In the hallway, they speak mostly in Mandarin, in accents from across China. Some speak Korean. They meet with their court-appointed lawyers in the hallway, often helped by an interpreter born in Fujian Province and hired by the city courts. A snazzy dresser, the interpreter bounces from one defendant to the next; he has found himself adding terms to his usual vocabulary: prostitution (“maiyin”), illegal massage (“feifa anmo”), unlicensed massage (“wuzheng anmo”).
This is the Human Trafficking Intervention Court in Queens, which is marking its 10th anniversary next month, and which serves as a model for a statewide 11-court program that began last year. The intention is to change the legal conversation around the multibillion-dollar sex trade by redefining the women in it as victims instead of criminals. Most are offered a deal: Take part in a set number of counseling sessions, usually five or six, and the charges will be dismissed and the record sealed.
After 13 months, the five New York City courts are still a work in progress, their success tracked more in individual stories than statistics.
“This court is not devised to solve the problems of trafficking,” Judge Serita said of the program, “but to address one of the unfortunate byproducts, which is the arrest of these defendants on prostitution charges.”
All defendants in the specialized courts are presumed to be victims at risk, the first of many assumptions made, in part, because of the silence surrounding sex trafficking. That silence also makes it tougher to shift social mores. Not only do the police and the justice system still treat prostitution as a crime, but the women themselves, most undocumented, often don’t define themselves as having been trafficked — whether out of fear, shame or choice.
The Queens court has changed significantly in the decade since Judge Fernando M. Camacho founded it. Dismayed at seeing the same American-born teenage girls reappearing in his court for prostitution, Judge Camacho said he wanted to break the cycle by offering them alternatives to a criminal record or incarceration.
Now, a majority of the defendants who sit in the worn walnut benches are either Latin American women or, even more often, older, undocumented immigrants from Asia, ranging in age from 30 to 50. According to statistics Judge Serita’s court has kept, Asian defendants represented 27 percent of the cases in 2010. In 2014, they have made up 40 percent.
6 comments:
Did you notice how ever since Shenkler left the Tribune the whore ads have diminished? They're still there in the classifieds but not as blatant. Nussbaum, you need this money in human trafficking? Ferrari, Gronda, Marvilli, Strawbridge, Gibbons, you all feel comfortable working for salaries coming from the sex trade?
Why do they have these courts? It's the judge's job to define who is a victim and who is a criminal.
“This court is not devised to solve the problems of trafficking,” Judge Serita said of the program, “but to address one of the unfortunate byproducts, which is the arrest of these defendants on prostitution charges.”
looks like a new area to develop another nest of jobs for democratic hacks.
There's a commonalty in all these cases. In most of 'em the victim has entered the U.S. Illegally.
It's unfortunate, but let's be honest, many Asian women in the sex industry do it by choice.
So many come here on a temporary visa of some kind with the intention of staying here until an opportunity comes to become legal. In the meantime, they choose to do this work for the money. They could work in any other type of business for very little money compared to what they do.
As the city and state no longer are allowed to contact immigration, we as a society have basically accepted this particular pattern of behavior. Where will this society be in 10 years?
I know first hand regarding contacting ICE/immigration. They are taking a soft approach now. They have essentially been told to stand down. The stand down measure put forth towards immigrants families with naturalized children has bled into all arenas including these 40% of Asian women who make money her in the sex industry as a choice while being totally illegal.
Illegal alien pimps obtaining illegal alien whores. I'll concede that some are just too stupid and lazy to do other work, but a lot are virtual slaves and even stupid, and lazy illegal alien whores need to be treated as human beings. And, of course, their illegal alien clients.
These illegal alien whores are turning the tricks that native-born-American or legal immigrant whores can't or won't turn - or least for the fees they charge.
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