A presentation by a sex worker and undocumented immigrant. Includes citations and should work int the presentations. Email me if certain parts are not working! gildamerlot@fastmail.com If the links don't work try these links instead https://drive.google.com/file/d/12PeKNfDondeE4YilV8AfGOZUgm4fvdDD/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PLwzVUK2lFB69UfL4RjQGtqH_XFS2jzD/view?usp=sharing

1. On Human Trafficking,
Migration, and Sex Work
By Gilda Merlot

2. General NY Laws around Prostitution
New York has laws against both buying and selling sex.
• Prostitution: (Sex Work) Class B misdemeanor
• up to 3 months in jail and/or a fine of up to $500
• Patronizing prostitution: (Customer/”John”) Class A misdemeanor
• up to 1 yr in jail and/or a fine of up to $1,000
• Permitting Prostitution: Class B misdemeanor
• up to 3 mos. in jail and/or up to $500 fine
• Promoting Prostitution: (Management/“Pimping”) Class A misdemeanor
• up to 1 yr. in prison and/or up to $1,000 fine
ANY CRIMINAL CHARGES PUTS IMMIGRANTS (BOTH LEGAL OR NOT) AT RISK FOR
DETENTION, AND DEPORTATION
CRIMINAL CHARGES AGAINST PEOPLE LEADS TO ASSET FORFEITURES, JOB LOSS, LOSS
OF HOUSING, LOSING CUSTODY OF CHILDREN, STIGMA & DISCRIMINATION, A
CRIMINAL RECORD & PUBLIC SHAME

3. Reality of Policing
• 2017 FBI reported 545 cases of human trafficking in the U.S.; 467 were in the
sex industry
• # of Cases in NY in 2017 = 0, 2016 = unknown, 2015 = 0, 2014 = unknown
• 2017 FBI reported 28,490 arrests for prostitution; 11,124 men & 17,366
women.
• 18,542 for vagrancy (homelessness), 23,699 for Curfew and loitering law violations,
289,608 for Drunkenness, 1,275,812 for Drug violations
• 2017 reported 185 young adults arrested for prostitution, 56,569 drug
violations, 21,958 curfew and loitering
• 2017 USCIS reported 672 approved human trafficking visas 4 year conditional
work authorization similar to TPS/DACA
• 2017 ICE (ERO) 143,470 arrests, and 226,119 deportations
• 1,572 for “Commercialized Sexual Offenses”/Prostitution

4. Penal Welfare and the New Human Trafficking
Intervention Courts Report
In 2013, New York State’s Chief Judge, Jonathan Lippman
• announced a “revolutionary” statewide initiative
• Human Trafficking Intervention Courts (HTICs)
• consensus that prostitution is human trafficking
• HTICs are criminal diversion courts where mostly female defendants are prosecuted for prostitution offenses but
offered mandated services in lieu of criminal conviction and jail.
• Why have so many commentators heralded them as the model approach to prostitution/trafficking when they
involve the arrest, prosecution, and even incarceration of prostitution defendants, who are presumed to be victims?
• phenomenon called“penal welfare,” that is, states’ growing practice of using criminal courts to provide social
services and benefits. In an era in which “mass incarceration” is a familiar term and tough-on-crime and broken
windows ideologies are falling into disfavor, penal welfare enables entrenched institutions of criminal law to
continue to function despite a growing crisis in public confidence.
• Ultimately, the HTICs maintain the illusion that criminal management of individuals, including prostitution defendants, is
the answer to social dysfunction.
• HTICs, like criminal court interventions generally… [fail to address] root causes of prostitution crimes.
• Solution: Wider array of benefits—housing, employment, financial subsidies, childcare, healthcare
Report goes into conflation between human trafficking, prostitution, and domestic violence
ICE GOES TO THESE COURTS TO ARREST PEOPLE…BECAUSE IT’S STILL CRIMINAL COURT, EVERYONE THERE IS BEING
CHARGED WITH PROSTITUTION WHICH IS A CRIME. ICE DEPORTS “CRIMINALS”

5. The Tragic Death of Layleen Polcano
• The 27-year-old Afro-Latina transgender woman was found dead in solitary
confinement in Rikers Island Jail.
• The arrest was the result of an NYPD sting investigation after Polanco allegedly
agreed to perform oral sex on an undercover officer in exchange for money. & a
low level drug charge.
• Polanco was required to appear in Manhattan’s Human trafficking Intervention
Court to receive counseling services, an alternative to jail time that is often
presented by judges to those arrested on prostitution charges.
• she failed to appear on more than one occasion, leading to a warrant for her arrest.
• Although she would have been released from Rikers, she was reportedly held in
jail because she had failed to complete the court-ordered diversion program and
could not pay the $500 bail.
• “Reform” killed Layleen Polcano
• The “diversion court”/Manhatten “human trafficking court” is still criminalization

