Stopping Prostitution in Chicago

Every time I drive to the airport in Chicago, I see huge billboards and signs advertising so called “gentlemen’s clubs.” I pray for the women I see in those pictures — that they will be delivered and discover new life in Christ. I pray that the club “owners” will go bankrupt and that the club buildings will become churches. I pray that “customers” will lose the desire and the money to seek out these advertised “services” and that they will instead seek salvation, repentance, and redemption.

My most recent trip to Midway Airport made me want to find out who is actually intervening in the sex trade in Chicago to try to put an end to prostitution.

It turns out that a few years ago federal government identified 16 major metropolitan areas around the United States where the sex trade is a major problem. Chicago, like San Francisco and Las Vegas, is one of those cities. In response to federal pressure, Mayor Richard M. Daley took steps to respond in a new program. As part of the program, the Chicago police started to put the pictures of the “customers” of prostitutes on the police department program webpage at the time of their arrest so that social shame might curb some of the demand for sex in the city. Then, in March 2009 this year, Cook County Sherriff Tom Dart sued Chicago’s Craigslist to get the company to shut down its “exotic services” listing. But a DePaul University law school report with interviews of five former city pimps showed just how complicit other Chicago police officers have been with pimps in the sex trade, taking money and only occasionally arresting pimps or prostitutes for show (see page 6).

In 2008, another valuable report based on interviews of 100 prostitutes in Chicago was published, which clearly reveals the need for intervention and redemption efforts in the city.

Among other things, the report estimates that there are between 16,000 and 25,000 prostitutes in Chicago. Approximately 1/3 of the women interviewed were coerced into the trade by a pimp when they were between the ages of 12 and 15. They were vulnerable to such coercion because they had run away from homes where they were being abused, often sexually, and neglected. On the streets, at their young ages and with few skills, they sold sex in exchange for survival: for food, clothing, and shelter. As the DePaul University Law School report interviewing pimps shows, the prostitutes typically turned over all the money they made to their pimps. Furthermore, some of their pimps introduced them to drugs, as a way to control them (though this backfired when crack cocaine hit the streets). So the majority of Chicago prostitutes struggle with drug and alcohol addiction as well as severe symptoms of post-traumatic stress from the violence they have experienced in the sex trade.

I have learned of at least one new program designed to help prostitutes in Chicago. Christian Community Health Center sponsors the program, called Footprints, and it involves helping women get their basic needs for food, clothes, and shelter met while simultaneously helping them to break their addictions, gain education, learn job skills, and recover physically and emotionally so that they can live independently. The program can be reached at 773-533-5600.

Of course, Emmaus Ministries continues to intervene in the lives of male prostitutes in Chicago, and I continue to keep them in my prayers.

I ask you to pray with me. As I have read these reports and begun learning about the situation in Chicago, I see that we need to pray for:

* an end to prostitution in Chicago
*more ministries to arise to intervene in the sex trade to bring club owners, pimps, and prostitutes to Christ Jesus
*an end to poverty and childhood sexual abuse that makes boys vulnerable to the “glamour” of pimping and girls vulnerable to the “security” of prostitution
*police officers who have integrity and justice to guard the streets of Chicago
*police officers to refuse bribes and any form of money meant to make them look away from crimes in the sex trade
*complete emotional, physical, spiritual, and psychological healing for men and women leaving the sex trade
*the application of systemic strategies for reducing and eliminating the demand for sex by “customers,” especially white men with money identified by Chicago pimps as their primary clientele.

Dr. Jane Beal
JSASSN International

Emmaus Prayer Requests – May 2009

Emmaus Ministries serves men in Chicago who are trying to escape prostitution, drug addiction, and other challenges. Here is one of JSASSN’s partner ministry’s prayer requests for this month. Please pray for Emmaus!

Items for Prayer

- For guys who have reached plateaus in their lives and have stopped making progress, either because they have stopped trying or have reached road blocks. Pray for the Lord’s encouragement for them to press forward and to overcome.

- For a couple of our guys who are battling cancer, for the Lord’s healing and encouragement.

- For those who are in prison and have upcoming trials, that their trials will be handled truthfully and justly, without wrongful accusations.

- For the planning of the Emmaus Endurance Ride bike-a-thon on May 30th, that this weekend event would go smoothly and that the Lord would provide many riders, volunteers, and sponsors.

