Pray for the girls in this video. These stories are similar to the ones we hear everyday in Project GOLD at Kristi House. The courage they have to be able to seek help and then to speak of this on camera is inspiring to me, personally. -Sandy
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/multimedia//graphics/2009/human_trafficking.html
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Beneath Low: BET, Lil Wayne Set the Stage for Child Pornography
By April R. Silver, June 29, 2009
www.aprilsilver.com
Last night, live at the BET Awards in Los Angeles, a room full of head-bobbing, consenting adults bounced to Drake and Lil Wayne’s back-to-back performances of the hit songs “Best I Ever Had” and “Every Girl.” I watched, underwhelmed. I wanted more “Michael” in what was supposed to be this award-show-turned-Michael-Jackson-tribute. I watched, ever puzzled by the Lil Wayne phenomena that has captivated the music industry. I watched, wondering when the set was going to end.
Then the little girls came onstage…literally the little girls. “Are those children?” I asked out loud, in disbelief. Then the camera panned the audience. Everyone was still head-bobbing as the little Black girls huddled around these superstars.
“Are those little girls on stage…for this song?!?!” I, still in disbelief, lost breath and forced myself to exhale. “Why are these little girls featured on this performance? Is somebody going to stop this?” Again, the show was live, though for a nano-second, I was hoping that a hunched-over stage manager would bust through from back stage to scoop up the children, rescuing them from harm’s way…from being associated from this song. But instead, what those girls witnessed from the stage was hundreds and hundreds of adults (mostly Black people) staring back at them, co-signing the performance. These girls, who all appeared to be pre-teens, were having their 15 minutes of glam on one of the biggest nights in televised Black entertainment history, with two of pop culture’s biggest stars at the moment, with millions of people watching. They must have been bubbling with girlish excitement, shimmering like princesses all night. Pure irony: one of them wore a red ballerina tutu for the special occasion. And we applauded them.
I’m told that one of the girls is Lil Wayne’s daughter. That doesn’t matter. In fact that makes it worse. Last night we were reminded that there are few safe spaces for our little girls to be children; that some of us are willing to trade their innocence for a good head nod. BET and Lil Wayne are beneath low because, in effect, they have given premium assurance to these and other little girls that their best value, their shining moment, their gifts to display to the world, all lie within a context that says they are fuckable.
I’m also told by industry insiders that Lil Wayne was continuously sexually molested as a child, remains in a psychologically abusive relationship with the molester, and for that reason his understanding of what’s appropriate and what’s not appropriate for children is terribly skewed. I don’t know if that is true. If it is, help is needed. If it is true, it might explain something regarding Lil Wayne’s compliance in this offense. But what about BET’s nickel in this dime?
BET President and CEO Debra Lee has come underfire over the years yet many see the network as one hell bent on showing the worse pathologies of Black people
The programming at BET has been heavily criticized by artists, concerned citizens, college students, parent groups, social justice organizations, media reform activists, and many others for over a decade now. Their programming seems hell bent on broadcasting the worst pathologies in the Black community. Some have joined the anti-BET movement by simply tuning out. Others have been more pro-active. National letter-writing campaigns and other activities designed to shame and/or pressure the network into improving its programming have been in play for some time now. Boycotts have been called as well. Two years ago, for example, the network found itself in the line of fire as it planned to air the very controversial series “Hot Ghetto Mess.” Advertisers, such as State Farm Insurance and Home Depot, responded to pressure and requested that their ads be disassociated with the series (though, their ads could be placed in other programming slots). None of this has made a difference. In fact, it seems to have emboldened the network, for it is now expanding. In the fall, BET is due to launch another channel.
But millions of Black people are not offended by the network and welcome anything BET has to offer, no matter how much it continues to unravel the fabric of our community. Imagine, if you will, BET as a human being and the viewers as the community. You would have to imagine BET as a drug dealer, with his swag on…perhaps outside standing atop a truck, the community crowded beneath him. Imagine him throwing nicely wrapped gifts into the crowed, or giving away turkeys at Thanksgiving. Or maybe it’s Mother’s Day and he buys dinner and teddy bears to all the single moms and grandmothers around the way. Despite his best efforts and despite the approval of his fans, he is still a drug dealer, pimping death to the masses.
Proverbs is full of sacred text that teaches us that there will always be fools amongst us. Some of them will be highly paid, protected, and given world-wide platforms to show off what they do best. And these fools (be they performers, corporate executives, or others), will have fans and loyal supporters, and a place to call home, like a BET.
But as long as there will be fools amongst us, there will also be wise ones – a small group of people concerned about the long term health and well being of the community. This small group will often go unheard and they will be outmatched. They will struggle over which problem to address first: the child pornographer, the batterer, the pimp, the prostitute, the thief, the slumlord, or the system that enables it all. They will get tired and their defense will pale in comparison to the almost crushing offense. And they will be betrayed from within. Historically and universally, this is what happens in the struggle for what is right. But eventually, with continued pressure, something will shift. A radical new thinking will emerge, and the fools will lose their stronghold.
The sure expectation of victory, however, can not be understated. It is a concrete ingredient in the struggle against the death that is being paraded in our community…as necessary as letter writing campaigns, economic boycotts, symbolic and actual protests, and other pressure-oriented activities. It is indeed possible to bring more life into our community.
Return to Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner
As a social entrepreneur and activist, my entire life/work has been dedicated to standing up for what’s right, especially within the culture of hip hop. When identifying what cancerous elements exist within the Black community, many fellow activists agree with Chuck D (of Public Enemy), and even Aaron McGruder (of The Boondocks), when they targeted BET as one of those elements. That said, I didn’t think that we would ever have to take the network to task for what amounts to child pornography.
Lil Wayne shocked many with his performance at the BET Awards when he allowed little girls to come on stage. But did no one care that Lil Wayne’s song Every Girl is about grown men and their sexual escapades with women? Did the meaning and intent of the song matter to anyone, this song whose hook and other lyrics required a re-write in order to get air play? “I wish I could love every girl in the world.” That’s the radio-friendly version of “I wish I could f–k every girl in the world.” But Lil Wayne’s BET performance was the clean edit of the song. Perhaps he (and the show producers) thought that there was nothing wrong in featuring the children in the clean version. Perhaps we were supposed to see the whole bit as cute and innocent. Absolutely not. There’s no other way to cut it: in presenting little girls in a performance of a song that is about sex, group sex, and more sex, BET and Lil Wayne set the stage for child pornography. It doesn’t matter what version of the song was played, much like a man who batters women is still an abusive man, even if uses flowery phrases while battering.In the song, Lil Wayne mentions superstar Miley Cyrus, but Cyrus gets a pass on this lyrical sex escapade because, as he acknowledges, she is a minor. Huh? Why, then, is he comfortable with featuring four minors, these four little Black girls, in the show? How deep exactly is this inability of some men to respect women, and how deep is Lil Wayne’s disregard for the safety of little girls?
www.aprilsilver.com
Last night, live at the BET Awards in Los Angeles, a room full of head-bobbing, consenting adults bounced to Drake and Lil Wayne’s back-to-back performances of the hit songs “Best I Ever Had” and “Every Girl.” I watched, underwhelmed. I wanted more “Michael” in what was supposed to be this award-show-turned-Michael-Jackson-tribute. I watched, ever puzzled by the Lil Wayne phenomena that has captivated the music industry. I watched, wondering when the set was going to end. Then the little girls came onstage…literally the little girls. “Are those children?” I asked out loud, in disbelief. Then the camera panned the audience. Everyone was still head-bobbing as the little Black girls huddled around these superstars.
“Are those little girls on stage…for this song?!?!” I, still in disbelief, lost breath and forced myself to exhale. “Why are these little girls featured on this performance? Is somebody going to stop this?” Again, the show was live, though for a nano-second, I was hoping that a hunched-over stage manager would bust through from back stage to scoop up the children, rescuing them from harm’s way…from being associated from this song. But instead, what those girls witnessed from the stage was hundreds and hundreds of adults (mostly Black people) staring back at them, co-signing the performance. These girls, who all appeared to be pre-teens, were having their 15 minutes of glam on one of the biggest nights in televised Black entertainment history, with two of pop culture’s biggest stars at the moment, with millions of people watching. They must have been bubbling with girlish excitement, shimmering like princesses all night. Pure irony: one of them wore a red ballerina tutu for the special occasion. And we applauded them.
I’m told that one of the girls is Lil Wayne’s daughter. That doesn’t matter. In fact that makes it worse. Last night we were reminded that there are few safe spaces for our little girls to be children; that some of us are willing to trade their innocence for a good head nod. BET and Lil Wayne are beneath low because, in effect, they have given premium assurance to these and other little girls that their best value, their shining moment, their gifts to display to the world, all lie within a context that says they are fuckable.
