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John Berger
St Augustine, FL
CEO of Made By Surivors - but anti slavery work is a change of direction for me as I spent the prior 17 years as an investment banker. Now I'm working to help trafficking and slavery survivors become independent.
Recent Activity
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John commented on the article |One of the most dangerous superstition which is common in many parts of the world is that having sex with a virgin or young girl will take away your AIDS. Its a big part of the reason the target age for sex trafficking in Asia is now about 12 years old.
John Berger
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John commented on the article |This will be interesting to watch. In concerned though, that this will be a great benefit to pimps.
Even vice cops generally don't care about prostitutes and by arresting the prostitutes the police plan to use them to get to their pimps. Also, by arresting them they can hold the prostitutes long enough to try to get them other services and that's how minors usually are kept off the street (at least for a while). Some are experimenting with holding them as material witnesses but its not common yet and I have no idea if that would hold up in a pandering case. It clearly will be will be much less likely that prostitutes that are not arrested will give up their pimps.
While it may take them a while to get the trade offs right, I hope at that they are making a significant commitment to helping minors they find in prostitution. Most minors will cooperate with their pimps when arrested as their pimps condition them well. If the minors are not arrested and deny services, as their pimp will tell them to, will they be back on the streets faster because of this decision?
John Berger
http://www.madebysurvivors.com/
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John commented on the article |This is certainly good news and I applaud the lawyers for pressing the case. It is a bit disturbing if this is the first case of its type. Using the civil courts for restitution is nothing new and is done in all kinds of crimes so there was no reason for it not to be used in slavery, other than lack of representation.
Also, in 1995 the law in California specifically put in place a restitution prevision. I'm citing this from memory so please correct me if I am wrong, but I have seen in other states laws, and I think California has this, that the restitution does not go 100% to the survivor but is split or managed by the social work agencies.
In essence laws like this try to turn the rights of the survivor for restitution into a source of funding for non profits. Given how little funding there is against slavery I understand the motive, but I wonder if this type of law is part of the reason these restitution cases are not more common.
John Berger
The Emancipation Network
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John commented on the article |Wow. Very nice find. I really hope there is folloup from this.
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John signed the petition | -
John commented on the article |It would be nice in a conversation like this to be able to quote some kind of data showing these adds work or don't work. I don't know how many millions have been spent on adds like this but I have seen them all over the world and read about many large grants to NGOs for these campaigns, but I have never seen any kind of follow up study that evaluates the effectiveness of the ads.
So what bothers me most about these ads it that they may very well be throwing away money either because they are over sexualized or for other reasons. There is not enough money spent fighting slavery to be wasting any of it.
So please, if you are an NGO reading this and thinking of or using a suggestive add campaign, please take the time to study if it works or not.
John Berger
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John commented on the article |Also, we are huge fans of Polaris and their work. Their work on the Human Trafficking Hotline is truly going to save lives in the US. Before they took over the hotline it was not taken seriously, but now its a vital resource.
The hotline number is 888-373-7888.
John Berger
http://www.madebysurvivors.com/
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John commented on the article |
I was not there, but I know Ruchira well as she is one of our closest partners, so I can say first hand that she truly deserves this award.
Nothing against academics and politicians, but its nice to see in the field, get your hands dirty heros like Ruchira get this kind of recognition.
John Berger
http://www.madebysurvivors.com/
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John commented on the article |Dennis,
The Swedish model is not as much about demand as many think. The Swedish prostitution laws need to be viewed in the larger context of Sweden's drive for equal rights for women. As part of the equal rights argument it was argued in Sweden that purchasing a woman was violating her rights but that you could only arrest the man and not the woman for this.
I know the "Swedish Model" is not often described this way in the US, but this is the way the Swedish explain it themselves, and I am pretty much quoting how their Ambassador describes it. When they passed the law, they did not know if it would have impact on demand (or supply) but that was only secondary to their view of womens rights.
John Berger
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John commented on the article |For those interested in this topic, I highly recommend the work of Mohamed Mattar ED of Protection Project, especially his research on Islamic Law and fighting human trafficking.
http://www.protectionproject.org/pdf/UNODC_Trafficking_and_Islamic_Law.pdf
John Berger
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