- For God’s provision of summer interns and more volunteers to do Outreach and work in the Ministry Center; and for God’s provision of Kaio members in the fall.

- For our current volunteers, that they would be blessed in their work with Emmaus and would continue to have a passion for serving the men.

- For the Lord’s provision for Emmaus during this difficult economic time. Pray for those whom God has called to help support Emmaus financially, that they would trust in His provision and be blessed in return.

John Green
Emmaus Ministries

Dia de Luz

Last night, Brad Corrigan and non-profit Christian ministry Love, Light, and Melody came to Wheaton College to speak, play music, and raise awareness about the needs of people living in extreme poverty in La Chureca (“the scavenging place,” i.e. the city trash dump/landfill ) in Managua, Nicaragua.

Brad’s documentary film “Dia de Luz” vividly shows the circumstances this community of 1200 people faces daily: hunger, malnourishment, inadequate clothing, almost no educational or vocational training opportunities for children or adults … all in a toxic environment that includes burning tires, medical waste, broken glass, rotting carcasses of dead animals – and more and worse.

Because of the extreme poverty, children are especially vulnerable to victimization, and child prostitution is an issue.

Brad told the story of Eliana and her two younger sisters, Mercedes and Anjuria. Eliana’s parents had no money to feed their family. When the drivers of the dump trucks would come into La Chureca, the children, including eight-year-old Eliana, would jump on the back of the trucks until the trucks stopped and dumped the garbage. The children wanted to be the first to sort through the latest trash so they could find whatever might be good for food or sale (scrap metal, for example). The drivers would give money to the girls for sex. That’s how Eliana and her sisters became child-victims of sexual assault who learned how to work as prostitutes in order to feed themselves. All three girls, now in their teens, are HIV-positive.

But there is a ministry to prostitutes and their children in Managua, Nicaragua: House of Hope. House of Hope provides a residence program, vocational training, and the encouragement that God is able to redeem any situation, no matter how devastating. Mercedes, who is recovering from an addiction to crack that her pimp fostered in order to get her to work 12-hour days as a prostitute, is now a part of this ministry house.

Please pray for Love, Light, and Melody and for House of Hope ministries, for the people they are serving in Nicaragua, and for the end of poverty, prostitution, and the sexual assault of children in La Chureca.

Emmaus Ministries Prayer Requests – Feb ‘09

JSASSN International is a prayer, education, and networking ministry. Prayer is powerful because it invites the sovereign, omnipotent God to intervene in any and all situations, especially the desperate ones that seem impossible to resolve. In the Bible, God promises to hear all our prayers and to act on behalf of those who call upon His name.

I regularly pray for the end of sexual abuse, assault, and trafficking worldwide, and I pray for the requests given to me by other Christian ministries. Emmaus Ministries in Chicago ministers to men trapped in prostitution who are often struggling with homelessness and substance abuse issues. As an Emmaus Ministries prayer partner, I receive updates, and I’m passing the one below onto the readers of my site. Please pray for these requests.

To God be the glory.

Dr. Jane Beal
JSASSN International

PRAYER REQUESTS

- For Ben and Aleya Raterman and their young children Elliana and Clay, as they move on from a number of years of service with Emmaus and get settled in their new home. Pray also for the guys who have built relationships with Ben over the years, that Ben’s impact on their lives will remain but that they will be able to deepen their relationships with other staff members as well.

- For the men we serve who have become involved in internet prostitution and pornography, and for those who are at risk for it. Pray also for our response to this issue, which has recently begun growing amongst our guys and of which we are just beginning to get a sense.

- For guys who currently have housing but have had difficulty keeping their housing in the past. Pray that they will make good choices so that they can keep their housing and learn to live more stable lives.

- For several upcoming Immersion Nights and for groups coming to visit the ministry in the month of March, that the Lord would speak to them through their experiences.

- For all who heard John Green share about Emmaus last weekend at the Jubilee Conference in Pittsburgh, PA and at Franciscan University of Steubenville, OH.

- For staff members Mindy Ashley and John Green as they travel March 3rd-7th to San José, Costa Rica for the International Christian Alliance on Prostitution’s (ICAP) Central American Regional Conference. Please pray for their safety in travel and for the furtherance of God’s Kingdom through the work of this organization.