I’m also told by industry insiders that Lil Wayne was continuously sexually molested as a child, remains in a psychologically abusive relationship with the molester, and for that reason his understanding of what’s appropriate and what’s not appropriate for children is terribly skewed. I don’t know if that is true. If it is, help is needed. If it is true, it might explain something regarding Lil Wayne’s compliance in this offense. But what about BET’s nickel in this dime?
BET President and CEO Debra Lee has come underfire over the years yet many see the network as one hell bent on showing the worse pathologies of Black people
The programming at BET has been heavily criticized by artists, concerned citizens, college students, parent groups, social justice organizations, media reform activists, and many others for over a decade now. Their programming seems hell bent on broadcasting the worst pathologies in the Black community. Some have joined the anti-BET movement by simply tuning out. Others have been more pro-active. National letter-writing campaigns and other activities designed to shame and/or pressure the network into improving its programming have been in play for some time now. Boycotts have been called as well. Two years ago, for example, the network found itself in the line of fire as it planned to air the very controversial series “Hot Ghetto Mess.” Advertisers, such as State Farm Insurance and Home Depot, responded to pressure and requested that their ads be disassociated with the series (though, their ads could be placed in other programming slots). None of this has made a difference. In fact, it seems to have emboldened the network, for it is now expanding. In the fall, BET is due to launch another channel.
But millions of Black people are not offended by the network and welcome anything BET has to offer, no matter how much it continues to unravel the fabric of our community. Imagine, if you will, BET as a human being and the viewers as the community. You would have to imagine BET as a drug dealer, with his swag on…perhaps outside standing atop a truck, the community crowded beneath him. Imagine him throwing nicely wrapped gifts into the crowed, or giving away turkeys at Thanksgiving. Or maybe it’s Mother’s Day and he buys dinner and teddy bears to all the single moms and grandmothers around the way. Despite his best efforts and despite the approval of his fans, he is still a drug dealer, pimping death to the masses.
Proverbs is full of sacred text that teaches us that there will always be fools amongst us. Some of them will be highly paid, protected, and given world-wide platforms to show off what they do best. And these fools (be they performers, corporate executives, or others), will have fans and loyal supporters, and a place to call home, like a BET.
But as long as there will be fools amongst us, there will also be wise ones – a small group of people concerned about the long term health and well being of the community. This small group will often go unheard and they will be outmatched. They will struggle over which problem to address first: the child pornographer, the batterer, the pimp, the prostitute, the thief, the slumlord, or the system that enables it all. They will get tired and their defense will pale in comparison to the almost crushing offense. And they will be betrayed from within. Historically and universally, this is what happens in the struggle for what is right. But eventually, with continued pressure, something will shift. A radical new thinking will emerge, and the fools will lose their stronghold.
The sure expectation of victory, however, can not be understated. It is a concrete ingredient in the struggle against the death that is being paraded in our community…as necessary as letter writing campaigns, economic boycotts, symbolic and actual protests, and other pressure-oriented activities. It is indeed possible to bring more life into our community.
Return to Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner
As a social entrepreneur and activist, my entire life/work has been dedicated to standing up for what’s right, especially within the culture of hip hop. When identifying what cancerous elements exist within the Black community, many fellow activists agree with Chuck D (of Public Enemy), and even Aaron McGruder (of The Boondocks), when they targeted BET as one of those elements. That said, I didn’t think that we would ever have to take the network to task for what amounts to child pornography.
Lil Wayne shocked many with his performance at the BET Awards when he allowed little girls to come on stage. But did no one care that Lil Wayne’s song Every Girl is about grown men and their sexual escapades with women? Did the meaning and intent of the song matter to anyone, this song whose hook and other lyrics required a re-write in order to get air play? “I wish I could love every girl in the world.” That’s the radio-friendly version of “I wish I could f–k every girl in the world.” But Lil Wayne’s BET performance was the clean edit of the song. Perhaps he (and the show producers) thought that there was nothing wrong in featuring the children in the clean version. Perhaps we were supposed to see the whole bit as cute and innocent. Absolutely not. There’s no other way to cut it: in presenting little girls in a performance of a song that is about sex, group sex, and more sex, BET and Lil Wayne set the stage for child pornography. It doesn’t matter what version of the song was played, much like a man who batters women is still an abusive man, even if uses flowery phrases while battering.In the song, Lil Wayne mentions superstar Miley Cyrus, but Cyrus gets a pass on this lyrical sex escapade because, as he acknowledges, she is a minor. Huh? Why, then, is he comfortable with featuring four minors, these four little Black girls, in the show? How deep exactly is this inability of some men to respect women, and how deep is Lil Wayne’s disregard for the safety of little girls?
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Young Survivors of Sex Trafficking Inspire Beyonce, Halle Berry and More to Join 'Girls Are Not for Sale' Campaign
Inspired by the Showtime documentary 'Very Young Girls', about American girls fighting to overcome the trauma of child trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation, artists help mobilize women across America for national campaign featuring the film's July 7th debut on Netflix.
New York (PRWEB) June 30, 2009 -- GEMS: Girls Educational and Mentoring Services, the nation's largest survivor-led organization serving American girls and young women who have experienced sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation, is joining forces with Beyoncé Knowles, Halle Berry, Demi Moore, Sinead O'Connor, Mary J Blige, Katie Ford and women across America for its Girls Are Not for Sale (http://www.girlsarenotforsale.org) campaign. Kicking off July 7th with the Netflix debut of the critically acclaimed Showtime documentary 'Very Young Girls', the campaign will use e-activism, live events, all-star artist collaborations and other initiatives to promote girls empowerment and education as critical tools in the fight against child traffickers and pimps who victimize between 100,000 and 300,000 American children and teens each year.
"The girls of GEMS have emerged as powerful young leaders in this movement," says Rachel Lloyd, Founder and Executive Director of GEMS. "They have successfully advocated for groundbreaking legislation to protect young victims in New York State, challenged misperceptions of survivors through 'Very Young Girls' and other media work, and every day, serve as peer support for girls who walk through GEMS' doors. We are thrilled that they are gaining new allies in these smart and powerful women."
Grammy-winner Beyonce Knowles first learned about the girls of GEMS when she saw 'Very Young Girls' six months ago. "I don't know how anyone could see that documentary and not want to help those young women," says Knowles. "I didn't want to just donate money, I wanted them to know that someone really cared about them. My time, my heart, my ears, and my voice are the biggest gifts I could think to give."
Shortly after seeing the film, Knowles asked to meet the girls personally. "I was scheduled to visit for two hours but I ended up staying five hours," Knowles recalls. "I wanted to listen to every girl's story and the stories were all so different. Some had been kidnapped, some lured by love and the promise of protection, some were 11 years old. I listened and I cried with the young ladies. I watched them dance. I heard them sing. I asked lots of questions. They were so open and so brave. They were very beautiful girls and very articulate."
Knowles pledged to help the girls reach a larger audience, and on July 24th, will host dozens of GEMS' survivors at her concert at the IZOD Center in New Jersey. "I realized that they were no different than I am. If I grew up with some of the struggles and challenges they have had to deal with and live with every day, I could have possibly been them and vice versa. After hearing the shocking stories of what those young ladies have gone through, I want to use my voice to do what I can to bring awareness to this horrific sex trafficking that happens right here in America."
GEMS hopes many more women will join Knowles and other artists in spreading the girls' message. The organization has launched a national social network, The Council of Daughters, to empower women and girls to bring the needs of young survivors into local communities. Through its online hub - http://www.councilofdaughters.ning.com - Council members can meet, share news and ideas, plan campaign events, raise funds and introduce the needs of girls to their friends through a variety of social media tools.
Beginning July 7th, Council members across the country, in conjunction with Netflix, the world's largest online movie rental service, will host National Viewing Nights to celebrate the online and DVD premiere of 'Very Young Girls'. The film, which has been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people in the United States, UK, Canada, Australia and Israel since its international broadcast premiere on Showtime Networks in December 2008, profiles Lloyd's work with numerous girls as they struggle to heal from the trauma of their experiences. Kicking off in New York City, the viewing nights will travel across the country before arriving in Los Angeles on July 14th.
Also beginning July 7th, Netflix will offer its more than 10 million subscribers the opportunity to instantly watch 'Very Young Girls' on their computers or TVs via streaming from Netflix. The film can be instantly streamed on TVs through a variety of Netflix ready devices, including Blu-ray disc players and new Internet TVs from LG Electronics, Blu-ray disc players from Samsung, the Roku digital video player, Microsoft's Xbox 360 game console and through TiVo digital video recorders. The film can also be watched instantly on PCs and Macs with high-speed Internet access and can be received from Netflix on DVD as well. Netflix offers a two-week free trial subscription for those interested in trying the service.
Lloyd, named one of Ms. Magazines '50 Women Who Change the World', believes the Campaign and Netflix partnership will also correct the impressions many Americans have of trafficked and commercially sexually exploited youth. "So often our girls are viewed as 'teen prostitutes' when they are in fact children who are bought and sold by adults to adults. 'Girls Are Not for Sale' paves the way for women across the country to join survivors as we work to create a nation in which girls are celebrated, not sold."
