May 7, 2008
New Study on Chicago's Sex Trafficking
A new study released today from The Schiller DuCanto & Fleck Family Law Center at DePaul looks at young women and prostitution in Chicago. In a survey of 100 women under 25 currently working in the sex trade under a pimp, researchers found:
- The average age of entry into the sex trade: 16.4
- 70 percent were recruited, and of those, 11 percent were recruited by family members.
- 47 percent reported forced sex with their pimps
- 25 referred to their engagement in the sex trade as for "survival sex." Survival sex is defined as trading sex for survival needs to obtain food, clothing, and shelter, but not money.
According to the report, "[y]oung women in the sex trade in the Chicago metropolitan area who are controlled by a pimp should not be regarded as prostitutes but as domestic violence victims in need of assistance....A criminal justice approach that responds by arresting and punishing these young women is counter-productive and inhumane." Pictured is a map sex-trade venues survey participants identified. [full report]
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Rush street hookers are the classiest.
I passed a young working girl at 73rd and Halsted on Monday as she was getting handcuffs put on her by the cops. That's one of few places I know about where ladies openly stroll looking for customers. Another such place is on (or just east of) Pulaski in North Lawndale.
Oh, and Dearborn Street just west of Rush Street is another place, especially with conventions in town.
The three above sites draw a very different worker than the chatty working ladies at the bar of Gibson's or Tavern on Rush.
Sweet, thanks for the map. I can use that.
Yeah, I've totally been looking in the wrong neighborhoods.
Uh, WardUp, something you wanna tell us? Does someone need an intervention? (j/k, yo....you sure do know a lot about "the spots" though)
@Ward Up
And how much should I expect a rusty trombone to set me back (any neighborhood)? Ballpark figure is fine...
I like jokes and stuff too, but we're talking about teenagers trapped in sexual slavery. Over the line.
so informing the general public of the locations of these ladys is helping the problem. Or is this just a free advertising for the hookers. Pinko I thought Spav had a hooker out back of her apartment just in case your in the mood.
Hmmm, would you guys be making the same joking comments if your mothers or sisters were out there prostituting themselves?
If my mother or susters were out there prostituting themselves, I doubt I'd be wasting time on the internet reading Chicagoist. I'd probably be selling drugs or something, trying to figure out how to pay for Comcast.
The internet is all about inappropriate humor. I don't know why this topic should be off limits. Lighten up.
I agree with Margaret to an extent...I think the term "sexual slavery" might be a little uber-ole.
And I will say that in my neighborhood, there are TONS of hookers, I have seen them perform tricks in my backyard...
and there is a noticable increase (at least in my hood) of hookers with pimps this spring over last spring. Less free-lancers. I think it might have something to do with the economy being bad, but I dunno.
If we really wanted to "solve" prostitution, we would punish ONLY the johns and pimps. What the women are doing is obviously (statistically) out of necessity.
Female obesity is also offlimits on this site. Just fyi.
@matty:
Is being a prostitute better or worse than being obese? Discuss.
Every body talks about how the Tabilan hates women, well America you aint no short stop, lets start with most of these comments, both liberals and converatives coming together to joke about this horror
Yeah, Spook, because these jokes, as tasteless as they may or may not be, are certainly equal to or greather than the crimes by the Taliban.
I think he was comparing the crimes of the Taliban to the way America treats women, drawing out the argument that there is possibly very very little difference.
@ Spook and Spav....aren't you comparing apples and oranges?
While you sum up America as "women haters", along with the Taliban...America DOES HAVE women CEO's, women heads of state, women hold public offices...AND women are prostitutes.
I don't know too many women who have scratched and clawed their way up the "Taliban" business chain to acheive such a level.
If you want to point out the horror regarding the women in the article above, no need to bring up a jab that doesn't really fit...this horror stands by itself just fine.
The point that these women "should not be regarded as prostitutes but as domestic violence victims in need of assistance" is spot on.
Spav1,
don't waste your breath, the problem with Matilda is that she spends too much time trying to sound intelligent as oppossed to doing what it takes to be intelligent.
irishman1
perhaps the fact that every six seconds a women in America is beaten up and..... ( low ball figures from the F.B.I
"over 4,000 Women Each Year are Killed by Their Husbands, Ex-husbands, or Boyfriends"
"over Four Million Women Beaten and Abused Each Year"
There are Nearly Three Times as Many Animal Shelters in the United States as There are Shelters for Battered Women and Their Children
yet Nationally, 50% of All Homeless Women and Children are on the Streets Because of Violence in the Home
Women Who Leave Their Batterers Are at a 75% Greater Risk of Being Killed by the Batterer than Those Who Stay
The March of Dimes Reports that Batterering During Pregnancy is the Leading Cause of Birth Defects and Infant Mortality
now I'm not even gonna mention rape or what the Mormons are doing!
Again sounds like we have nothing on the Taliban
Spook...I’m sure the stats you have provided are accurate. Also, the stats you give do make your point…a point that I understood with your first post.
America has its problems, but I don’t have to compare us to the Taliban for me to believe it is a serious issue.
We do have something on the Taliban. If you don't get it, then you never will. It is kind of like the blues, Spook...if I have to explain it to you, then you will never get it.
Once again, America has its problems regarding how women are treated, no doubt.
You are more than willing to note the similarites between America and the Taliban and how women are treated.
Tell me, Spook...are you also willing to recognize the differences between America and the Taliban and how women are treated?
irishman
It was a Metaphor, and like Chub Rock said “Metaphors drip from my brain from my Jaw”.
Now are you trying to step to yer Spook about the Blues?
What-chou know bout that “Tradition” that is distinctly American and carried by not just Bessie Smith, but by James Baldwin, not just by Nina Simone but by Eugene O’Neil, not just by Ma" Rainey but by
Tennessee Williams, not just by Sam Cook but buy Herman Melville, yea I’m talking Toni Morrison and B.B. King, Coletrain, Janis Joplin, Richard Pryor, Marvin Gay, The Duke, Lewis Armstrong and Professor Long Hair who sang "down on St. Claude and Dumaire You know, you’ll see the Zulu King and if you stay right there I’m sure you’ll see the Zulu Queen!"
Yea Irishman, yer Spook Know a lil Some’n Some’n about the Blues, yo!
Dear god, spook, the Taliban hardly let women out of the house, must less let them run for the post of national leader, as is happening now.
Yes, the USA has many serious problems, including with women. No doubt. But to compare us with the Taliban drains whatever credibility you are trying to achieve.
And don't worry. We all know the reason you won't waste time debating me is because you know you would lose nearly every time. I have the facts and the perspective that you lack, and I can name drop books and writers and thinkers as easily as you do, cowboy. You won't debate people who might kick your butt. But that's OK (and, by the way, you often make great, insightful and needed points, but then you often ruin them with such silliness as the Taliban comparison).