It's all fun and games till organized crime shows up.

Our friend Sam just posted this over at SFist and it was too good so we're posting it here too.

******

Yeah, it's all fun and games till organized crime shows up.

Here's the problem. Once you announce San Francisco is open for business and the cops are officially looking the other way, every john, pimp and trafficker who reads Google news will be on the next flight into town.

This is business 101 - supply and demand. The johns will show up looking for some. As a rule, johns are not interested in middle-aged white women marching in the streets for their sex-worker rights. Johns want young women, "barely legal" if you will. Wink wink nudge nudge. And johns love little asian and latino women. (Take a look at the Las Vegas yellow pages sometime.)

It's not as easy as you might think to convince high school and college-aged girls to prostitute, there just aren't enough of them. So you gotta import the supply. That requires coercion, violence, drugs, and for your shipping needs, you will have to go with organized crime (why? because they said so.)

So your supposedly progressive law has now resulted in a thriving prostitution, drug, AND organized crime trade. And if you think we have gang violence now, wait until the Armenian mafia is battling with the Mongols or Nortenos for control of the Tenderloin.

SF massage parlors thriving

For a few months there it seemed the city was going to take the problem of massage brothels seriously. But what has been happening since May? Did the city give up? A quick look at any of the john forums will tell you that prostitution is a happening business in San Francisco massage parlors. Surely the members of the task force and/or the San Francisco Police Department and/or the FBI know where this is happening.

In case the task force needs help locating massage parlors doing straight up prostitution on a daily basis, here are a few hints:

http://www.usasexguide.info/forum/showthread.php?t=3478
http://forum.myredbook.com/cgi-bin/dcforum2/dcboard.pl?az=list&forum=DCForumID19&conf=rb
http://www.myredbook.com/showpro.aspx?area=sf&cat=massage
http://forum.myredbook.com/dcforum2/DCForumID19/31838.html
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/ers/

[Warning: there are pictures of naked women on these sites. There is also actionable information should anyone care to take action.]



From way back in May....



17 massage parlors closed by task force
Undercover drive by the city against human trafficking

Meredith May, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, May 18, 2007

A special San Francisco task force designed to combat human trafficking has closed 17 massage parlors suspected of forcing immigrant Asian women into sex work.

In the past 18 months, a team of undercover police officers, along with city fire, building and environmental health inspectors, has been conducting surprise inspections of suspected erotic massage parlors.

The 17 Asian massage parlors were closed after incurring at least three health and safety violations within a year. Four others were fined, suspended and allowed to reopen after a temporary closure. Two others closed voluntarily.

But a handful of parlors shut by the city have since reopened illegally, and one has applied for a new permit as an acupuncture clinic with massage.

"Enforcement has not been as effective as we had hoped, but we are making a dent," said Johnson Ojo, San Francisco's principal environmental health inspector.

"It's much harder to open a massage parlor in San Francisco now because we are taking a hard look at an owner's past history, and denying permits if they have been involved in prostitution before."

Enforcement has been difficult, but Mayor Gavin Newsom said the task force is making headway into a problem that until now has gone largely undetected.

"There is momentum and a commitment to resolve this," Newsom said. "We are moving away from looking at this issue as harmless prostitution to a criminal act against human dignity and human rights."

San Francisco is a major hub for the $8 billion global sex trafficking industry, and is home to more than 100 erotic massage parlors listed online and in Asian-language newspapers.

Traffickers abroad charge women tens of thousands of dollars to smuggle them into the city, and then force them to work off their debts in erotic massage parlors, sometimes servicing more than a dozen men a day. Sometimes the women are lied to about the type of work they will be doing in the United States.

Often the women are forced to live in the same parlors where they work, and are watched on surveillance cameras and kept inside by metal security doors.

Newsom convened the massage parlor task force after federal agents investigating a South Korean sex trafficking ring raided 10 San Francisco massage parlors in summer 2005.

After a sex trafficking investigation by The Chronicle, Newsom increased surprise inspections last fall from once to twice a month, and the Board of Supervisors passed a law requiring public hearings of all proposed massage parlors. The city and nonprofit agencies placed human trafficking posters with hot line numbers in bus shelters.

Ojo has issued cease and desist orders to the parlors that have illegally reopened after their permits were revoked, and he is working with the city attorney to get court warrants allowing him to send sheriff's deputies to shut the places.

On Wednesday, the inspection team returned for a second visit to CEO Health Club, on the sixth floor of an office building on Sansome Street.

Inside the club, six women were cited for wearing inappropriate attire -- lingerie and clear plastic heels -- and one of them was cited for working without a massage practitioner's license. The business was also cited for employing an unlicensed masseuse.

One woman, in tears, said she left a dying father in China and that she didn't like working in the massage parlor. She said she wants to teach piano to children.

The new citations at CEO Health Club, and similar violations recorded in August, are enough to revoke the club's permit, Ojo said.

"We have to build up a case against each one, and while it takes a long time and uses a lot of city resources, it is starting to show results," he said.