6. The United Nations Convention against
Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC)
[AKA the Palermo Convention] is a 2000
United Nations-sponsored multi state
treaty against transnational “organized
crime”
The convention was the first international
convention to fight transnational
organized crime, trafficking of human
beings, and terrorism.
3 supplementary protocols (the Palermo
Protocols)
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is responsible for implementing
the protocol. Helps states with drafting laws, creating national anti-trafficking strategies,
and resources to implement them. In March 2009, UNODC launched the Blue Heart
Campaign
The Protocol to Prevent,
Suppress and Punish Trafficking
in Persons, Especially Women
and Children (AKA the
Trafficking Protocol or UN TIP
Protocol)
The Blue Campaign is the “unified
voice” of the Department of
Homeland Security. Working in
collaboration with police,
government, non gov., private
orgs. They create ads, launch or
work with media, federal, state
and local campaigns.
Example:
https://www.ihtinstitute.org/plan/
https://www.ihtinstitute.org/wp-
content/uploads/2019/05/CCHR_IHTI_
StrategicPlan_06062018.pdf
Pg. 10, 16, 19, 22, 23, 29, 32, 34, 38,
40, 41, 42, 43, 47
The Protocol against the
Smuggling of Migrants by Land,
Sea and Air (AKA the Smuggling
Protocol)
DHS (mostly ICE and Border
Patrol ) Conflate smuggling and
human trafficking to look like
heroes. They criminalize
humanitarian aid
“Prevention Through Deterrence
Policy”
Anti Trafficking Movement from
UN Press Pg.11
Example:
https://www.gildamerlot.com/blog/2019/
7/23/6-case-studies-on-sex-worksex-
trafficking
Personal testimony
The Protocol against
the Illicit
Manufacturing and
Trafficking in
Firearms, Their Parts
and Components and
Ammunition (AKA the
Firearms Protocol)

7. What is Human Trafficking?
Originally created to address the extreme
exploitation of migrants in the age of
Globalization.
Nicola Mai a professor of sociology and migration
points out the flaws in the UN definition:
1. Without a “neutral” understanding of what
constitutes coercion & exploitation in the sex
industry, it allows for more arbitrary discretion
which equals anti-immigrant & anti-prostitution
interventions & policy [O’Connell Davidson 2005,
73]
2. The victim’s consent to being exploited is
considered irrelevant, which creates more
arbitrariness by which migrants, & nonmigrant sex
workers are targeted by sexual humanitarian
interventions & policy
The rights & livihoods of sex workers & migrants are
viewed as expendable “collateral damage” in the fight
against organized crime. Making them more socially
and economically vulnerable.
[Various entities] systemically miss their targets &
exacerbates people’s vulnerabilities – as drones have
systemically failed to spot the difference between
civilians & fighters in Afghanistan & Iraq. [Bernstein
2010

8. Double Speak
Unaccompanied Child Migrant [Unaccompanied Alien Children]
• We are almost NEVER alone!
• It erases our families, our community, our parents
• It justifies our separation, detention (sometimes indefinitely), and sometimes putting us through
adoption
• Our smugglers, parents, families and by extension WE, are treated like traffickers
• Dreamers came “through no fault of their own” under the age of 16 when they came, they are
criminalized and denied citizenship for the rest of their lives.
Juveniles is often used interchangeably
with teens
It’s from the Criminal Justice System
Juvenile delinquency, also known "juvenile
offending", is the act of participating in
unlawful behavior as minors (under 18),
depending on the crime, they can be tried as
adults.

9. On Charlie Kirk’s Facebook Page, this is his pinned tweet.
Ring Wing groups fund TurningPoint USA, DHS gets their
information on trafficking from unreliable sources, and
from hate groups like FAIR, CIS, and NumbersUSA that
seeks to eliminate the 14th amendment, and cut ALL
immigration by 70%. They want ethnic cleansing.

10. From Pseudoscience to Protoscience: Estimating
Human Trafficking and Modern Forms of Slavery
Hidden population refers to a
group of people for which
membership is socially
stigmatized or constitutes a
crime. Due to its hidden
nature, the creation of an
accurate sampling frame,
which is used when it is not
feasible to count everyone, is
not possible. Pg.3

11. Use and Misuse of Research in Books on Sex
Trafficking: Implications for Interdisciplinary
Researchers, Practitioners, and Advocates
• Goes over the creators of the common myths around trafficking, and
their various refusals to put a stop to continuing misinformation and
fear.
• Mostly focuses on Kevin Bales
• Helped create the idea that human trafficking = modern slavery
• Guessed that over 27 million people are living in slavery across the world
cited by various government, police, non profits, and other entities
• Guessed that human trafficking is the 3rd largest organized crime enterprise in
the world.