A survivor of commercial sexual exploitation as a teen in Europe, Lloyd founded GEMS 11 years ago with a borrowed computer and $30 when she saw American girls lured or abducted into the sex industry being ignored and stigmatized by traditional service providers. Over a decade later, the organization annually serves more than 275 survivors, and provides outreach and training to over 1,000 youth and more than 1,500 service providers, educators and law enforcement professionals. A leading voice in the field of child sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation in America, Lloyd is the author of the upcoming book 'Acceptable Victims' (Harper Collins in 2010), the subject of a feature film currently in development at Participant Productions and Lifetime Networks, and a 2006 recipient of the Reebok Human Rights Award.
About Girls Are Not for Sale
Girls Are Not for Sale is a national campaign with one goal: to inspire one million Americans to take easy, effective actions to nurture and empower American girls who have become victims of child sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation, and, to protect all girls from the dangers of trafficking. Sparked by the overwhelming public response to the Showtime film 'Very Young Girls' and the survivors whose lives it chronicles, the Campaign brings the movement to protect and empower girls to cities across America through live events, grassroots action, ad campaigns, fundraising drives, film premieres, music recordings and much more. For more information, visit http://www.girlsarenotforsale.org and http://www.facebook.com/girlsarenotforsale.
About GEMS
Girls Educational & Mentoring Services (GEMS) is the nation's largest non-profit organization specifically designed to empower American girls and young women, ages 12-21 who have experienced sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking to exit the commercial sex industry and develop to their full potential. GEMS is committed to ending commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking of children by changing individual lives, transforming public perception, and the systems and policies that impact sexually exploited youth. In 2008, GEMS provided counseling, job training, access to health care and crisis housing to more than 280 young women; provided outreach to more than 1,500 youth; and trained 1,000 youth service workers. Aside from these programs, GEMS also provides a continuum of services including Youth-led facility outreach, street outreach, court advocacy and an Alternatives to Incarceration program, case management, education, recreational and therapeutic groups, youth employment and leadership training, transitional & crisis housing, and referral services. For more information visit http://www.gems-girls.org.
About Netflix, Inc.
Netflix, Inc. is the world's largest online movie rental service, with more than 10 million subscribers. For one low monthly price, Netflix subscribers can get DVDs delivered to their homes and can instantly watch movies and TV episodes streamed to their TVs and computers, all in unlimited amounts. Subscribers can choose from over 100,000 DVD titles and a growing library of more than 12,000 choices that can be watched instantly. There are never any due dates or late fees. DVDs are delivered free to subscribers by first class mail, with a postage-paid return envelope, from 58 distribution centers. More than 97 percent of Netflix subscribers live in areas that generally receive shipments in one business day. Netflix has partnered with leading consumer electronics companies to offer a range of devices that can instantly stream movies and TV episodes to members' TVs from Netflix. For more information, visit http://www.netflix.com/.
###
Contact Information
Bridgit Antoinette Evans
GEMS: Girls Educational and Mentoring Services
http://www.girlsarenotforsale.org
646 408 3428
New York (PRWEB) June 30, 2009 -- GEMS: Girls Educational and Mentoring Services, the nation's largest survivor-led organization serving American girls and young women who have experienced sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation, is joining forces with Beyoncé Knowles, Halle Berry, Demi Moore, Sinead O'Connor, Mary J Blige, Katie Ford and women across America for its Girls Are Not for Sale (http://www.girlsarenotforsale.org) campaign. Kicking off July 7th with the Netflix debut of the critically acclaimed Showtime documentary 'Very Young Girls', the campaign will use e-activism, live events, all-star artist collaborations and other initiatives to promote girls empowerment and education as critical tools in the fight against child traffickers and pimps who victimize between 100,000 and 300,000 American children and teens each year.
"The girls of GEMS have emerged as powerful young leaders in this movement," says Rachel Lloyd, Founder and Executive Director of GEMS. "They have successfully advocated for groundbreaking legislation to protect young victims in New York State, challenged misperceptions of survivors through 'Very Young Girls' and other media work, and every day, serve as peer support for girls who walk through GEMS' doors. We are thrilled that they are gaining new allies in these smart and powerful women."
Grammy-winner Beyonce Knowles first learned about the girls of GEMS when she saw 'Very Young Girls' six months ago. "I don't know how anyone could see that documentary and not want to help those young women," says Knowles. "I didn't want to just donate money, I wanted them to know that someone really cared about them. My time, my heart, my ears, and my voice are the biggest gifts I could think to give."
Shortly after seeing the film, Knowles asked to meet the girls personally. "I was scheduled to visit for two hours but I ended up staying five hours," Knowles recalls. "I wanted to listen to every girl's story and the stories were all so different. Some had been kidnapped, some lured by love and the promise of protection, some were 11 years old. I listened and I cried with the young ladies. I watched them dance. I heard them sing. I asked lots of questions. They were so open and so brave. They were very beautiful girls and very articulate."
Knowles pledged to help the girls reach a larger audience, and on July 24th, will host dozens of GEMS' survivors at her concert at the IZOD Center in New Jersey. "I realized that they were no different than I am. If I grew up with some of the struggles and challenges they have had to deal with and live with every day, I could have possibly been them and vice versa. After hearing the shocking stories of what those young ladies have gone through, I want to use my voice to do what I can to bring awareness to this horrific sex trafficking that happens right here in America."
GEMS hopes many more women will join Knowles and other artists in spreading the girls' message. The organization has launched a national social network, The Council of Daughters, to empower women and girls to bring the needs of young survivors into local communities. Through its online hub - http://www.councilofdaughters.ning.com - Council members can meet, share news and ideas, plan campaign events, raise funds and introduce the needs of girls to their friends through a variety of social media tools.
Beginning July 7th, Council members across the country, in conjunction with Netflix, the world's largest online movie rental service, will host National Viewing Nights to celebrate the online and DVD premiere of 'Very Young Girls'. The film, which has been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people in the United States, UK, Canada, Australia and Israel since its international broadcast premiere on Showtime Networks in December 2008, profiles Lloyd's work with numerous girls as they struggle to heal from the trauma of their experiences. Kicking off in New York City, the viewing nights will travel across the country before arriving in Los Angeles on July 14th.
Also beginning July 7th, Netflix will offer its more than 10 million subscribers the opportunity to instantly watch 'Very Young Girls' on their computers or TVs via streaming from Netflix. The film can be instantly streamed on TVs through a variety of Netflix ready devices, including Blu-ray disc players and new Internet TVs from LG Electronics, Blu-ray disc players from Samsung, the Roku digital video player, Microsoft's Xbox 360 game console and through TiVo digital video recorders. The film can also be watched instantly on PCs and Macs with high-speed Internet access and can be received from Netflix on DVD as well. Netflix offers a two-week free trial subscription for those interested in trying the service.
Lloyd, named one of Ms. Magazines '50 Women Who Change the World', believes the Campaign and Netflix partnership will also correct the impressions many Americans have of trafficked and commercially sexually exploited youth. "So often our girls are viewed as 'teen prostitutes' when they are in fact children who are bought and sold by adults to adults. 'Girls Are Not for Sale' paves the way for women across the country to join survivors as we work to create a nation in which girls are celebrated, not sold."
A survivor of commercial sexual exploitation as a teen in Europe, Lloyd founded GEMS 11 years ago with a borrowed computer and $30 when she saw American girls lured or abducted into the sex industry being ignored and stigmatized by traditional service providers. Over a decade later, the organization annually serves more than 275 survivors, and provides outreach and training to over 1,000 youth and more than 1,500 service providers, educators and law enforcement professionals. A leading voice in the field of child sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation in America, Lloyd is the author of the upcoming book 'Acceptable Victims' (Harper Collins in 2010), the subject of a feature film currently in development at Participant Productions and Lifetime Networks, and a 2006 recipient of the Reebok Human Rights Award.
About Girls Are Not for Sale
Girls Are Not for Sale is a national campaign with one goal: to inspire one million Americans to take easy, effective actions to nurture and empower American girls who have become victims of child sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation, and, to protect all girls from the dangers of trafficking. Sparked by the overwhelming public response to the Showtime film 'Very Young Girls' and the survivors whose lives it chronicles, the Campaign brings the movement to protect and empower girls to cities across America through live events, grassroots action, ad campaigns, fundraising drives, film premieres, music recordings and much more. For more information, visit http://www.girlsarenotforsale.org and http://www.facebook.com/girlsarenotforsale.
