Three Anti-Sex Trafficking Orgs Refused To Be in the Same Room as a Migrant Sex Worker...
*The following is me talking about a situation that occurred a while back, but I want you to know that we had the event anyway, and you can see me speaking publically about this for the first time with my friends at this link https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoELpP4mo7N53MegftECbFw , there are three parts on our YouTube channel*
I was invited to speak to the Peace & Social Action Committee (PSAC), a group that’s part of the Flushing, Queens meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (the Quakers) about sex work and human trafficking. It was meant to be a roundtable discussion with a diverse group of people so that the members could better access how they could best help the community. I’m always get uneasy about people affiliated with non-profit organizations and anti sex industry people advocating on my behalf. People in my community often hide underground because it’s safer than being found from our oppressors who call themselves liberators. “Abolitionists” that work with the feds and law enforcement desperately want the state to find us and confine us into prisons, deportations, orphanages, small and private “rehabilitation programs”, or temporary basic services they create, profit from, and build careers around.
The hardest thing about being an undocumented immigrant and a sex worker is navigating the ways in which my identities are compartmentalized. I felt growing up that I constantly had to play into a dichotomy that society had chosen for me. I was either a criminal or a victim and oftentimes I was both. No matter what, violence and dehumanization was painted as an inescapable part of my existence. I was always uncomfortable with the debate around my life because the “experts” and “humanitarian” organization speaking for me were so divorced from my reality. Naturally I was thrilled that I was going to go head to head against what I sometimes called an “anti”, people who supported violence state power and “moral gentrification”. Much like abortion, sex trafficking organizations can receive government funding, but sex worker organizations cannot get government funding by law. Similarly the government (taxes) cannot fund abortions, but they do fund religious centers called Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs) that operate fake clinics that manipulate women from getting an abortion. They have the popular support of the state, police, and corporations on their side. Afterall, eliminating sex workers from the community ensures more profits and good PR for companies, and landlords. To put my best respectable lady look forward, I had a friend photograph me and sent a bio for the flyer.
“Maya Morena, undocumented immigrant from Honduras, domestic violence survivor, and sex worker”
I was really pleased with how it came out. And was confident I would be prepared to handle anything they could dish out, I wanted to finally start introducing real solutions that would liberate people that antis could never dream of proposing. They were stuck in the world of mass government surveillance, censorship, policing, profitable mass incarceration, private non profits because housing, food, and medical care is charity to them, not a universal human right.
It wasn’t long after I sent in my photo and bio that I woke up to an email that various antis were pulling out of the event. Did they hate me that much? Were they afraid of me somehow? Re-reading the emails I couldn’t believe the excuse they were making to pull out, they were pulling out because I was undocumented. They didn’t feel it was right for an undocumented immigrant to be included and that being at an event with me would associate them with “illegal activity”.
I didn’t think they would prove so quickly how little they cared about people suffering and living in fear for their lives. Antis treat sex worker’s lives, rights, families, homes, and livihoods as necessary collateral damage to get the utopian world they want, a world where sex workers and the sex industry doesn’t exist. I entered the industry because I was afraid that I would lose my right to work through my temporary renewable DACA work authorization. I wanted to establish a career underground in case anything happens. These are the same people who claim to help everyone without discrimination, they don’t really mean the things they present and say behind their fancy marketing, and PR.
Considering that they wanted to “help people being prostituted” (which is a class B misdemeanor in New York) pointing out that I was undocumented was the worst excuse they could come up with. Immigration law tends to be civil law, not criminal. The truth is these organizations and women came together and planned out how they would collectively pull out this event. They came up with this excuse together and this is the best these “experts” on human trafficking could come up with. “These experts in this field” don’t want to associate with undocumented immigrants and they assume based on words alone that people are “criminals” unworthy of being next to or listened to. If this doesn’t expose the elitism and bigotry inherit in these organizations, I don’t know what will.
Below was very quick and angry response that I couldn’t stop myself from writing:
I wasn't expecting so much blatant racism but being that it is an organization that deals with human trafficking I am not at all surprised. Afterall ICE is the leader of eradicating "human trafficking". I will say that an organization can not fight for the eradication of labor exploitation and at the same time ignore immigrants. This is the reason why undocumented immigrants are the most exploited people in the country because people like them view them as criminals without due process, without even a second of consideration.