Newsom said he plans to begin enforcing a rarely used 1913 "red light" abatement law that allows authorities to fine and jail California landlords who let massage parlors operate as brothels in their buildings. He will also deliver a speech on human trafficking at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Los Angeles in June.

Ojo said city inspectors also investigate tips from the public. The Department of Public Health number is (415) 252-3800.

Go Gavin!

Well here's an interesting little nugget. Mayor Newsom thinks San Francisco should keep prostitution illegal. He is right. You don't deal with violence against prostitutes and trafficked women by declaring San Francisco open for business to every pimp and trafficker in the known universe. McGoldrick is going to have a fight on his hands trying to push prostitution down the throats of San Franciscans. We've already got plenty of things to worry about, budget deficits, gang violence, and the housing shortage to mention a few.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_umt9rcHGB8

Keep prostitution illegal

David Smith, The Examiner
2007-12-13 11:00:00.0

Reducing law enforcement pressure on prostitution in The City would be a “terrible mistake,” Mayor Gavin Newsom said Wednesday in response to a proposal by one city legislator.

“There are few cities in the world that have more problems with sex trafficking than San Francisco,” Newsom said. “All this does is further the prospects that that will continue.”

Last month, Supervisor Jake McGoldrick asked the city attorney to draft legislation directing San Francisco police to make prostitution one of its lowest enforcement priorities. McGoldrick said reducing enforcement would help curb trafficking and exploitation in the sex industry.

The City spends $11.4 million enforcing prostitution laws, according to a Budget Analyst’s Office estimate.

Prostitution is not a victimless crime, the mayor said.

“I think the legalization of prostitution would be a terrible mistake,” the mayor said. “Any time you see a security gate and a security camera, you know something inappropriate is happening in there.”

McGoldrick told The Examiner he is pushing the idea in an effort to bring out from the shadows the problems of trafficking and exploitation by muting legal repercussions for sex workers.

“By driving sex workers underground, what you do is create opportunity for crimes to be committed against them,” McGoldrick said.

Dawn Trennert, a resident in the Middle Polk neighborhood, has worked with police to cut down on prostitution there, and said she disagreed with McGoldrick’s proposal.

“The vast majority of prostitutes who work in San Francisco don’t live in San Francisco,” Trennert said. “They commute here because we’re easy on crime. How much more of this trafficking would occur if the police don’t even address the issue?”

dsmith@examiner.com

Dusting off an old decriminalization proposal - still a bad idea 11 years later

On Dec. 6 Supervisor Ammiano introduced resolution #071642 commending a pro-prostitution group called US Prostitutes Collective. Supervisor Ammiano is an incredibly sweet human being and a good politician, but he does not understand the true nature of trafficking & prostitution in San Francisco.

Full text of resolution.

The resolution refers back fondly to the recommendation that came out of the S.F. Taksforce on Prostitution in 1996 to decriminalize prostitution in San Francisco. The language of the resolution seems to imply that the S.F. Board of Supervisors agree that decriminalizing prostitution would somehow reduce the harm of prostitution.

Below is an email written by a friend which makes the case against this resolution. Something not mentioned is the possibility that this vote will be cited as a precedent by those pushing for decriminalization.

Despite letters and calls to the Supervisors urging the defeat of this resolution, it passed today with no dissent and no discussion. So does every Supervisor support decriminalization of prostitution in San Francisco? Apparently so, based on this vote.

* * * * *

Dear Supervisor,

Resolution #071642 will automatically pass the board today unless a Supervisor removes it from the consent calendar. The wording of the resolution implies that the Board of Supervisors supports decriminalization and promotion of prostitution. Before a policy statement like that gets passed, it should be discussed.

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.

In the 10 years since the Task Force on Prostitution report things have changed:

* 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.

• The country of Sweden has done a complete turnaround based on the government's policies of gender respect and equality. Sweden does not criminalize prostitutes, but does outlaw pimps and johns. They have also focused on providing women viable alternatives to prostitution which most prostitutes say they want. As a result of this policy, they have almost completely eliminated the huge sex trafficking problem that had come along with legalization.

The problems of trafficking will only get worse if prostitution is decriminalized in San Francisco.

Resources:

Research on Prostitution
http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/c-prostitution-research.html
http://action.web.ca/home/catw/readingroom.shtml

San Francisco and California are already trafficking centers
http://www.safestate.org/index.cfm?navID=442

The City of Amsterdam spends $22 million to shut down brothels
http://www.iamsterdam.com/press_room/press_releases_0/2007/red_light_district
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5ivGoSHCL-ZbA7_GIWwT48gOTlLMg

Can this city be saved?

This is what happens when a city loses its way. Tragedy starts when a city stops caring about individuals, doesn't value education and mentoring, turns the streets over to crime and thugs. San Francisco leaders should take the sad story of our neighboring city as a cautionary tale.