About GEMS
Girls Educational & Mentoring Services (GEMS) is the nation's largest non-profit organization specifically designed to empower American girls and young women, ages 12-21 who have experienced sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking to exit the commercial sex industry and develop to their full potential. GEMS is committed to ending commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking of children by changing individual lives, transforming public perception, and the systems and policies that impact sexually exploited youth. In 2008, GEMS provided counseling, job training, access to health care and crisis housing to more than 280 young women; provided outreach to more than 1,500 youth; and trained 1,000 youth service workers. Aside from these programs, GEMS also provides a continuum of services including Youth-led facility outreach, street outreach, court advocacy and an Alternatives to Incarceration program, case management, education, recreational and therapeutic groups, youth employment and leadership training, transitional & crisis housing, and referral services. For more information visit http://www.gems-girls.org.
About Netflix, Inc.
Netflix, Inc. is the world's largest online movie rental service, with more than 10 million subscribers. For one low monthly price, Netflix subscribers can get DVDs delivered to their homes and can instantly watch movies and TV episodes streamed to their TVs and computers, all in unlimited amounts. Subscribers can choose from over 100,000 DVD titles and a growing library of more than 12,000 choices that can be watched instantly. There are never any due dates or late fees. DVDs are delivered free to subscribers by first class mail, with a postage-paid return envelope, from 58 distribution centers. More than 97 percent of Netflix subscribers live in areas that generally receive shipments in one business day. Netflix has partnered with leading consumer electronics companies to offer a range of devices that can instantly stream movies and TV episodes to members' TVs from Netflix. For more information, visit http://www.netflix.com/.
###
Contact Information
Bridgit Antoinette Evans
GEMS: Girls Educational and Mentoring Services
http://www.girlsarenotforsale.org
646 408 3428
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Edifice Complex: City Inn
***The City Inn harbors children being exploited in prostitution. It is my humble opinion that the best way to address this problem is to attack them where it hurts..in the wallet. One can only imagine the amount of advertising dollars they bring in by providing an entire side of a building for companies to market their wares. Perhaps these companies need to be made aware of the reputation of the establishment with which they associate their product. I am often asked what one can do to help the cause, well here is one answer. -Sandy***
Edifice Complex: City Inn
BISCAYNE TIMES
Written by Terence Cantarella
The City Inn hotel at 660 NW 81st St. in West Little River is the kind of place you wouldn’t recommend to your worst enemy. Tattooed pimps with gold teeth patrol the surrounding streets on spray-painted bicycles. Drug-ravaged women in stained miniskirts and worn-out pumps drift in and out of the hotel’s lobby, stopping occasionally on the curb outside to light a cigarette, thrust out a hip, and nod to passing male motorists.
To most people, the ten-story City Inn is just one of many eyesores along I-95. Nestled against the west side of the expressway, it stands out more than most buildings along that particular stretch of asphalt, thanks to the large soft-drink banner and other ever-changing advertisements that completely cover the north and east sides of the hotel. Cellular companies lease roof space from the inn, and their large white antennae sit prominently atop the building, lending the hotel a hint of technological sophistication. Up close, though, there’s nothing sophisticated about it.
“That place is really, really bad,” says veteran Ofcr. Darrell Nichols of the Miami Police Department, when asked about the hotel. And with that grim assessment, I decide to do what any sensible writer would do: go and get a room.
The scene is just starting to pick up at 6:00 p.m. on a recent Saturday. A rooster and five chickens, loitering in the parking lot, watch as I walk from my car to the entrance. The lobby’s windows and doors are darkly tinted. A hand-written note, taped to the glass, says that no visitors will be allowed inside between 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m. Another note warns that video surveillance is in progress. A black girl in a short yellow dress, with blond highlights in her Afro, leans against the wall outside. She makes eye contact and holds it until I understand that she’s making a proposition. A smiling transvestite, in a purple skirt and too much makeup, struts by like a vaudeville ballerina.
I had grown my beard and dressed down before arriving, hoping to add a bit of menace to my appearance. It doesn’t work. I’m charged $60 for a room – instead of the $39.95 as advertised on a banner outside – and sent up to the top floor. The top two floors, I later learn, are reserved for people who look out of place, people like me. “From the eighth floor down is where the prostitutes and people like that stay,” says a hotel source who will remain anonymous.
The inn’s hallways are poorly lit and the bare concrete floors make it look like a construction site. Two men on the tenth floor, standing next to a bicycle and haggling over its price, stop talking when the elevator doors open.
Inside room 1002, the toilet is full of feces. I try to flush but it doesn’t work, so I remove the tank cover, play around with the fill-valve, and get it functioning. The bathroom door has been kicked in and the lock is gone. The bed sheets are ripped, cigarette burns scar the carpet, I count seven cockroaches on the window ledge, and the empty plastic bag behind the nightstand still smells of marijuana. Someone outside the door is belting out an inebriated rendition of “Your Love Is So Good.”
The windows are bolted shut, which is comforting, because I’m suddenly thinking of Joseph Altidor, a hotel guest who was forced to jump off the balcony in 1986. According to a Miami Herald report, two men and a woman followed Altidor down the hallway and forced him into his room, where they robbed and pistol-whipped him. After they took his money and jewelry, told him to go to the balcony and jump or else they’d shoot him. He complied and somehow survived the three-story fall. The robbers got away.
I consider taking a walk, but someone else comes to mind – Isaac Martin. He was shot after he ventured outside the hotel to get a bite to eat with his wife. The couple was visiting from Pennsylvania on a mission for their daughter’s church back in 1989. Two men tried to grab Mrs. Martin’s purse on a nearby street corner. When her husband intervened, they put a bullet in his head.
The hotel was a Holiday Inn back then, and although the name has changed since 1989, the neighborhood hasn’t. In fact this area of West Little River has seen very few positive changes in the past four decades. The hotel went up in 1969, shortly after construction of I-95. Originally a Holiday Inn, it was supposed to attract tired motorists on their way to the Keys, or travelers in need of convenient lodging close to the airport. But the superhighway sucked traffic off of nearby NW 7th Avenue and took a devastating toll on the surrounding middle-class neighborhood. With fewer customers, businesses closed, longtime residents moved out, and the area slowly began to absorb Liberty City’s overflowing population from the south.
With the neighborhood in shambles, Holiday Inn Corp. finally sold the hotel for $3.98 million in the summer of 1986. Thai con man Phongsoon Dejanu bought the place and began operating a Days Inn franchise. But four years later, in 1990, Days Inn Franchising of America sued Dejanu for $400,000, alleging that the hotel had fallen far below acceptable standards, causing damage to the corporation’s reputation. Dejanu, who was convicted of unrelated bank fraud in 2003 in San Francisco, essentially ran the hotel into the ground. His M.O. in California was to obtain loans to purchase buildings and then use the income generated by those properties for personal gain, never repaying the loans or reinvesting in his properties. His 1980’s stint at the City Inn may have been an eerie precursor to his antics on the West Coast. Bangkok Metropolitan Bank brought foreclosure action against him in late 1990 and sold the hotel to a group of Thai investors, Bright Enterprises Corp., for $6 million, financing the sale with a $4.5 million loan.
Bright Enterprises spent $2 million on renovations and reopened the hotel, once again as a Days Inn, in 1991. Nine years later, though, the bank brought foreclosure action a second time, and in 2000 the place was snatched up by Miami developers Sam and Judah Burstyn for just $1.7 million. A new sign went up shortly thereafter: Hotel City Inn.
No matter what name has hung outside, though, prostitution, drugs, and crime have always found their way into the hotel. With no residential enclaves nearby, and no one to file complaints, nuisance-abatement laws have had little effect on the place. “It’s like out of sight, out of mind,” says Officer Nichols. And as I lie on the grimy bed, staring at the plaster peeling from the ceiling and listening to the hum of I-95 below, it seems that the City Inn is West Little River’s very own Ground Zero, a ten-story metaphor for the neighborhood’s ills.
A records clerk at Miami-Dade Police headquarters turned up so many crime reports from the City Inn address that she said, “You’ll have to come back if you want all of them printed out. And it’ll probably cost you close to a $100.” At 15 cents per page, that puts the crime-count somewhere near 400 for the past 20 years (some reports are two pages). A search of Herald archives turned up innumerable reports of room break-ins, purse snatchings, armed robberies, car thefts, and assaults.
Most tragic of all, though, was the 2004 murder of 43-year-old prostitute Cheryl Renee Taylor, who lived at the hotel for a month before her death. Jacob Lugo, a client, paid her for her services, then strangled her in room 615 with her own belt and shoe straps. He helped himself to $400 in valuables before walking out the front door. A month later, police arrested him just six blocks away.
Naturally, I hesitate before heading out to explore the seamy halls of this ill-fated place. At 11:00 p.m. I put my eye to the door’s peephole. It’s too dirty to see through, so I put my ear to the door. Nothing. I open up and head for the elevator.
Down in the lobby, I find a small, shuffling crowd. Girls with babies, girls in tight miniskirts, girls with tattoos on their necks, a skinny brunette with sunken eyes and a heroin twitch – they’re all talking at once and have formed a circle around an ancient luggage trolley. Propped up on the cart is a semiconscious man with dreadlocks. Blood streams down his face from gashes in his forehead and cheeks.