If you must know, I was 5 years old when I crossed the border and I was caught in Arizona by border patrol. I was allowed to stay and live with my parents. I'm 25 years old and I have DACA. I'm legally allowed to work and drive in this country. I'm very privileged but others don't have this luxury. Regardless of what certain bad people think about me, I'm entitled to a voice. I've lived in this country for 20 years now, I don't have the same rights as Americans or the same support. I don't have the right to vote but I do have a voice, and I plan to use it. Not even from these so called human trafficking/ sex trafficking organizations, they ignore me, they treat me like a criminal. I've watched my parents and many other immigrants suffer, under the most exploitative labor conditions. They couldn't go to the police, they couldn't go to a lot of organizations like these human trafficking organizations. In fact I have an aunt that managed to get the human trafficking Visa. These organizations did nothing for her. It is impossible to talk about human trafficking and leave out undocumented immigrants. Last year four sex workers who were undocumented were murdered by border patrol. I speak for them. Because their lives mattered.
Personally I think it's really ironic that a human trafficking organization does not wanna deal for "illegal activity". They are in the wrong profession. And they are going to be helping virtually no one.
Sorry for the email but I had to respond because it hurts I also have no idea how they intend to help "prostituted women". Which is illegal. But apparently citizens are victims even when they are committing crimes. But I don't deserve any help at all, and my whole identity in and of itself is criminalized by default. This is my constant reality that I have to live in.
Anyway thank you for letting me speak because I know most people wouldn't give me the time of day.
Sincerely,
Maya
To give you a bit of insight from my perception let’s glance at these organizations:
The Partnership for the Eradication of Human Trafficking hosts “awareness” events and campaigns that advocate for everyone to report vague scary things to police, and harass their politicians to pass sex work criminalization laws, which is basically what most sex trafficking organizations tend to do. They’re affiliated with the United Nations Association which is not a part of the UN or the UN system. Instead it’s a citizen membership organization that support UN values.
Shandra Woworuntu was a sex trafficking survivor and founder of Mentari USA, she now trains law enforcement, attorneys, social workers, medical practitioners and businesses. A lot of these trainings that I’ve seen, read about, and watched first hand teach police, businesses, and others how to discriminate against people who look like sex workers. She was appointed by Barack Obama to be a member of The First U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking to Presidential Integration Task Force. Mostly she does what many sex trafficking organizations do which is they put survivors of abuse, addiction, or poor women to work as a form of “charity”. All the products created by their labor goes back into the organization, just like a regular business is run. One of the things she’s doing with her culinary arts program is selling a cookbook afterwards called ‘Taste of Freedom’. The justification is that it keeps the *super empowering* programs of making vulnerable people work in exchange for very basic temporary services, or to learn “personal responsibility”. This is basically how our country deals with homelessness, drug addiction, and poverty. We have a bunch of non-profits that are paid to provide “career coaching”, “job assistance”, “mentorship”, “art workouts/training” of some kind. Under this philosophy food, housing, healthcare, an education are not a basic human rights, they are “charity” and even then you have to “earn” them.
They advertise survivors and vulnerable people to sell products, encouraging people to “change the world” by engaging in consumer culture. Everything about this feels exploitative. I don’t think sex trafficking victims need a culinary arts program to be “empowered”, these women clearly have limited choices in the matter. Basically, I don’t think organizations like this should exist at all. I think everyone should have their basic needs met publicly funded, and we should fight for better wages and better work conditions for everyone. If you wanted to fix “human trafficking” using this method, you would need many organizations like this in every town, in every state in the country making millions to *TEMPORARY* house and provide educational, therapeutic, and healthcare services. These organizations actually target people who are poor and criminalized, they work with police, and advocate for criminalization. We as a society persecute people until they are forced to get limited help available to them, through strict and discriminating nonprofits/religious groups that view social ills as a result of a bad soul, a bad character, or personal decisions. Social problems aren’t viewed as systematic problems or evidence that our country and society are failing people.
Shandra Woworuntu is getting the funds for her projects including recently a modest temporary housing for victims through business. Originally the brand was called “Dirty Ballerina”, today it’s called OneOneSix and the founder is Tiffany Panhilason who is a Hollywood actress. Because of this, she is on the board of Mentari USA as the vice president. The companies making these cloths they are selling are known to be very exploitative, they don’t pay their workers a livable wage, they exploit labor overseas, hire retailers that violate labor laws to avoid responsibility, they exploit undocumented immigrants, and use slave labor in prisons. Shandra Woworuntu constantly encourages her followers to shop at Amazon to support her transitional home that will only house a few people temporarily, so she can pay others to provide a select few programs and services. The fact that Shandra is considered an authority on human trafficking, and influences policy as much as she does is a severe conflict of interest. It’s even worse considering that she pulled out of being in the same room as me because I was an undocumented immigrant. Looking through her business and non profit organization shows me that despite anything she says, her actions suggest that she views some lives as exploitable so that a few women can have access to a program she creates, while she posts their images on social media to sell more products, and eventually sell books.
