Sex Trafficking Not a Victimless Crime

To hear Brenda Myers-Powell's melodic voice or see her contagious smile, you wouldn't know she is a sex abuse survivor and victim of the sex trade. Throughout her 25 years as a prostitute, Myers-Powell has been beaten by johns and pimps alike. She’s been shot five times. She’s been stabbed 13 times.

On her last day as a prostitute, she was beaten by a john in his car, she told an audience at Elmhurst Public Library last week. When she tried to escape, her clothing got caught and she was dragged six blocks alongside the black Mercedes of the man who paid to have sex with her.

In the emergency room of a county hospital, a police officer recognized her. 

“Oh, her?” he said to the nurse, behind a flimsy closed curtain. “She’s a hooker. She probably tried to rob some john and he beat her up. She probably got what she deserved.”

“I never felt so bad in my life,” Myers-Powell said. “After that, the nurse sniggled and I was pushed out into a waiting room.”

A female doctor came to her rescue. She admitted her into the hospital, where she stayed for a week. 

The doctor never told Myers-Powell to get out of the business. She never gave her the disapproving or look of pity she was accustomed to.

“She would just talk to me,” Myers-Powell recalled. “Like I was another person.”

Just before Myers-Powell was released from the hospital to return to her pimp, the doctor pulled her aside.

“You’re beautiful. And you’re smart,” she told her. “And I’m afraid that one day, I’m going to have to identify you in a body bag.” 

Soon after, Myers-Powell decided the days of prostituting herself were behind her.

Today, she devotes her life to helping Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart attempt to rescue women who, like her, have been ensnared in the sex trade. Any time, day or night, she is called to come talk with women who have been arrested for prostitution to try to convince them leave the industry. But she says women in the sex trade are not always clamoring to be helped. Often their life, as awful as it can be, seems better than what they’ve left behind at home.

Not a Victimless Crime

On April 13, Myers-Powell sat alongside Jody Raphael, author and senior research fellow at DePaul University College of Law, to speak to an audience assembled by the American Association of University Women at the library. They offered a frank and sometimes chilling account of the danger and abuse happening to young girls under the control of a pimp.

“My conclusion is that 50 or 60 percent of girls and women who participate in the industry are not doing so voluntarily,” Raphael said. “This means prostitution is not, as many people think, a victimless crime.”

Rafael said people often pat themselves on the back for being sexually liberal, saying, “If someone wants to sell their body, and someone wants to pay, who am I to be involved?”

But growing data, collected through a risky process of interviewing prostitutes willing to speak openly without the knowledge of their pimps, supports the notion that most girls and women in the sex trade are being coerced, recruited, then kept there by means of violence and threats.

In a sampling of 100 prostitutes under the age of 25, Raphael’s research showed 71 percent said they were actively recruited to the sex trade. Of those recruited, 10 percent said a family member—brother, sister, uncle, foster parent—had enticed or ordered them into the industry.

Brenda’s Story

For Myers-Powell, her entry into prostitution was a result of a hopeless and abusive home life. Her mother died at age 16, when Myers-Powell was only 6 months old. She was put in the care of her grandmother, who was an alcoholic. 

By age 5, she was being left alone while her grandmother was out. The people who would stop by to “check on her" were often predators, and she was molested at an early age. 

“They told me it was my fault, and no one would believe me and I needed to keep my mouth shut,” Myers-Powell said. “So I did.”

When her grandmother would pass out after a night of drinking, the strange men she brought home from the bar would come to get her.

“Molestation was real familiar to me,” said Myers-Powell, who often daydreamed of becoming a singer like Diana Ross, wearing makeup and shiny dresses. Looking out her window, she would see prostitutes on the street, wearing sparkly clothing and looking beautiful.

“I wanted to be shiny,” she recalled. “I remember saying to myself, ‘That’s probably what I’ll do.’ ”

By age 15, she had already given birth to two daughters. Needing to support them financially, she turned to prostitution.

A month after she started, she was hit on the head and dragged to the trunk of a car by two pimps, who took her across state lines and prostituted her out at truck stops for seven months, she said. 

“I couldn’t get away,” she said. “They would play Russian Roulette with my head at night in the hotel room and threaten me on a regular basis.”

Finally, when the pimps found another girl to focus their attention on, Myers-Powell was able to flee, she said.

But after she returned to Chicago, Myers-Powell returned to her old ways, this time falling in with a pimp who treated her more kindly—at least at first.

Despite the fact that prostitution is not ideal, Myers-Powell said coming from an abusive childhood made her grow accustomed to life being less than ideal.

“It gets worse and worse,” she said. “But what happens is, you get comfortable with bad.”

Clandestine Industry

Raphael said the media often portrays sex trafficking as something that happens to women from other countries. While that is often true, Raphael emphasized that women who are born and raised in Chicago make up a large portion of the sex trade in the Chicago area.

“We need to be focusing on our own people,” she said.

While prostitutes are often arrested, Raphael feels the bigger impact is made when the customers are penalized, which is happening since tougher legislation was passed last August. Through education, Raphael hopes that demand for sex workers will decrease, and the word will get out that sex trafficking will not be tolerated in communities.

Deputies from Cook County recently posted a fake ad on Craigslist clearly advertising an underage girl, she said. The ad received a response from a registered sex offender, who was subsequently arrested.

“Because this is a clandestine industry, it’s very difficult to get at it without these sting operations,” explained Raphael. 

Chief Neubauer: 'I Get Criticized'

“Our problem [in Elmhurst] is an indoor problem,” Elmhurst Police Chief Steve Neubauer said. “It’s Internet based. The deals are usually made on the Internet with the prostitute. The sting portion, which is what we do to get the johns, is Internet based, too.

“We have special officers that do solicitation,” said Neubauer, explaining that they are trained to make sure they avoid entrapment.

Most troubling is the high demand for underage girls. When stings are set up and fictitious pictures of underage girls are posted, there is no shortage of responses from potential customers.

“There’s a huge market for that," Neubauer said.

"In the past five or 10 years, we’ve arrested computer programmers, ministers, unemployed people, you name it. Our community has to do this proactively.”

Raphael agrees. 

“Within your boundaries, you can make it clear to the customers,” she said. “They all start chatting with each other and tell them not to come. I feel really optimistic that if a community sits down and puts some of these things into place, you get a reputation and you can keep the customers out.”

Neubauer said he is sometimes criticized for the sting operations.

“[People ask] why am I bringing prostitutes into town?" he said. “I think there’s value in arresting people. I think there’s value in making a statement. We do our best to work at it down the line, because we don’t want these people coming to Elmhurst.”

They Can Call Me

Myers-Powell will continue to tell her story and Raphael will continue to educate people to make a dent in a very complex problem.

“I am convinced we need to start with the customer,” Raphael said.

The job of helping the women and girls is best left to survivors like Myers-Powell, who is committed to staying near the phone. 

“I want them to know that if they continue to do what they’re doing, it’s not going to end up well," she said. "I want them to have my number, and I want them to know they can call somebody when it’s not good.

“When their backs are up against the wall, they can call me."

To learn more about prevention of human trafficking and sexual exploitation, visit the Dreamcatcher Foundation, a non-profit organization co-founded by Brenda Myers-Powell.