- For the luncheon Emmaus will be hosting on March 14th with author Dawn Herzog Jewell to discuss her new book. Jewell is the author of “Escaping the Devil’s Bedroom,” about the global industry of sexual exploitation and the Christian response to it.

- For the twelve students from Franciscan University in Steubenville, OH who will be traveling to Emmaus from March 14-21 for their Spring Break missions trip. Please pray for the work they will be doing and for the interactions they will have with the guys.

- That God would place a calling on peoples’ hearts to join the Kaio Community.

The Voices and Faces Project

In the third week of April, Wheaton College held “Voices” week, “a time to remember those who have no voice and pray for the marginalized grops of the world by hearing the stories of often-unheard voices.”

On Thursday evening of that week, Anne Ream, a rape survivor and key participant in the Voices and Faces Project, came to the campus to speak in a forum called “From the Inside: What We Can Learn From Rape Survivors.” I met Anne and learned from her.

What is the purpose of the Voices and Faces Project?

According to the Voices and Faces Project website, “The mission is to create a national network of survivors willing to stand up and speak out about sexual violence … The belief is that to stop rape we need to start talking and … the initiatives are political, cultural, and creative.”

What does the project accomplish?

The project specifically invites sexual assault survivors to complete its survey, which can be accessed, downloaded, and returned online.

The survey is helping to build a permanent archive of survivor stories as well as give shape to presentations, books, and photographic exhibits intended to help survivors, raise community awareness, and influence the creation of laws and policies pertaining to sexual violence. The survey helps to make visible the otherwise often invisible trauma of sexual assault.

I completed the survey this week, and I believe it would be very worthwhile for other assault survivors to complete it as well.

PRAY for Anne Ream and the extraordinary work of the Voices and Faces Project.

Sex Trafficking in Kolkata, India

India is one of the most culturally rich continents in the world. Thousands of languages are spoken there. Architectural, literary, and religious traditions all flourish there.

It has long been my dream to go to India.

Though I have known of the problems with prostitution in India, their severity was recently brought into sharp relief for me as I spoke with my dear friend, Michelle, who has served as a missionary with Free-Set Bags in Kokata, India.

Did you know that in Kolkata there are brothels filled, not just with adult women or teenagers, but with pre-pubescent children ages 7 to 10 who are raped and sexually assaulted daily by brothel clients?

I had not realized there were brothels specifically full of children in India. I was appalled that there were brothel owners who could think to appeal to a market of pedophiles. I was even more devastated as I thought that a sufficiently large market of such clients exists to make such a “business” not only sustainable, but profitable.

How can this be?

The daughters and sons of prostitutes are particularly at risk of being exploited and prostituted. The film, “Born into Brothels,” which originally aimed to work as a documentary to educate people about the problem, actually worked like an advertisement–tripling the international clientele of Kolkata brothels within three months of its release.

PRAY for the end of sexual slavery in India. Pray for the deliverance of children from every brothel. Pray for the love of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit to save, to heal, and to redeem every person who has been sexually assaulted in Calcutta today.

Praying for Rapists

On Superbowl Sunday, I was with friends, and I picked up one of their magazines, “O,” to read during the commercials. In Oprah’s magazine was a testimony written by Beverly Donofrio, an American writer living in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. She was raped by a serial rapist living in her town on 23 July 2006. When the attacker entered her home, she did not talk with him, as he wanted her to do, but started praying the “Our Father” and the “Hail Mary” in Spanish. When the rapist asked her why she was praying, she said, “I am praying for you.”

The man left her home after one assault instead of the several he had perpetrated against four other women in the town.

When Beverly Donofrio made her story known, many others began praying. She wrote that fear would titillate the rapist and resistance would infuriate him, but prayer made him leave her house. Within five days of her story being published in her town, the rapist was caught.

As I read this story, I was reminded of the power of God to answer prayer. JSASSN International is first and foremost a prayer ministry, and Beverly’s story is just one more reason why it should be. God’s power to answer prayer is why I began praying last night when I came home and found a “Sex Offender Notification” had been mailed to me from the DuPage County Sherrif’s Office.

A convicted sex offender has moved into my neighborhood. His name is Ross J. Scanio, and he has been found guilty of aggravated criminal sexual abuse against his family. He is a Caucasian, six feet tall, weighing approximately 280 pounds, with brown eyes and gray hair. By law, he is required to notify the Sheriff’s Office when he moves into a new neighborhood, and by law, the Sherrif’s Office must notify those living nearby so that they can take precautions to protect themselves and their children.