“His jaw could be broken,” one of the girls says matter-of-factly. “He could have brain damage, for all we know.”
“Don’t go to sleep, bro’,” another young dread keeps repeating. “Whatever you do, do not go to sleep.”
An ambulance and police car arrive. A Haitian security guard, dressed all in black, circulates with a clipboard in his hand. His mission isn’t exactly clear. Two cops come in, stand by the door, and eyeball me. The drugged-out brunette winks at me through the commotion. A paramedic tries to get the bleeding man’s information, but he’s unresponsive and nobody will give up his details. He’s eventually strapped to a stretcher and carried out, his face swollen into large lumps. “Two men beat him up in one of the rooms,” the receptionist explains later. “He walked in one minute, and the next, they carry him down in the elevator covered in blood.”
The crowd eventually disperses, and all that’s left are the faint strains of “Endless Love” playing on a small radio inside the hotel’s abandoned Alibi Club. “Different restaurants have opened there over the years,” says my source. “None of them last very long. As soon as people walk in and see what the City Inn is about, they turn around and leave.” The club is now just a storage room full of discarded furniture and a lone radio playing somewhere in the dark.
Back at the elevators, a large man wearing more rings than I can count asks in a low voice: “You need somethin’? Girls? Weed?” I decline the offer. The doors open to a voluptuous black girl in sparkly gold short-shorts and a tight white halter top. Her friends call her Crystal. She makes an offer, too: “Hey, chico, come see me, baby. Room 701.” She cups her breast and reaches for it with her long tongue.
Current owner Sam Burstyn is well aware of the kind of people the City Inn attracts. “As a hotel, we have transient clientele,” he says during a recent telephone conversation. “When people come to the hotel, I don’t discriminate against anybody. I have no right to do that. I can’t quote that there’s prostitution going on, but if there’s any that I’m aware of, I definitely take care of the problem. I don’t allow that on my properties. If I see any suspicious activities, I take immediate action.”
Indeed, Florida law requires hotel owners to be responsible for “providing safe and sanitary lodging” for their guests. The Burstyns did install wall-to-wall closed-circuit cameras to increase the safety of their property. Yet the City Inn was cited for 28 violations in 2007 and 11 so far this year by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, with 21 of those violations classified as “critical” – including objectionable odors, roaches, and trash on the premises.
The Burstyns are not interested in creating a five-star hotel, though. Their strategy, according to their Website, is “to purchase properties typically in foreclosure and/or a distressed situation in a very fast period of time…. The Hotel Management Division then manages these properties, gaining a tremendous rate of return. The hotels are maintained for years and eventually sold for large profits.”
And large profits may be just around the corner.
Two years ago Miami-Dade County purchased 9.35 acres of land right across the street from the City Inn for $6.3 million. A new $10 million police substation will be built on four acres of that land. A library and Community Action Agency office will each get two acres. That project, as well as efforts to address the neighborhood’s problems under the 7th Avenue Corridor Community Redevelopment Plan, will mark a significant turning point for the area, and it may mean the wrecking ball for the hotel.
“Where we’re at right now,” says Sam Burstyn, “is we’re trying to get approval for 356 units for workforce housing – two towers and a parking garage for 560 cars. I believe 7th Avenue is going to be a great corridor for the future. And I hope that once my project is complete, it will get other people to look at 7th Avenue as the beginning of the future in this area.”
He may be right about the future – he usually is. With dozens of projects already under his belt, and more in the works, Burstyn’s developer instincts are sharp. “I’ve been very patient,” he says, “but I knew the rejuvenation was coming. I decided to hold on to the hotel, and I hope that everything will come to fruition.”
My stay at the City Inn, meanwhile, has already come to fruition. I check out early the following morning and decide to drive around the area before heading home. Even at 7:30 a.m., a half-dozen girls are still working the streets. Irma, a Latina in cutoff denim shorts, standing on the corner of NW 79th Street and 8th Avenue and drinking from a brown paper bag, won’t admit she’s a prostitute, but she offers an expert opinion on the City Inn anyway: “They got everything going on over there. It’s crazy. I don’t feel safe sleeping in there. I feel like anything could go down.”
I ask about the johns. “Are they mostly from the neighborhood?”
“No. It’s a lot of out-of-towners,” she replies. “There are lots of punks [transvestites] out here, too. Did you know that? And they get picked up a lot more than the females. The best-looking girls out here are the punks.”
Irma tells me about “the Pink House,” a large two-story home nearby that operates as a motel. “It’s like $13 an hour or something like that.”
I ask, “What’s worse, the Pink house or the City Inn?”
She points to the City Inn and laughs: “This place – by far. At least when you walk into the Pink House, it smells all right.”
Irma wants to move on and I thank her for her time. I’m sad to see her go. She’s friendly and entertaining, and in another life, without the alcohol, stained teeth, and bruised legs, she would even be pretty.
I circle the City Inn one last time and suddenly see Crystal, the long-tongued girl from the elevator who had invited me to her room. She’s wearing her gold short-shorts, strolling along NE 6th Court, and singing to herself. She sees me, too. “Hey, baby!” she shouts, then feigns a disappointed look. “You didn’t never come to see me!”
Before merging onto I-95, where the rest of the world is flying by, oblivious to the City Inn and the sad, desperate world below, I look in my rear-view mirror and see Crystal smiling and waving.
But then I’m on the highway, and she’s gone.
Feedback: letters@biscaynetimes.com
Edifice Complex: City Inn
BISCAYNE TIMES
Written by Terence Cantarella
The City Inn hotel at 660 NW 81st St. in West Little River is the kind of place you wouldn’t recommend to your worst enemy. Tattooed pimps with gold teeth patrol the surrounding streets on spray-painted bicycles. Drug-ravaged women in stained miniskirts and worn-out pumps drift in and out of the hotel’s lobby, stopping occasionally on the curb outside to light a cigarette, thrust out a hip, and nod to passing male motorists.
To most people, the ten-story City Inn is just one of many eyesores along I-95. Nestled against the west side of the expressway, it stands out more than most buildings along that particular stretch of asphalt, thanks to the large soft-drink banner and other ever-changing advertisements that completely cover the north and east sides of the hotel. Cellular companies lease roof space from the inn, and their large white antennae sit prominently atop the building, lending the hotel a hint of technological sophistication. Up close, though, there’s nothing sophisticated about it.
“That place is really, really bad,” says veteran Ofcr. Darrell Nichols of the Miami Police Department, when asked about the hotel. And with that grim assessment, I decide to do what any sensible writer would do: go and get a room.
The scene is just starting to pick up at 6:00 p.m. on a recent Saturday. A rooster and five chickens, loitering in the parking lot, watch as I walk from my car to the entrance. The lobby’s windows and doors are darkly tinted. A hand-written note, taped to the glass, says that no visitors will be allowed inside between 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m. Another note warns that video surveillance is in progress. A black girl in a short yellow dress, with blond highlights in her Afro, leans against the wall outside. She makes eye contact and holds it until I understand that she’s making a proposition. A smiling transvestite, in a purple skirt and too much makeup, struts by like a vaudeville ballerina.
I had grown my beard and dressed down before arriving, hoping to add a bit of menace to my appearance. It doesn’t work. I’m charged $60 for a room – instead of the $39.95 as advertised on a banner outside – and sent up to the top floor. The top two floors, I later learn, are reserved for people who look out of place, people like me. “From the eighth floor down is where the prostitutes and people like that stay,” says a hotel source who will remain anonymous.
The inn’s hallways are poorly lit and the bare concrete floors make it look like a construction site. Two men on the tenth floor, standing next to a bicycle and haggling over its price, stop talking when the elevator doors open.
Inside room 1002, the toilet is full of feces. I try to flush but it doesn’t work, so I remove the tank cover, play around with the fill-valve, and get it functioning. The bathroom door has been kicked in and the lock is gone. The bed sheets are ripped, cigarette burns scar the carpet, I count seven cockroaches on the window ledge, and the empty plastic bag behind the nightstand still smells of marijuana. Someone outside the door is belting out an inebriated rendition of “Your Love Is So Good.”
The windows are bolted shut, which is comforting, because I’m suddenly thinking of Joseph Altidor, a hotel guest who was forced to jump off the balcony in 1986. According to a Miami Herald report, two men and a woman followed Altidor down the hallway and forced him into his room, where they robbed and pistol-whipped him. After they took his money and jewelry, told him to go to the balcony and jump or else they’d shoot him. He complied and somehow survived the three-story fall. The robbers got away.
I consider taking a walk, but someone else comes to mind – Isaac Martin. He was shot after he ventured outside the hotel to get a bite to eat with his wife. The couple was visiting from Pennsylvania on a mission for their daughter’s church back in 1989. Two men tried to grab Mrs. Martin’s purse on a nearby street corner. When her husband intervened, they put a bullet in his head.