Many young black men in Oakland are killing and dying for respect.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/09/MNS1RBLQ5.DTL&hw=prostitution&sn=018&sc=220

Preying on agricultural workers

As reported by the S.F. Chronicle

The director of a Half Moon Bay charity has pleaded no contest to a charge of soliciting prostitution after offering a jobseeker $500 to have sex with him.

Sixty-five-year-old Michael David Niece — director of the Coastside Catholic Worker charity — faces up to 10 days in jail when he's sentenced later this month.

He is accused of offering to pay a 35-year-old woman for sex after she sought his help finding a job.

The woman went to the police, who asked her to set up a meeting with Niece.

They recorded the phone call and arrested Niece when he showed up at the rendezvous point.

Niece and his wife founded the charity in 2000.

It focuses on helping agricultural workers and their families.

MSNBC Undercover: Sex Slaves in Detroit & San Francisco

On Dec. 3, MSNBC aired MSNBC Undercover: Sex Slaves in America."

The first part of the program focused on college students from Ukraine who thought they were coming to the U.S. for summer jobs in Virgina, but found themselves forced into stripping and prostitution at a Cheetah's club in Detroit. They managed to escape after a year, and their traffickers are now in jail.

The second part of the program featured "inspections" of massage parlor brothels in downtown San Francisco near Union Square. Various city health and building inspectors visited brothels and noted violations. Gavin Newsom was interviewed and was quite proud of these inspection teams. But the although the brothel owners seemed cranky at the fact they had to pay a fine, the status quo seemed to be maintained. The pimp got a fine and stern talking to, the inspectors left, the women resumed. Not a good day for San Francisco. It would have been so much more powerful if one of those places had been SHUT DOWN! Clearly the inspection teams need translators and transportation to get those women out of there and into services. And why are these pimps just allowed to continue pimping in plain view?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22083762/
Read the transcript at:
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/22056066/page/5/

California a top destination for human traffickers

The California Alliance to Combat Trafficking and Slavery Task Force released today its Final Report. The report contains descriptions of what can only be called modern-day slavery and makes extensive recommendations for dealing with the horrors of human trafficking. The full report can be downloaded at http://safestate.org/index.cfm?navID=442.

Research by the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center identified 57 forced labor operations in involving more than 500 people from 18 countries between 1998 and 2003. The Task Force held public hearings in 2004 and 2005 on human trafficking and continued researching and hearings which led to new legislation in the California legislature and to the release of this final report. Here are some excerpts from the report involving San Francisco.

• In July 2005, the federal government arrested more than 40 people in Los Angeles and San Francisco and seized more than $3 million in illicit proceeds in Operation Gilded Cage. This operation involved more than 100 Korean women, many of whom told investigators that they were taken from their country against their will and forced to work as erotic masseuses.
• California Regional Task Forces Funded by the U.S. Department of Justice:
  In 2004 and 2005, the U.S. Department of Justice awarded grants of $450,000 to five California law enforcement agencies in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose to establish human trafficking task forces to aid in the identification and rescue of human trafficking victims and in the investigation and prosecution of traffickers. These grants require strong working relationships between law enforcement, other government entities and NGOs that provide direct services to victims of trafficking. The San Francisco Police Department, the lead agency for the North Bay Human Trafficking Task Force, is "committed to end the demand for human trafficking through investigations and strong enforcement procedures against perpetrators. The Task Force trains law enforcement and creates partnerships with federal agencies to build successful cases against traffickers, collaborates with NGOs to educate the community about human trafficking, and conducts human trafficking assessments and referrals for all potential victims encountered during code enforcement inspections and investigations. It also collaborates with the FBI Child Exploitation Unit to identify and build cases against traffickers of U.S. victims and supports the Girl’s Justice Initiative to provide education to girls at the Juvenile Justice Center."
• The Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach Immigration and Trafficking Project in San Francisco represents victims of human trafficking for immigration and other civil legal relief and provides community outreach and technical assistance and training on human trafficking to NGOs and law enforcement.
• The Standing Against Global Exploitation (SAGE) Project, also in San Francisco, is a collaboration between law enforcement, public health, social services and private agencies with the goal of bringing an end to the commercial sexual exploitation of children and adults.
• “Rescue and Restore” Campaign: In conjunction with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ “Rescue and Restore” campaign to raise public awareness about human trafficking, several coalitions have been established in California. These include coalitions in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento, which in July 2007, became the 18th city in the nation to form such a collaborative effort.
• In 2005, the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco passed a “Sweatfree Contracting Ordinance,” with a goal of encouraging responsible contracting and reducing any inadvertent support of contractors who use sweatshop or other forced labor.

San Francisco District Attorney Kama Harris was widely quoted in the media coverage of the release of this report. She is listed as a sponsor of new legislation in the California Legislature (Assembly Bill 1278) designed to make it easier to make cases against traffickers and put them out of business for good. In many cases California laws are even weaker than the incredibly inadequate federal anti-trafficking law. AB 1278 seeks to provide stiffer penalties and addresses pimping as a specific crime among other changes.