When I looked at the picture of this man’s face on the “Sex Offender Notification” mailing, I thought about how sad he looked. I thought about how this man would not be welcomed here like other neighbors. Who would go over to his house and offer him a meal or an invitation to come to church or just friendship? I thought about all the small children in my neighborhood under the age of ten. I thought about how their parents might feel getting this mailing: afraid. But fear doesn’t deserve to have power over anyone. God is the One with the real power.

So this is my prayer: Heavenly Father, You in your sovereignty know everything. I pray that You would bring your salvation, your redemption, and your heart-healing power into the life of Ross Scanio. God, I pray for his family, that You would heal them completely. I pray for my neighbors and their children, that You would take away their fear, cause them to put their trust in You, and protect them from all harm. I thank You for your promise in your word that no weapon formed against us will prosper. God, I thank You for your might and your power to redeem that is working, even now, in ways that we do not understand. AMEN.

Elisabeth’s Story

Last weekend, I read Mark Labberton’s book, The Dangerous Act of Worship. Mark argues that the church is asleep to the problems of injustice in the world, such as sex trafficking, and needs to wake up. Mark tells the story of Elisabeth, a young Christian girl in a Southeast Asian country who was kidnapped, trafficked, and sold to a brothel. Over the bed where she was repeatedly raped and assaulted, she wrote verses from Psalm 27, the whole of which reads:

“The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh,
my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall.
Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear;
though war arise against me, yet will I be confident.

One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.

For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble;
he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;
he will lift me high upon a rock.

And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me;
and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy;
I will sing and make melody to the LORD.

You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you,
“Your face, LORD, do I seek.” Hide not your face from me.
Turn not your servant away in anger,
O you who have been my help.

Cast me not off; forsake me not, O God of my salvation!
For my father and my mother have forsaken me,
but the LORD will take me in.

Teach me your way, O LORD,
and lead me on a level path because of my enemies.
Give me not up to the will of my adversaries
for false witnesses have risen against me,
and they breathe out violence.

I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living!

Wait for the LORD; be strong,
and let your heart take courage:
wait for the LORD.”

Psalm 27 took on a new depth of meaning when I read it thinking about Elisabeth. I thought: If she can trust in God, I can trust in God.

Mark goes on to describe how Elisabeth and others who had been trafficked into this brothel were rescued through the intervention efforts of members of the International Justice Mission. I praise God for their deliverance.

PRAY: Please pray for Elisabeth, for men, women, and children who have been trafficked, and for those who have been delievered and are now in recovery. Pray for the International Justice Mission, a Christian ministry that pursues justice for those who have been trafficked and sold into sexual slavery.

Dreams of Joseph

In the Bible, the book of Genesis tells of the dreams Joseph dreamed of his future. He saw the sheaves of his brothers bow down to his sheaf; he dreamed the sun, the moon, and eleven stars bowed down to him. His brothers asked him, “Do you mean to rule over us?” They understood the imagery of his dream.

But Joseph himself could not have imagined as a young man that before his dreams would come to pass, his brothers would sell him as a slave to their cousins, the Ishmaelites, who would sell him again to a new owner in Egypt. He would be trafficked. In Egypt, he would be sexually harrassed, thrown into prison, and forgotten for a long time.

But one day, when Pharaoh dreamed a dream he needed interpreted, Joseph was remembered, brought out of prison, and, eventually, given a powerful position of leadership in Egypt. During a terrible famine, his brothers did come down to Egypt and bow down to him and ask for bread so that they and their families might live. And Joseph said to his brothers when they feared he would take revenge on them for what they had done to him:

“Do not be afraid! For am I in place of God? Now you, you planned ill against me, but God planned-it-over for good, in order to keep many people alive.” (Genesis 50:20)

In the world today, there are many men, women, and children who have been trafficked: betrayed by their brothers, sold into slavery, and locked into prisons from which they cannot escape. Like Joseph, they dreamed of a different life. God is in the process of bringing their dreams and His plans to fulfillment, despite every sin that has been done against them.

PRAY: Please pray for the deliverance of men, women, and children from the horrors of sex trafficking and forced prostitution. Pray that the dreams of every Joseph in this world will come to pass by the power of the Holy Spirit.