Today the 16th of January, my group and I went to Sanctuary for Families to volunteer to organize some if their donations and speak with one of their heads, Emily LoBue. Emily LoBue is Sanctuary for Families’ overseer in their intern program. When we first arrived, we have a fascinating conversation with Emily LoBue and another woman named Lauren Mindel.

We introduced ourselves, and then jumped right into the topic of sexual violence and sex trafficking. Emily explained that Sanctuary for Families’ main objective was to provide wholistic help for their victims. That means they want to help the victims entirely instead of giving them one thing, and move them on. They want to help by making the victims transform into strong, survivors, and focus on helping the victims get into stable, comfortable situations. All of Sanctuary for Families’ victims have experienced gender based violence. At Sanctuary for Families, they don’t help exclusively grown women. They help everyone; women, men, and children. Sanctuary for Families helps victims of trafficking, rape, domestic abuse, child abuse, and any abuse that happens within one’s family whether it’s from a father, mother, brother, or cousin.

After we got an overview on what Sanctuary for Families’ goals for their victims, and what the organization does, Emily started speaking freely on the whole topic of sexual violence, and more specifically, sex trafficking. We were informed that the average age a girl/young woman enters the sex trafficking “business”, is 13. Even though the average age is 13, she said that a lot of young girls that are trafficked in New York City, are as young as 9. She told us that there are a lot of women based organizations that are working to end sex trafficking, but it’s the responsibility of men to help end sex trafficking, as well. Both genders need to team up to end sex trafficking, and part of ending sex trafficking, is by ending the demand some men have to buy sex.

Emily told us that all pimps have one thing in common; they prey on women’s vulnerability. They mostly target runaways, and girls who don’t have supportive families or communities. The pimps bring them in to their lives and make them feel as if they’re in an intimate relationship. The pimps make the girls think that they’re going to make money together, buy a house, have kids, and build an entire future together. They get the victim inferior because they give themselves so much power in control, and then they move on to the next victim. The whole recruiting system is based off of power, control, and manipulation. Because of manipulating tools, the pimps make the girls indebted to them. They say, “Hey, let me buy you some food and some clothes. Ok I did all this for you, you can help me with this job, and we’ll be even.” Pimps also make the women addicted to drugs and alcohol and make them more in-debt. Pimps very often abuse their victims to make them scared to leave them. Manipulation is the biggest tool used by the pimps and johns to have the women work for them. Manipulation plays with the women’s minds.

A lot of prostitutes are held in brothels. The pimp always knows everything about where the women are. The women feel as of they’re always being watched. Last year they had some employees help find brothels with NYPD. It was called a sting. They went out to areas that have been known to have brothels. In Midtown, there were women being held under the floorboard of a corporate building. Lots of brothels are disguised as nail salons and massage parlors. Although most of the victims are kept in brothels, pimps have been becoming more clever with how they do their “business.” Emily told us that last year, one client and an attorney thought they were going to a specific brothel, and she pointed over to a town car. They found pimps were becoming more creative and started “Brothels on wheels.” Pimps were partnering with drivers and they were giving the drivers addresses of men who were paying to have sexual intercourse with the girls. The driver would take a girl to all the stops. Some women were taken to as many as thirty stops in one night. The whole system was made to protect the johns, and double the business because it was so quick. Sanctuary for Families, Ray Kelly, and the whole NYPD teamed with each other to make a $10,000 fine to any driver who participates with brothers on wheels. Also, now it is mandatory for every cab driver to watch a video on trafficking.

Sex trafficking itself is a huge issue, but not everyone understands that most of the time, it isn’t the prostitute’s fault. Everybody’s criminalizing the women and saying,  “These women are horrible, they’re putting our children and families in danger,” but it’s not their faults at all. Reporters who write stories about sex trafficking never mention or criminalize the men who are buying the sex from the trafficked women. It’s all made to look like it’s the prostitutes fault, even though it isn’t. When brothels are found and shut down, the prostitutes are treated as criminals and sent to clinal courts, even though these “criminals” are usually around 15 years old. Last year, Judge Lipton worked to create Trafficking specific courts because victims were being treated as criminals. The women weren’t being put into safe places, and the police were creating criminal records for them. Instead of criminalizing these women, the new courts treated them as human beings, and the victims that they are. The idea of these new courts were to help the women get help, move on, and not be criminalized.

After we spoke with Emily LoBue for around an hour, we helped sort clothing donations in Sanctuary for Families’ “Butterfly Boutique.” The Butterfly Boutique was made out of an office on Sanctuary for Families’ floor. They have a fitting room along with shopping bags and many different racks if clothing. Victims can come whenever they like to get clothing or shoes for themselves, their husbands, or their children.