlelight vigil with a song at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza in Oakland, Calif., Friday April 6, 2012. The Victory Outreach Church of Oakland held the “Hear The Cry II Candlelight Vigil” to speak out against human sex trafficking. (Anda Chu/Staff)

In 2010, a 13-year-old girl from San Francisco came across the Bay Bridge to Oakland. She thought that she was visiting friends, but one of these so-called friends put her in the clutches of a human trafficker. She was taken to a house where her clothes were taken away, all contact with her family cut off, and she was put out on the streets for sex trafficking.

At all times, a man with a gun followed her, and she was abused physically, mentally and sexually. She was forced to have sex with strangers for money collected by the trafficker.

This girl represents just one of the many women and children caught in the web of human trafficking throughout California and the Bay Area. I’ve seen the faces of children who have suffered at the hands of traffickers and heard their halting stories of abuses and traumas.

For these children, we must pass the Californians Against Sexual Exploitation Act this November. The CASE Act is a ballot initiative that will fight back against human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of women and children.

Source: Contra Costa Times

FBI announces indictment of Long Beach man for forced labor and sex trafficking

The report states that the five victims advised detectives that Porter operates a prostitution ring in the Orange County area and that he meets potential victims by placing ads onwww.craigslist.com and www.seekingarrangements.com. The victims claimed they responded to Porter’s ads and were led to believe they were entering into a personal relations relationship with Porter. They then claimed that, after Porter maintained a romantic relationship with them, he forced them to work as prostitutes. They also claimed they had no means to support themselves and that they lived and worked in hotels in Orange County while they worked for Porter.

These victims further claimed that Porter charged $100 for 15 minutes on up to $300 for an hour of illicit sex. Funds which they were required to give to him.

Porter allegedly threatened the women if they tried to leave he would find them and harm their families. They told that some did try to leave on occasion but that he would text them threats and even promised to kill some of their family members.

Source: Examiner