The hotel was a Holiday Inn back then, and although the name has changed since 1989, the neighborhood hasn’t. In fact this area of West Little River has seen very few positive changes in the past four decades. The hotel went up in 1969, shortly after construction of I-95. Originally a Holiday Inn, it was supposed to attract tired motorists on their way to the Keys, or travelers in need of convenient lodging close to the airport. But the superhighway sucked traffic off of nearby NW 7th Avenue and took a devastating toll on the surrounding middle-class neighborhood. With fewer customers, businesses closed, longtime residents moved out, and the area slowly began to absorb Liberty City’s overflowing population from the south.
With the neighborhood in shambles, Holiday Inn Corp. finally sold the hotel for $3.98 million in the summer of 1986. Thai con man Phongsoon Dejanu bought the place and began operating a Days Inn franchise. But four years later, in 1990, Days Inn Franchising of America sued Dejanu for $400,000, alleging that the hotel had fallen far below acceptable standards, causing damage to the corporation’s reputation. Dejanu, who was convicted of unrelated bank fraud in 2003 in San Francisco, essentially ran the hotel into the ground. His M.O. in California was to obtain loans to purchase buildings and then use the income generated by those properties for personal gain, never repaying the loans or reinvesting in his properties. His 1980’s stint at the City Inn may have been an eerie precursor to his antics on the West Coast. Bangkok Metropolitan Bank brought foreclosure action against him in late 1990 and sold the hotel to a group of Thai investors, Bright Enterprises Corp., for $6 million, financing the sale with a $4.5 million loan.
Bright Enterprises spent $2 million on renovations and reopened the hotel, once again as a Days Inn, in 1991. Nine years later, though, the bank brought foreclosure action a second time, and in 2000 the place was snatched up by Miami developers Sam and Judah Burstyn for just $1.7 million. A new sign went up shortly thereafter: Hotel City Inn.
No matter what name has hung outside, though, prostitution, drugs, and crime have always found their way into the hotel. With no residential enclaves nearby, and no one to file complaints, nuisance-abatement laws have had little effect on the place. “It’s like out of sight, out of mind,” says Officer Nichols. And as I lie on the grimy bed, staring at the plaster peeling from the ceiling and listening to the hum of I-95 below, it seems that the City Inn is West Little River’s very own Ground Zero, a ten-story metaphor for the neighborhood’s ills.
A records clerk at Miami-Dade Police headquarters turned up so many crime reports from the City Inn address that she said, “You’ll have to come back if you want all of them printed out. And it’ll probably cost you close to a $100.” At 15 cents per page, that puts the crime-count somewhere near 400 for the past 20 years (some reports are two pages). A search of Herald archives turned up innumerable reports of room break-ins, purse snatchings, armed robberies, car thefts, and assaults.
Most tragic of all, though, was the 2004 murder of 43-year-old prostitute Cheryl Renee Taylor, who lived at the hotel for a month before her death. Jacob Lugo, a client, paid her for her services, then strangled her in room 615 with her own belt and shoe straps. He helped himself to $400 in valuables before walking out the front door. A month later, police arrested him just six blocks away.
Naturally, I hesitate before heading out to explore the seamy halls of this ill-fated place. At 11:00 p.m. I put my eye to the door’s peephole. It’s too dirty to see through, so I put my ear to the door. Nothing. I open up and head for the elevator.
Down in the lobby, I find a small, shuffling crowd. Girls with babies, girls in tight miniskirts, girls with tattoos on their necks, a skinny brunette with sunken eyes and a heroin twitch – they’re all talking at once and have formed a circle around an ancient luggage trolley. Propped up on the cart is a semiconscious man with dreadlocks. Blood streams down his face from gashes in his forehead and cheeks.
“His jaw could be broken,” one of the girls says matter-of-factly. “He could have brain damage, for all we know.”
“Don’t go to sleep, bro’,” another young dread keeps repeating. “Whatever you do, do not go to sleep.”
An ambulance and police car arrive. A Haitian security guard, dressed all in black, circulates with a clipboard in his hand. His mission isn’t exactly clear. Two cops come in, stand by the door, and eyeball me. The drugged-out brunette winks at me through the commotion. A paramedic tries to get the bleeding man’s information, but he’s unresponsive and nobody will give up his details. He’s eventually strapped to a stretcher and carried out, his face swollen into large lumps. “Two men beat him up in one of the rooms,” the receptionist explains later. “He walked in one minute, and the next, they carry him down in the elevator covered in blood.”
The crowd eventually disperses, and all that’s left are the faint strains of “Endless Love” playing on a small radio inside the hotel’s abandoned Alibi Club. “Different restaurants have opened there over the years,” says my source. “None of them last very long. As soon as people walk in and see what the City Inn is about, they turn around and leave.” The club is now just a storage room full of discarded furniture and a lone radio playing somewhere in the dark.
Back at the elevators, a large man wearing more rings than I can count asks in a low voice: “You need somethin’? Girls? Weed?” I decline the offer. The doors open to a voluptuous black girl in sparkly gold short-shorts and a tight white halter top. Her friends call her Crystal. She makes an offer, too: “Hey, chico, come see me, baby. Room 701.” She cups her breast and reaches for it with her long tongue.
Current owner Sam Burstyn is well aware of the kind of people the City Inn attracts. “As a hotel, we have transient clientele,” he says during a recent telephone conversation. “When people come to the hotel, I don’t discriminate against anybody. I have no right to do that. I can’t quote that there’s prostitution going on, but if there’s any that I’m aware of, I definitely take care of the problem. I don’t allow that on my properties. If I see any suspicious activities, I take immediate action.”
Indeed, Florida law requires hotel owners to be responsible for “providing safe and sanitary lodging” for their guests. The Burstyns did install wall-to-wall closed-circuit cameras to increase the safety of their property. Yet the City Inn was cited for 28 violations in 2007 and 11 so far this year by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, with 21 of those violations classified as “critical” – including objectionable odors, roaches, and trash on the premises.
The Burstyns are not interested in creating a five-star hotel, though. Their strategy, according to their Website, is “to purchase properties typically in foreclosure and/or a distressed situation in a very fast period of time…. The Hotel Management Division then manages these properties, gaining a tremendous rate of return. The hotels are maintained for years and eventually sold for large profits.”
And large profits may be just around the corner.
Two years ago Miami-Dade County purchased 9.35 acres of land right across the street from the City Inn for $6.3 million. A new $10 million police substation will be built on four acres of that land. A library and Community Action Agency office will each get two acres. That project, as well as efforts to address the neighborhood’s problems under the 7th Avenue Corridor Community Redevelopment Plan, will mark a significant turning point for the area, and it may mean the wrecking ball for the hotel.
“Where we’re at right now,” says Sam Burstyn, “is we’re trying to get approval for 356 units for workforce housing – two towers and a parking garage for 560 cars. I believe 7th Avenue is going to be a great corridor for the future. And I hope that once my project is complete, it will get other people to look at 7th Avenue as the beginning of the future in this area.”
He may be right about the future – he usually is. With dozens of projects already under his belt, and more in the works, Burstyn’s developer instincts are sharp. “I’ve been very patient,” he says, “but I knew the rejuvenation was coming. I decided to hold on to the hotel, and I hope that everything will come to fruition.”
My stay at the City Inn, meanwhile, has already come to fruition. I check out early the following morning and decide to drive around the area before heading home. Even at 7:30 a.m., a half-dozen girls are still working the streets. Irma, a Latina in cutoff denim shorts, standing on the corner of NW 79th Street and 8th Avenue and drinking from a brown paper bag, won’t admit she’s a prostitute, but she offers an expert opinion on the City Inn anyway: “They got everything going on over there. It’s crazy. I don’t feel safe sleeping in there. I feel like anything could go down.”
I ask about the johns. “Are they mostly from the neighborhood?”
“No. It’s a lot of out-of-towners,” she replies. “There are lots of punks [transvestites] out here, too. Did you know that? And they get picked up a lot more than the females. The best-looking girls out here are the punks.”
Irma tells me about “the Pink House,” a large two-story home nearby that operates as a motel. “It’s like $13 an hour or something like that.”
I ask, “What’s worse, the Pink house or the City Inn?”
She points to the City Inn and laughs: “This place – by far. At least when you walk into the Pink House, it smells all right.”
Irma wants to move on and I thank her for her time. I’m sad to see her go. She’s friendly and entertaining, and in another life, without the alcohol, stained teeth, and bruised legs, she would even be pretty.
I circle the City Inn one last time and suddenly see Crystal, the long-tongued girl from the elevator who had invited me to her room. She’s wearing her gold short-shorts, strolling along NE 6th Court, and singing to herself. She sees me, too. “Hey, baby!” she shouts, then feigns a disappointed look. “You didn’t never come to see me!”
