The Nationwide Push to Decriminalize Prostitution I 6.4.23

00:03: Progressive activists and politicians across the country are pushing to decriminalize prostitution,

00:09: promoting so-called sex work as real work.

00:12: Meanwhile, opponents, including some former participants in the sex trade, say decriminalization is not the answer.

00:19: I also feel like you're going to kind of open the market for prostitution and pints, and

00:24: I just feel like the market's just going to grow and get bigger.

00:28: In this episode, we hear first-hand accounts from a former prostitute, a police chief and

00:32: the throes of a prostitution legalization initiative, and others about how this effort affects communities and victims of sex trafficking.

00:41: I'm daily wire editor and chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe.

00:44: It's June 4th, and this is a Sunday edition of Morning Wire.

00:52: Joining us to discuss the movement toward decriminalizing prostitution is daily wire reporter

00:57: Amanda Prestige-Jacquamo. So Amanda, first give us some background on this effort to effectively

01:02: legalize prostitution and how that intersects with sex trafficking.

01:06: Yeah, well a lot has changed in the framing of this issue over the past decade or two. Back in 2002,

01:12: then President George W. Bush signed a National Security Presidential Directive,

01:16: outlining the U.S. government's strong position against legalizing prostitution.

01:21: Now that was based on evidence that prostitution is inherently harmful and dehumanizing.

01:26: that it fuels sex trafficking, which the government classified as a form of modern-day slavery.

01:32: In 2004, the State Department said that prostitution fuels the growth of this modern-day slavery

01:37: by providing a facade for pimp's and sex traffickers, stating, quote,

01:41: where prostitution is legalized or tolerated, there is a greater demand for human trafficking victims

01:47: and nearly always an increase in the number of women and children trafficked into commercial

01:52: sex slavery. To that point of child sex trafficking, some studies

01:56: have estimated that the average age a child is first exploited through prostitution ranges

02:02: from 12 to 14 years old. Now there's some disagreement on these numbers just because of the nature

02:07: of the crime as you can imagine, but just really horrific stuff. Moving on in 2015, the

02:13: State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons echoed that same

02:18: anti-prostitution language, tying prostitution to sex trafficking and advocating for the promotion

02:24: of policies and cultural norms that quote, disallow paying for sex.

02:29: But now we're seeing the atmosphere really change politically speaking.

02:33: Yeah, that's right. Fast forward to today.

02:35: And activists and prominent politicians are promoting the decriminalization of what they call sex work.

02:41: They argue that prostitution is not inherently dehumanizing.

02:44: And this can be done without exploitation. And as such, it's no different than any other work.

02:49: work and by decriminalizing that, you're helping generally speaking women.

02:54: They also make a distinction between decriminalizing prostitution and legalizing it.

02:59: If prostitution is decriminalized, it would technically remain illegal, they say, but the

03:04: legal system would not prosecute people for engaging in the act.

03:07: There could be no penalties tied to the act or a civil fine, for example, whereas legalization

03:13: would remove all legal prohibitions against prostitution.

03:16: just how mainstream is this push to decriminalize prostitution today?

03:22: Well, this certainly is not a fringe movement anymore.

03:25: Let's start at the top.

03:26: Our current vice president, Kamala Harris, has gone on record saying she believes prostitution should be decriminalized.

03:32: That's really a flip for Harris that seemed to come from public pressure from the far left.

03:38: Remember, Harris was a prosecutor who once bragged that she, and this is a

03:42: quote, led the fight against back page and other sex trafficking platforms. Other mainstream

03:47: politicians, mostly all Democrats are on board with this movement too. At the least, they're

03:52: saying that decriminalization of prostitution should be considered or they're parading that

03:58: sex work is work mantra. This includes the likes of New York representative Alexandria

04:02: Acasio Cortez, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, and Massachusetts

04:09: Senator Elizabeth Warren, the last three of whom are former presidential candidates.

04:13: Right. And we can add Democratic governor Gavin Newsom to this list. Last summer,

04:17: Newsom signed a highly controversial bill into law, SB 357. And this has effectively become a

04:24: case study on decriminalizing prostitution. The law backed by Democratic state Senator Scott

04:29: Weiner and the ACLU decriminalized loitering with the intent to commit prostitution. Weiner claims

04:36: the law is a protection for trans and black and brown women, whom he claims are harassed by police for merely their identity.