To add insult to injury she trains companies on human trafficking, and they in turn get great publicity from it. But the reality is the companies like Marriott sign on to work with ICE on “anti-trafficking stings” that lead to arrests and deportations. It makes companies look good that they show they “care about their workers” and against exploitation even if it clearly isn’t true.
The problem with the narrative that antis sell is that that they act like slavery is a personal, spiritual failing on a person’s part, or something one gets into when they are too lazy to know what “real work” is. They act like slavery is the result of individual actors who want to buy a service they deem “immoral” for an hour, and that police and censorship will eliminate the problem. It doesn’t occur to them that the private sector, the government, the police, and the prisons have historically enslaved people legally and that they still do. Doing lectures for police, companies, and politicians, working with their PR team, and teaching them how to discriminate and persecute individuals will never eradicate slavery or labor exploitation. Antis fundamentally do not understand how the system works, have no desire to fight it, and actually create any meaningful change.
The last organization is The LifeWay Network and they responded me just recently with the following email:
Mentari also followed up with a similar reponse which I’ll post below, as you can see the head of her organization is a retired cop from NYPD
This is our Statement on Withdrawal Participation.
Shandra Woworuntu statement is attached.
Mentari Human Trafficking Survivor Empowerment Program Inc. is based in Queens, New York. We serve victims and survivors of human trafficking, exploitation, domestic violence, sexual assault and sexual abuse regardless of race, education, religious beliefs or gender.
Our vision and mission is to mentor and empower survivors in their reintegration back into society through DREAM: Direct services, Resource development, Empowerment, Advocacy, and Mentorship. We engage with the global movement in eradicating human trafficking through The 3 Paradigm P, Prevention, Protection, and Prosecution. The 4th P introduced by Hillary Clinton in 2009 is Partnership to eradicate human trafficking and to help victims and survivors.
We launched our organization in May 2015, we have served 305 survivors. 200 clients participated in a culinary arts program. 8 survivors have lived in our transitional home since January 2019. Our comprehensive programs in New York:
1. Culinary Arts Program, based in NYC.
2. Job placement assistance
3. Transitional Home, based in NYC
4. Art Therapy and self-defense
5. Makeup and hairdressing Program
6. Survivor Empowerment Retreat
7. Lecture, workshop, and training
8. Outreach program in NYC.
Mentari's culinary arts program serves any survivor of human trafficking who is referred by a victim services agency. Our program is trauma-informed and we use a client-centered approach which allows the survivor to grow and flourish.
Mentari's transitional housing program helps to fill the gap between living in a shelter and independent living.
Shandra as a representative of Mentari, decided to withdraw her participation from the round table discussion which becomes a panel event which scheduled for April 14th, 2019 due to scheduling conflicts.
Mentari welcomes you to have a discussion and to provide general education about human trafficking to The Peace & Social Action Committee (PSAC) and it’s a community. We invite you to be a part of our movement to eradicate human trafficking and help victims and survivors.
Sincerely,
Randall Roca, NYPD Det. Ret.
President
They completely ignored the organizer stating for the group email that they had told them they were withdrawing because of who I was. I can’t change my immigration status because there are currently no pathways toward citizenship for people like me. I know they read what I wrote, but they made the choice to ignore it. Everything about this feels cold and calculating, they basically posted their bio and mission statements of their organizations. You can get a report on their organization in the link. One thing I will say however is that the LGBTQ community is overrepresented in the sex industry, so I’m not sure how well I trust a religious organization to handle everyone. The sad reality is that there are very few housing options available for people. So until we stop investing so much money into policing, and more money into meeting people’s basic needs, people in need will struggle to choose between dismal and strict options. Many of the sex workers that I am friends with or have worked with would never trust these organizations because they work and advocate for police. Many of my friends have horror stories of police raping them, imprisoning them, or just generally living in fear of them.
It’s hard for me because I know I’m supposed to be “civil”, but I can’t. These people are dangerous. They actively ignore the communities they hurt the most while claiming to advocate for them, they actively want to change every part of ourselves because they think they know what’s best. It’s violently destroying people’s livelihood, advocating invasion raids, and it hurts their sense of agency, and acceptance in the world. I just want freedom and justice, I want to have my voice, agency, and my being respected as it is without having to go through a “rehabilitation” program. There is nothing wrong with me or the way I choose to live my life. Just like drone attacks to fight terrorism can’t spot the difference between civilians and soldiers, criminalization policy hurts everyone.