Before merging onto I-95, where the rest of the world is flying by, oblivious to the City Inn and the sad, desperate world below, I look in my rear-view mirror and see Crystal smiling and waving.
But then I’m on the highway, and she’s gone.
Feedback: letters@biscaynetimes.com
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Feds: Man promised to make girl a 'star,' instead turned her into prostitute
OrlandoSentinel.com
Amy L. Edwards
Sentinel Staff Writer
5:36 PM EDT, June 11, 2009
When Dwayne Lawson befriended a 17-year-old Central Florida girl on MySpace, he promised to make her a "star."
Instead, he made her a prostitute -- pimping her out on streets thousands of miles from home, and selling her services on Craigslist, according to a federal criminal complaint.
Now, the 28-year-old Orlando man is behind bars in a California jail, accused of one count of sex trafficking of children. Lawson, also known as "Christopher Young," "Christopher Yoong," and "Staydown," met the girl through her MySpace page in October, the complaint said.
Lawson told the girl, identified in the complaint as "FM," he had a house, cars and money.
"FM thought she was going to be a star," the complaint said.
Lawson bought the teen a bus ticket and she traveled to Las Vegas, where she met up with him and an 18-year-old woman who had been working as a prostitute for Lawson for several years. From there, the complaint said, Lawson took the teen and unidentified woman to Orange County, Calif.
Lawson told FM the rules -- like don't kiss men on the mouth -- and told her how much to charge.
Lawson and the woman took nude photos of FM, posted them on Craigslist advertising sex in that area, and coached the teen on how to talk to "customers," the complaint said.
After FM met with a customer, all of her money went to Lawson.
Eventually, Lawson put FM "on the track" in California and Las Vegas. She was twice arrested on prostitution charges, providing a fake ID to law enforcement on both occasions, and was ticketed and released, the complaint said.
While in San Diego, FM was experiencing severe pain and Lawson did not want to take her to the doctor. When he eventually dropped her off at a hospital, a doctor told FM she shouldn't have sex for at least one week. The complaint said the teen asked the doctor to put it in writing so she could show Lawson. But Lawson told FM she could still make money.
In February, FM bought a bus ticket to get away from Lawson, but the teen returned after he repeatedly called her and talked her into coming back. When she did return, the complaint said, he took off his rings and threatened to beat her if she left again. He then took her cell phone away.
Local and federal law-enforcement agents compared photos of FM on Craigslist to that of a girl depicted in an endangered runaway poster through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and determined it was the same teen.
Lawson, who is listed as a fugitive with the Florida Department of Corrections for absconding felony probation, was arrested and is slated for trial in August.
Amy L. Edwards can be reached at aledwards@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5735.
Copyright © 2009, Orlando Sentinel
Amy L. Edwards
Sentinel Staff Writer
5:36 PM EDT, June 11, 2009
When Dwayne Lawson befriended a 17-year-old Central Florida girl on MySpace, he promised to make her a "star."
Instead, he made her a prostitute -- pimping her out on streets thousands of miles from home, and selling her services on Craigslist, according to a federal criminal complaint.
Now, the 28-year-old Orlando man is behind bars in a California jail, accused of one count of sex trafficking of children. Lawson, also known as "Christopher Young," "Christopher Yoong," and "Staydown," met the girl through her MySpace page in October, the complaint said.
Lawson told the girl, identified in the complaint as "FM," he had a house, cars and money.
"FM thought she was going to be a star," the complaint said.
Lawson bought the teen a bus ticket and she traveled to Las Vegas, where she met up with him and an 18-year-old woman who had been working as a prostitute for Lawson for several years. From there, the complaint said, Lawson took the teen and unidentified woman to Orange County, Calif.
Lawson told FM the rules -- like don't kiss men on the mouth -- and told her how much to charge.
Lawson and the woman took nude photos of FM, posted them on Craigslist advertising sex in that area, and coached the teen on how to talk to "customers," the complaint said.
After FM met with a customer, all of her money went to Lawson.
Eventually, Lawson put FM "on the track" in California and Las Vegas. She was twice arrested on prostitution charges, providing a fake ID to law enforcement on both occasions, and was ticketed and released, the complaint said.
While in San Diego, FM was experiencing severe pain and Lawson did not want to take her to the doctor. When he eventually dropped her off at a hospital, a doctor told FM she shouldn't have sex for at least one week. The complaint said the teen asked the doctor to put it in writing so she could show Lawson. But Lawson told FM she could still make money.
In February, FM bought a bus ticket to get away from Lawson, but the teen returned after he repeatedly called her and talked her into coming back. When she did return, the complaint said, he took off his rings and threatened to beat her if she left again. He then took her cell phone away.
Local and federal law-enforcement agents compared photos of FM on Craigslist to that of a girl depicted in an endangered runaway poster through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and determined it was the same teen.
Lawson, who is listed as a fugitive with the Florida Department of Corrections for absconding felony probation, was arrested and is slated for trial in August.
Amy L. Edwards can be reached at aledwards@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5735.
Copyright © 2009, Orlando Sentinel
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Craigslist Shuts Down "Erotic Services" Ads
Pressure from Attorney Generals leads to revamp, more scrutiny
By Martin H. Bosworth
ConsumerAffairs.com
May 13, 2009
Craigslist founder Craig Newmark announced today that the popular classified-ad site would shut down its "erotic services" section, and relaunch it as an "adult services" category, with much stricter enforcement of rules and higher fees for posting ads.
The decision came in response to mounting criticism from Attorneys General of a number of states, who claimed Craiglist was enabling prostitution, human trafficking, and child exploitation.
South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster even threatened to prosecute Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster if the company did not change its policies.
"We are optimistic that the new balance struck today will be an acceptable compromise from the perspective of these constituencies, and for the diverse US communities that value and rely upon Craigslist," Newmark said.
Under the new "adult services" category, submitted posts from legal adult service providers would be manually approved or rejected by Craigslist's staff, and would cost $10 to post, but could be reposted for $5.
"It's clear to everyone that Craigslist's erotic services section was nothing more than an Internet brothel," said Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. "I'm encouraged that craigslist has agreed to fundamentally change how they operate and monitor their site. The steps they’re taking are the only effective way to prevent the exploitation of women and children."
Although both erotic services advertising and violent crime resulting from those ads have been a staple of the print newspaper industry, Internet services such as Craigslist have been singled out as enabling or increasing both sex trafficking and violent crimes.
At least one high-profile serial murderer has been dubbed the "Craigslist killer," as he found his victims using the site.
Newmark claimed that Craigslist was already much stricter in its ad policing procedures than most newspapers, attributing that to extensive cooperation of law enforcement, digital tracking and screening, and particularly the community's self-policing and moderation of ads that violate the site's terms of service.
"Working in tandem with various other protective technologies, [community policing] is an inescapable force to be reckoned with for anyone set on abusing free internet communications across a broad array of posting types," Newmark said.
Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, Web site operators are not liable for the content that commenters post to the site. Online rights advocacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation criticized the Attorneys General, saying they had no legal recourse to pursue Craigslist for what its users did or did not do.
"If site operators were forced to screen all third party contributions under risk of civil or criminal penalty, the Internet would lose many of the vibrant services that have made it so dynamic," said EFF attorney Matt Zimmerman.
Zimmerman added that Web sites forced to comply with multiple states' wish lists of demands would be time-consuming and hinder their ability to do business.
Critics of the decision claimed that it would merely push illegal sex workers and businesses out of the spotlight and make them hard to find, and that the decision seemed motivated more by a desire to pursue headlines than investigate real incidents of human trafficking or violent crime.
Read more: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2009/05/shutdown_craigslist.html#ixzz0FVLNlUQ6&B
By Martin H. Bosworth
ConsumerAffairs.com
May 13, 2009
Craigslist founder Craig Newmark announced today that the popular classified-ad site would shut down its "erotic services" section, and relaunch it as an "adult services" category, with much stricter enforcement of rules and higher fees for posting ads.
The decision came in response to mounting criticism from Attorneys General of a number of states, who claimed Craiglist was enabling prostitution, human trafficking, and child exploitation.
South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster even threatened to prosecute Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster if the company did not change its policies.
"We are optimistic that the new balance struck today will be an acceptable compromise from the perspective of these constituencies, and for the diverse US communities that value and rely upon Craigslist," Newmark said.
Under the new "adult services" category, submitted posts from legal adult service providers would be manually approved or rejected by Craigslist's staff, and would cost $10 to post, but could be reposted for $5.
"It's clear to everyone that Craigslist's erotic services section was nothing more than an Internet brothel," said Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. "I'm encouraged that craigslist has agreed to fundamentally change how they operate and monitor their site. The steps they’re taking are the only effective way to prevent the exploitation of women and children."
Although both erotic services advertising and violent crime resulting from those ads have been a staple of the print newspaper industry, Internet services such as Craigslist have been singled out as enabling or increasing both sex trafficking and violent crimes.