04:43: Here's the state senator in his own words making the claim that SB 357 is necessary.

04:49: Why would we have criminal law allow a police officer to arrest you, based exclusively on

04:55: how you look, not on what you do?

04:57: That's wrong.

04:58: We shouldn't have that kind of law on the books and the police have plenty of tools to

05:02: the ill-trafficking and they should be doing more work to address human trafficking and less concerning.

05:09: Now, those on the other side of this issue just flat out disagree with that premise.

05:14: And by the way, these aren't all people of one political persuasion.

05:17: There were even some California Democrats who warned against SB 357 before it was signed into law.

05:23: The Nessau Russell founder of an anti-sex trafficking nonprofit called Love Never Fails pushed back

05:29: on Senator Wiener's narrative during an appearance on East Town Church's YouTube channel.

05:33: The reason why black women and LGBTQ plus people are disproportionately represented in prostitution stings in arrests is because they are disproportionately trafficked.

05:45: And so to me, that is the greater issue.

05:47: Why are we not providing necessary services to provide exit for trafficked victims,

05:54: for people who do not want to be sold for sex?

05:59: and unfortunately the agenda of Scott Weiner and the ACLU is that they want to promote

06:07: an agenda called sex work is work and they are strong believers in full decriminalization

06:14: meaning no one gets arrested in the sex buying food chain meaning not the victim, not the buyer and not the exploiter.

06:23: I also spoke to San Diego police chief David Nizlite.

06:27: his officers are on the ground seeing first hand the effects from this law.

06:31: And here's what he had to say about this disparity issue Senator Weiner talks about.

06:36: This is primarily a complaint driven issue. Law enforcement, we deal with behavior,

06:41: we deal with criminal behavior. So if we constantly get a complaint every single day about the

06:45: behavior out there, we go out there to who is doing the activity. And so is there a disparity

06:51: about who is being contacted out there as far as people of color. Yes, but that's in my

06:57: area and I'm going only specifically talk about San Diego. That's who we contact. That's

07:02: who's involved in this criminal behavior. There's other ways to look at what is causing

07:07: this disparity. Why is it that these people are out here involved in sex trafficking? Are

07:12: they there because they want to be? Or are they there because they're being forced into

07:16: this business. And so again, we can look at this differently, but we shouldn't be risking

07:21: life of young women because of that. And he's really seen it on the ground there. Okay,

07:26: so SB 357 has been in effect for months now. How is that playing out on the ground?

07:32: Chief Nizlite told me the law has really hamstrung officers in San Diego from cracking down

07:37: on sex trafficking, which he said was completely predictable.

07:41: It's made it extremely difficult.

07:43: I mean, so in the past, when we were able to contact women or those involved in sex trafficking,

07:49: we could use the lording within 10 after we watched them.

07:53: What's the decriminalize that?

07:55: We really don't have an entryway into making that contact anymore.

07:59: What we're seeing now is we have these open sex markets, 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year.

08:06: These open sex markets as Chief Niz Lightputt, of course, are affecting the surrounding

08:10: communities. There have been dozens of local news reports in California revealing rampant

08:15: prostitution happening outside schools and in neighborhoods where mothers are pushing

08:20: their babies and strollers and so on. Here are some residents in a San Francisco neighborhood

08:25: describing such prostitution issues to a local Fox affiliate. Violence of the pimps that

08:32: they not only intimidate the women and men handle them aggressively, they also sometimes intimidate

08:40: the neighbors noise it brings at night. I mean, I wake up multiple times a week at night.

08:47: My kids of miss school, I've missed work. It's and it's the Johns driving by in their car,

08:53: racing back and forth, turning their music on, having side shows with their cars.

08:59: Tooth Nizlay emphasized that this hurts sex trafficking victims the most in echo of this view our government used to hold.

09:07: It's also making it for those that will traffic women, specifically younger women, for them

09:12: to put them out there with now to reduce their chance of being caught.

09:16: Then those that are put out there involuntary has made it much harder for us to rescue those victims.

09:22: And so what we're seeing is a spike in this type of behavior.

09:26: You know, and just because you decrymly something doesn't mean the impact on the victim, those

09:31: that are being trafficked or on the community goes away.

09:33: In fact, and sometimes like this, it increases.

09:36: Now advocates for decriminalizing prostitution often complain that so-called sex workers

09:42: are not part of these conversations when it comes to laws against selling sex.

