Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Polaris Project: National Day of Action against the Sexual Trafficking and Exploitation of Children

image is from here
All that follows is from The Polaris Project's website, *here* and at the link just below. Links to many parts of their website appear at the bottom of this post.

Be a part of the National (Call-In) Day of Action 11/17/2010
 
Participating in our National (Call-In) Day of Action on Nov. 17 is as easy as 1,2,3!

Each year in the United States at least 100,000 children are victims of commercial sexual exploitation. Our children are being sold for sex on street corners, through escort services, and online. These victims need safe shelter and treatment, but in the United States today there are only 80 beds available for them. That leaves thousands of sexually exploited children who are unable to access shelter beds or other services.

On November 17, the National Coalition to End Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking, of which Polaris Project is a part, is organizing a National Day of Action to pass the Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking and Victims Support Act (H.R. 5575). If passed, this legislation would provide victims of human trafficking with access to much needed services and shelters. H.R. 5575 would also provide grants to state and local governments who work with social service agencies to train law enforcement and increase investigations.
Being a part of our National (Call-In) Day of Action on Nov. 17 is as easy as 1,2,3:

1. Find your representative in the U.S. House of Representatives on the top right of this webpage.

2. Call the House operator at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected with your representative's office.
Once connected, say:
"Hi, my name is ________ , and I am a constituent living in[town/city]. I'm calling to urge Congress(woman/man) ______ to co-sponsor and support H.R.5575, a unique bi-partisan bill introduced by Representatives Maloney and Smith that seeks to combat and address the sex trafficking of children across America. It would allow more trafficking survivors to access restorative care services and increase resources for law enforcement to arrest and prosecute the traffickers and predators that victimize our children. The number of children at risk of being trafficked across the U.S. is on the rise and it's time for Congress to act. Will the Congress(woman/man) co-sponsor and support this important legislation?"
3. Be Counted!  Sign our petition here so we can track our impact!
Taking action on Nov. 17 will take less than 5 minutes and our collective action can give thousands of young sex trafficking victims across the U.S. the care and support they need and deserve.

The National Day of Action is being sponsored by the National Coalition to End Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking. Members include (partial list): A Future. Not A Past., ECPAT-USA, Polaris Project, Rebecca Project, Shared Hope International and the Women's Funding Network.

Anderson Cooper, John Walsh, and Dr. Phil Call Out Amazon.com for Selling Books That Teach Men How to Molest Children and Get Away With It







Below is an article from CNN about this issue. The link to it on CNN is *here*. Some discussion of this subject by me appears below the article.

(CNN) -- "The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-Lover's Code of Conduct" was pulled from Amazon.com, a spokesman confirmed Thursday, after thousands of users posted angry comments and threats to boycott the site.

The self-published e-book was available on the site for download until late Wednesday for $4.79.

Company spokesman Drew Herdener would not comment on the controversy or respond to questions about the company's guidelines for digital publication.

On Wednesday, Amazon defended selling the book in response to a report published on BusinessInsider.com.

"Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable. Amazon does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts, however, we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions."

Before it disappeared from the site Wednesday night, the listing had more than 2,000 user comments. The vast majority of them condemned the book's stated content, as well as Amazon's decision to make it available.

"It is ILLEGAL to molest children, and for Amazon to promote such is insane. I'm an abuse survivor, and am OUTRAGED Amazon would choose to promote this nonsense. I will not be purchasing anything from your website until this is removed," one user wrote in a comment that summed up the feelings of many others.

In its product description, the book's author described it as "my attempt to make pedophile situations safer for those juveniles that find themselves involved in them, by establishing certian [sic] rules for these adults to follow."

"I hope to achieve this by appealing to the better nature of pedosexuals, with hope that their doing so will result in less hatred and perhaps liter [sic] sentences should they ever be caught," he said.

Author Phillip R. Greaves II told CNN that he published "The Pedophile's Guide" to address what he considers unfair portrayals of pedophiles in the media.

"True pedophiles love children and would never hurt them," the Pueblo, Colorado, man said in a phone interview Wednesday night.

Greaves, 47, told CNN that he has not had sexual contact with a child as an adult, but did when he was a teenager. He also said he "was introduced to oral sex when I was 7" by an older female, but did not provide specifics.

A small contingent of Amazon.com users defended the author's right to free speech, and a discussion on the site titled "Why Amazon is Right" delved into the constitutional implications of the controversy. Others floated the possibility that the e-book was a hoax or a law enforcement trap for pedophiles.

"While I think 99.9 percent of us object to pedophilia (even though I think this particular book was a publicity stunt/joke), I think we can all agree that we don't want someone else censoring a subject matter that we may be interested in. Religion, atheism, homosexuality, etc. are some subjects that spring to mind ... and they have been censored in the past until we realized that it's best to let all information in (even if we don't like some of it), rather than allow some authority or individual decide what we can and can't know about based on their own opinions or motivations," one user wrote.

In its form as a written piece, "The Pedophile's Guide" is protected under the First Amendment right to free speech, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said.

Child pornography is illegal as images. But text, which can be considered "works of advocacy," has won protection in the courts under the First Amendment, Toobin said.

"There is an argument that some works of advocacy are incitement, but the courts have been very, very narrow in interpreting that as a crime," Toobin said.

"I think this one is well safe under the protection of the First Amendment."

*          *          *
What we can note is that only WHM, with the exception of Anderson Cooper, who is gay, are empowered by media to speak about this issue. The time has ended when feminists who work to stop men's sexual violence against children and women are allowed to speak on major media. No feminist perspectives are allowed on rape, battery, incest, child molestation, trafficking, sexual slavery, pornography, or prostitution, unless the perspective is liberal and individualistic--in which case the liberal feminist is promoting prostitution and pornography and other sysstems and conditions that make rape inevitable.

We also must note that father's rights groups are working very hard to maintain their right to abuse children, by winning custody battles in courts that won't allow testimony about the father being an abuser in the home. This is an outrage--children are being taken from caring women and handed over the the men who are incesting them. This is a global problem and is egregiously happening in Australia, the UK, and across North America, where Father's Rights groups--many with wealthy WHM lawyers working for them and with them, are winning case after case against the best interests and safety of children.

Also, we should be clear that it is women doing most of the work to stop child molestation, not men. That the media promotes two or three well-known WHM as THE spokespeople, the "experts" on this issue, denies what is so obviously the case: the female victims themselves are the experts, and many feminists know this experience personally. Why aren't these women allowed to speak out on these issues? This media from CNN only makes the White Het Male Hero/Moral Person myth stronger, while invisibilising women who are working with no acknowledgement, within the U.S. and globally, that they are doing this extremely dangerous work in the trenches where the abusers prey on children and women.

What you also need to know is that there has been an activist diligently exposing networks and individuals promoting or protecting child molesters abusing children. Her name is Nikki Craft. She has spent the last 35 years speaking out against men's sexual violence against women and children, with nothing much to show for it except her websites. Imagine working for 35 years with no pay, only getting hateful comments from people who want to preserve the right of men to molest children and rape women. That's been Nikki's life. Goddess Bless Her. Below are some of her websites where she carefully documents this atrocity. And please click on the link coming right up in this sentence to a page all about Nikki Craft's activism. Please take a moment to write to her, at the email address *here* on her website, to thank her for all her very difficult and  thankless work she has done over these many. many years, calling out crimes way before the media was.