At least one high-profile serial murderer has been dubbed the "Craigslist killer," as he found his victims using the site.
Newmark claimed that Craigslist was already much stricter in its ad policing procedures than most newspapers, attributing that to extensive cooperation of law enforcement, digital tracking and screening, and particularly the community's self-policing and moderation of ads that violate the site's terms of service.
"Working in tandem with various other protective technologies, [community policing] is an inescapable force to be reckoned with for anyone set on abusing free internet communications across a broad array of posting types," Newmark said.
Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, Web site operators are not liable for the content that commenters post to the site. Online rights advocacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation criticized the Attorneys General, saying they had no legal recourse to pursue Craigslist for what its users did or did not do.
"If site operators were forced to screen all third party contributions under risk of civil or criminal penalty, the Internet would lose many of the vibrant services that have made it so dynamic," said EFF attorney Matt Zimmerman.
Zimmerman added that Web sites forced to comply with multiple states' wish lists of demands would be time-consuming and hinder their ability to do business.
Critics of the decision claimed that it would merely push illegal sex workers and businesses out of the spotlight and make them hard to find, and that the decision seemed motivated more by a desire to pursue headlines than investigate real incidents of human trafficking or violent crime.
Read more: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2009/05/shutdown_craigslist.html#ixzz0FVLNlUQ6&B
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Girls on Our Streets
NEW YORK TIMES
May 7, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
ATLANTA
Jasmine Caldwell was 14 and selling sex on the streets when an opportunity arose to escape her pimp: an undercover policeman picked her up.
The cop could have rescued her from the pimp, who ran a string of 13 girls and took every cent they earned. If the cop had taken Jasmine to a shelter, she could have resumed her education and tried to put her life back in order.
Instead, the policeman showed her his handcuffs and threatened to send her to prison. Terrified, she cried and pleaded not to be jailed. Then, she said, he offered to release her in exchange for sex.
Afterward, the policeman returned her to the street. Then her pimp beat her up for failing to collect any money.
“That happens a lot,” said Jasmine, who is now 21. “The cops sometimes just want to blackmail you into having sex.”
I’ve often reported on sex trafficking in other countries, and that has made me curious about the situation here in the United States. Prostitution in America isn’t as brutal as it is in, say, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Cambodia and Malaysia (where young girls are routinely kidnapped, imprisoned and tortured by brothel owners, occasionally even killed). But the scene on American streets is still appalling — and it continues largely because neither the authorities nor society as a whole show much interest in 14-year-old girls pimped on the streets.
Americans tend to think of forced prostitution as the plight of Mexican or Asian women trafficked into the United States and locked up in brothels. Such trafficking is indeed a problem, but the far greater scandal and the worst violence involves American teenage girls.
If a middle-class white girl goes missing, radio stations broadcast amber alerts, and cable TV fills the air with “missing beauty” updates. But 13-year-old black or Latina girls from poor neighborhoods vanish all the time, and the pimps are among the few people who show any interest.
These domestic girls are often runaways or those called “throwaways” by social workers: teenagers who fight with their parents and are then kicked out of the home. These girls tend to be much younger than the women trafficked from abroad and, as best I can tell, are more likely to be controlled by force.
Pimps are not the business partners they purport to be. They typically take every penny the girls earn. They work the girls seven nights a week. They sometimes tattoo their girls the way ranchers brand their cattle, and they back up their business model with fists and threats.
“If you don’t earn enough money, you get beat,” said Jasmine, an African-American who has turned her life around with the help of Covenant House, an organization that works with children on the street. “If you say something you’re not supposed to, you get beat. If you stay too long with a customer, you get beat. And if you try to leave the pimp, you get beat.”
The business model of pimping is remarkably similar whether in Atlanta or Calcutta: take vulnerable, disposable girls whom nobody cares about, use a mix of “friendship,” humiliation, beatings, narcotics and threats to break the girls and induce 100 percent compliance, and then rent out their body parts.
It’s not solely violence that keeps the girls working for their pimps. Jasmine fled an abusive home at age 13, and she said she — like most girls — stayed with the pimp mostly because of his emotional manipulation. “I thought he loved me, so I wanted to be around him,” she said.
That’s common. Girls who are starved of self-esteem finally meet a man who showers them with gifts, drugs and dollops of affection. That, and a lack of alternatives, keeps them working for him — and if that isn’t enough, he shoves a gun in the girl’s mouth and threatens to kill her.
Solutions are complicated and involve broader efforts to overcome urban poverty, including improving schools and attempting to shore up the family structure. But a first step is to stop treating these teenagers as criminals and focusing instead on arresting the pimps and the customers — and the corrupt cops.
“The problem isn’t the girls in the streets; it’s the men in the pews,” notes Stephanie Davis, who has worked with Mayor Shirley Franklin to help coordinate a campaign to get teenage prostitutes off the streets.
Two amiable teenage prostitutes, working without a pimp for the “fast money,” told me that there will always be women and girls selling sex voluntarily. They’re probably right. But we can significantly reduce the number of 14-year-old girls who are terrorized by pimps and raped by many men seven nights a week. That’s doable, if it’s a national priority, if we’re willing to create the equivalent of a nationwide amber alert.
May 7, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
ATLANTA
Jasmine Caldwell was 14 and selling sex on the streets when an opportunity arose to escape her pimp: an undercover policeman picked her up.
The cop could have rescued her from the pimp, who ran a string of 13 girls and took every cent they earned. If the cop had taken Jasmine to a shelter, she could have resumed her education and tried to put her life back in order.
Instead, the policeman showed her his handcuffs and threatened to send her to prison. Terrified, she cried and pleaded not to be jailed. Then, she said, he offered to release her in exchange for sex.
Afterward, the policeman returned her to the street. Then her pimp beat her up for failing to collect any money.
“That happens a lot,” said Jasmine, who is now 21. “The cops sometimes just want to blackmail you into having sex.”
I’ve often reported on sex trafficking in other countries, and that has made me curious about the situation here in the United States. Prostitution in America isn’t as brutal as it is in, say, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Cambodia and Malaysia (where young girls are routinely kidnapped, imprisoned and tortured by brothel owners, occasionally even killed). But the scene on American streets is still appalling — and it continues largely because neither the authorities nor society as a whole show much interest in 14-year-old girls pimped on the streets.
Americans tend to think of forced prostitution as the plight of Mexican or Asian women trafficked into the United States and locked up in brothels. Such trafficking is indeed a problem, but the far greater scandal and the worst violence involves American teenage girls.
If a middle-class white girl goes missing, radio stations broadcast amber alerts, and cable TV fills the air with “missing beauty” updates. But 13-year-old black or Latina girls from poor neighborhoods vanish all the time, and the pimps are among the few people who show any interest.
These domestic girls are often runaways or those called “throwaways” by social workers: teenagers who fight with their parents and are then kicked out of the home. These girls tend to be much younger than the women trafficked from abroad and, as best I can tell, are more likely to be controlled by force.
Pimps are not the business partners they purport to be. They typically take every penny the girls earn. They work the girls seven nights a week. They sometimes tattoo their girls the way ranchers brand their cattle, and they back up their business model with fists and threats.
“If you don’t earn enough money, you get beat,” said Jasmine, an African-American who has turned her life around with the help of Covenant House, an organization that works with children on the street. “If you say something you’re not supposed to, you get beat. If you stay too long with a customer, you get beat. And if you try to leave the pimp, you get beat.”
The business model of pimping is remarkably similar whether in Atlanta or Calcutta: take vulnerable, disposable girls whom nobody cares about, use a mix of “friendship,” humiliation, beatings, narcotics and threats to break the girls and induce 100 percent compliance, and then rent out their body parts.
It’s not solely violence that keeps the girls working for their pimps. Jasmine fled an abusive home at age 13, and she said she — like most girls — stayed with the pimp mostly because of his emotional manipulation. “I thought he loved me, so I wanted to be around him,” she said.
That’s common. Girls who are starved of self-esteem finally meet a man who showers them with gifts, drugs and dollops of affection. That, and a lack of alternatives, keeps them working for him — and if that isn’t enough, he shoves a gun in the girl’s mouth and threatens to kill her.
Solutions are complicated and involve broader efforts to overcome urban poverty, including improving schools and attempting to shore up the family structure. But a first step is to stop treating these teenagers as criminals and focusing instead on arresting the pimps and the customers — and the corrupt cops.
“The problem isn’t the girls in the streets; it’s the men in the pews,” notes Stephanie Davis, who has worked with Mayor Shirley Franklin to help coordinate a campaign to get teenage prostitutes off the streets.
Two amiable teenage prostitutes, working without a pimp for the “fast money,” told me that there will always be women and girls selling sex voluntarily. They’re probably right. But we can significantly reduce the number of 14-year-old girls who are terrorized by pimps and raped by many men seven nights a week. That’s doable, if it’s a national priority, if we’re willing to create the equivalent of a nationwide amber alert.
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