09:46: They claim these women, men too, but they typically talk in terms of women, are happy and unharmed

09:52: selling sex and therefore law enforcement should not be involved.

09:56: I wanted to kind of go down this avenue, so I spoke to former prostitute Brittany Dailamora

10:01: about her time as a prostitute for over four years,

10:04: starting when she was just 21 years old.

10:06: Even before that, Brittany was selling sex.

10:08: At 18 years of age, she was working in the porn industry.

10:12: Brittany told me her pimple was her boyfriend

10:14: and that she was never coerced into prostitution, though she did express to me, feeling trapped by her past choices.

10:21: I was in a relationship with a guy right before the pimple

10:24: and he was stabbed to death and trying to meet.

10:27: I was living with him.

10:28: So after that, I basically had nowhere to live.

10:31: Honestly, at first I didn't want to have a relationship with a

10:34: PIMP, but I literally had nowhere to go.

10:37: And he gave me a place to stay about five months into that relationship.

10:43: This man encouraged Brittany to sell her body.

10:45: I didn't really want to do it, but I just kind of was in this

10:49: place where I felt like these are the choices that I've made

10:52: with my life. And I didn't really see a way out. I didn't

10:55: really see how I could come out of that. So I just I kind of

10:58: accepted his guidance and I went back to Port and Presetation.

11:02: Brittany, who was now a devout Christian, told me it was an encounter with God that gave

11:06: her the push to get out of the industry.

11:09: After she left with the help of her mother, her home was robbed.

11:12: She believes it was her pimp.

11:14: I have my thesis, especially to believe it was him because it was like, you know, the

11:18: safe with the code and everything that he knew was opened.

11:21: And so, yeah, I think he did that to scare me because he wanted me to feel like I couldn't do life without him.

11:27: I just pushed through and I did not go back to him.

11:31: I asked Brittany about the others she encountered who were also selling sex.

11:35: She acknowledged this theme of vulnerable and broken women, even for those whom she said were not forced into prostitution.

11:42: I didn't personally meet anybody that was pressured.

11:45: I mean, there's definitely some manipulation that goes on with the pims they prey on vulnerable young girls.

11:52: We know that they prey on teenagers, but the women that I met were all adults that were

11:56: vulnerable. They came from broken childhoods. And so they were kind of inclined to this way of life

12:02: because when you've been abused as a child and you haven't healed from that, you often choose a

12:06: life of abuse. You just subconsciously attract what you think you deserve. Now coming out of that

12:11: line of work, I met women that say that they were forced, they were pressured, maybe they were

12:17: runaways and just was kind of the life that they fell into, not by choice.

12:22: Brini told me she wasn't sure how to best handle prostitution in the legal sense and thought

12:27: the issue should be looked at on a case-by-case basis. Women who are forced into the industry

12:32: should not be criminalized, she said. But decriminalizing the whole industry is probably not the best solution.

12:39: If I had gotten arrested when I was doing what I was doing, I think that it absolutely

12:43: would have changed me. I know that it would have changed the course of my life. I mean,

12:47: maybe I would have continued with porn, but I would have stopped prostituting.

12:51: Brittany is the mother. She's married to a Christian pastor and a lot of her life's work is dedicated

12:56: to helping people transition out of prostitution and porn, which I think speaks to her own experience.

13:02: The couple does this through their nonprofit called Love Always Ministries.

13:06: So her past experience really inspired her to be an activist on this issue. Final question,

13:10: what are the latest statistics on prostitution in the US? Just how many people are we talking about here?

13:16: Well, as you'd expect, we don't know for sure, but the estimates range between one and two million.

13:21: That's in the US. Worldwide estimates are more than 40 million people.

13:26: And we should note that a significant percentage of traffic children are boys.

13:30: So again, this isn't just a female issue. This industry can victimize anyone.

13:35: In the end, this all really comes back to this one question.

13:37: Is sex work inherently deshumanizing and inseparable from breeding exploitation?

13:42: Or is it merely work? And if there is non-exploitative sex work, how is that separated out from abuse and

13:48: trafficking? Would victims be a sacrifice of this movement as they seem to be in California?

13:53: It will all crucial questions that have to play into policy decisions on this issue.

13:57: Amanda, thanks for reporting. Thanks for having me.

14:00: That was Daily Wire reporter Amanda Prestige-Jacamo and this has been a Sunday edition of Morning Wire.