12. Human Trafficking and Contemporary Slavery
Ronald Weitzer
Incurring a debt is deemed inherently coercive and harmful. It is assumed that these relationships are “forced” and that debt is a form of
indenture “purportedly incurred” in return for some kind of assistance. This definition ignores the many exchange relationships in which
individuals voluntarily agree to pay facilitators for the costs of their labor migration and willingly assume a debt in order to migrate or work—but
are not slaves “controlled by violence and denied all of their personal freedom” (Bales 2004, p. 6). In fact, incurring a debt to a middleman or
employer is a staple of labor migration for most resource-poor migrants. And for many migrants, bonded labor in a wealthy country is seen as far
preferable to what is available on the free labor market at home
Four claims are frequently made regarding modern slavery and human trafficking:
• The number of victims worldwide is huge. Estimates range from 8 to 27 million slaves and
• from 600,000 to 4 million trafficking victims.
• The magnitude of trafficking and slavery is steadily growing.
• Human trafficking is the second- or third-largest organized-crime enterprise in the world, after illegal drug and weapons trading; estimated
profits range from US$5 billion to US$36 billion annually.
• Sex trafficking is much more prevalent and harmful than labor trafficking.
Each of these assertions has been either questioned or debunked elsewhere (Chuang 2010, Fedina 2014, GAO 2006, Gozdziak & Collett 2005,
Jahic & Finckenauer 2005, Snajdr 2013, Vance 2012, Weitzer 2014, Zhang 2009). Suffice it to say that no evidence exists for any of them at the
global level, and it is difficult to imagine how these assertions could be substantiated globally. It is impossible to satisfactorily count the number
of persons involved or the magnitude of profits in an illicit, underground economy internationally or nationally—especially when there are no
tangible items such as illicit drugs or weapons (Andreas 2010). This means that the worldwide magnitude of victims of trafficking and slavery is
unknown.

13. “Polaris is a leader in the global fight to eradicate
modern slavery. Named after the North Star that
guided slaves to freedom”

14. Polaris

17. You won’t find this on their
website
How they measure their
impact
2017 Annual Report
Coffee

18. It pays to run charities that function like
feudal systems/businesses
Jimmy Lee died in 2015.
He was getting 6 figures from
Restore NYC alone while
“foreign national sex trafficked
victims” – [they mainly target
Asian women] were getting an
average $1,227/month

19. International Justice Mission – Gary Haugen Moral
Crusade – A “slave abolitionist”, but against prison
abolition Solution to poverty according to Gary Haugen is “Law & Order”
“Our experience is that the average poor person lives in a state of lawlessness”
“high levels of criminal violence reduce a nation’s economic productivity by 2 to 3 full
percentage points of GDP—and”
Careers & Partners

20. “for nearly a decade, the World Bank has been reiterating its finding that “crime and violence have
emerged in recent years as major obstacles to the realization of development objectives.”8 The
Bank has stated flatly, “In many developing countries, high levels of crime and violence not only
undermine people’s safety on an everyday level, they also undermine broader development efforts
to improve governance and reduce poverty.”9 Multiple studies by the United Nations Office on
Drugs and Crime (UNODC) have concluded that restraining violence is a precondition to poverty
alleviation and economic development, plainly stating that “a foundational level of order must be
established before development objectives can be realized.”10 Leaders of the United Kingdom’s
Department for International Development (DFID) have concluded, “Poor people want to feel safe
and secure just as much as they need food to eat, clean water to drink and a job to give them an
income. Without security there cannot be development.”11 When it comes to violence, researchers
are increasingly concerned that development experts are missing Amartya Sen’s insight that
“development [is] a process of expanding the real freedoms people enjoy,” and are failing to
appreciate the idea “that freedom from crime and violence are key components of development.
Freedom from fear is as important as freedom from want. It is impossible to truly enjoy one of these
rights without the other.”12”
― Gary A. Haugen, The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence

21. Solutions
• Stop Funding Carceral Solutions!
• Example: Why funding Border Patrol won’t make conditions better
• Decarcerate, Demilitarize, Decriminalize & Destigmatize Immigration,
Poverty, Drugs, and Sex work
• Target monopolies like MindGeek [tech companies] that pirate porn and
make it free and accessible to the public. Ensure that all viewers must PAY
for the labor and therefore prove their age.
• Start the process for Reparations for ACTUAL SLAVERY!!!
• Stop sugarcoating history in schools
• Desegregate the schools, neighborhoods, workplaces, etc.
• Universal healthcare, housing, education
• Fund unions, the people and the workers & ensure to protect their rights