Bella Robinson and Naomi Blech

00:02 My name is Naomi black. I'm 23 years old today is July 16th, 2016 and I'm in Providence Rhode Island and I just met my partner Bella. I'm excited to learn more about her. I'm 51 years old today, July 16th, 2016 tour in Providence and doing the interview you do a little bit introduction into what you do and I'm also on the board of directors of the erotic service provider legal Education and Research and I'm a member of the erotic service provider. You do every every summer we send sex workers to Labor Training. I've been to the Virginia Public. I've been to two summers that you a l e women Summer Conference leadership conference.

01:02 Organizing scale we have to take everything to know our industry is so different than everybody else, but it's organized how to do campaign.

01:23 You work on anti-trafficking scams, correct? And I want to learn more about possibly want to do that and then it started the history about the teenager, but I've been researching and collaborating for 5 years, but I got to go to five universities in New England.

02:23 97% so they don't have to answer each other how to find clients to avoid the police and social workers legally as a victim living in the streets 8th. They don't have a housing going to have education. They don't have safe places to go many of them leave home for good reason some of us because you're incorrigible on the line. So between the place and social workers over half the kids they've interviewed said down for free Saxon.

03:23 Loophole in the United States Service says it's like 211 you dial 2-1-1 to give you a list of shelters in Facebook event or help you with child custody or pathway and available services to I'm so that's why we call it to scam. I'm curious like you. Were you always an advocate or was there a moment or an experience that made you think see that?

04:23 An issue that had to be addressed that's late. That's really interesting. I didn't know anywhere around 7 or 8 and I have more but I lost my house and a job like everyone else and I was working with another woman. We were in her mid-forties and I had a New Jersey SWAT team kick in the door of my house without a warrant for a quality life investigation. I was taking the jail sentence. I did 90 days in jail. They made me pay a $3,720 fine. And when he did the math work. So that is what rescue looks like in real in real time.

05:23 November 2009 if you were indoors you were Lego it was legal to do sex work for escort agencies hotels your home and I got to take your freedom and around 2008 or my heart broke us up at Gilgo Beach murders up in Long Island was over at dads and when are you no escorts who dumped out there and no one cared and I get that they're getting younger and younger. There's a lot more 51 years old. My kids kind of marginalized communities a lot of research is

06:23 All these really horrible things that if you want to help people you don't promote up again in conception about what sex are actually is is the big is the largest obstacle station sex work to trafficking in human trafficking and this is how to impact lowboy call a lot of global stuff go all these then they were ignored because it's all became about sex trafficking.

07:11 So what is an S Polk San Francisco, but they just filed a constitutional challenge to California prostitution laws 647b. We're suing for five different attorney general and it's going to the 9th district court of appeal an early day how to take them with a felony said the court system was getting bottled up with the women sitting in jail for 6 months.

08:11 The women and what happened is the case was dismissed because the Constitution but they did have to pay coyotes legal. They arrested five workers. They hired Michael khalife explain to the judge. They hadn't done anything illegal and he threw them out. So this is interesting when it started running a front-page newspaper article from City Hall in the media. They finally closed that way. I think we can agree. You should be stripping.

09:00 When I first get my mentor I had no clue about activism when she said organized organized and I need to get Labor Training. She told me I needed to agenda political party and became a Libertarian and if he or she wrote the book girl and we are coyote swapped Nations. The patient self. He has a site called police prostitution in politics. Com. We have databases close to probably last time I looked it was 707 don't go to jail where they get probation and they're not made sex offender sex offenders and they can move to another place. We also have seen in the media. Is it now?

10:00 Police officers are like that Daniel with his name guy that he kept 256 years for raping all this poor black women and he just decided that it's okay that these women get what they deserve their bad women that starts to spell often to everybody else. Norma also has a database of every prostitutes in the United States for 33 years what we say and only 1.8% involve miners. We see the average age of a rest is 25 to 65. We see in the 80s or 90s. They were resting more teenagers for prostitution than in earlier eras in the last couple years for the whole state inside and outside, but they want you to tell you that traffic is on the rise. The numbers are going down and down.

10:59 I think they are going to get rid of it. Like the War on Drugs. They can't place 1% of the industry. There's no way to make his register a regular regulation allows the place to keep policing us. So I don't know if you know but a messenian and the World Health Organization countries over to year. And they've come to the conclusion that to protect the human rights of sex workers. We need to strictly totally decriminalized adult prostitution. That doesn't mean that children can do it.

11:59 Three women work in an apartment at the same situation if I give my adult daughter money, she could be charged with living off the proceeds if I had a husband or a spouse that made three times as much money as they can still be charged to everyone around us can be charged with felonies in a fifteen-year-old runaway in case things get out of hand, but they're legally defined as you know is in real bad people and they're not did you questions?

13:00 Today's definition. I would have been met and they allowed my schizophrenic alcoholic mother to let me know when your old man 2 weeks after my seventeenth birthday likely I got away from him pretty quick.

13:26 So what it feels like you are as you are that much money, you make the more chances you will take you don't have a lot of power in the situation. We're not tonight of experiences, but they kind of put it like this blue dress on this girl and they have her tell her sad story about this pimp or you know, how how she was pimped out and then they whisked away from the phone away from her and I start telling their agenda of their program and there are no services for the education without that. There's no childcare.

14:26 Baroness and point you teach you how to call 211 on your cell phone to get a list of services to expect these women to leave their homes and their families to go live in a shelter and be rescued is kind of ironic. Sat all wear.

14:53 I'm just trying to like figure out like that line between you know, the sort of empowered kind of work that you do and then what was the small percent is it that people who Sigma ties the profession take on as like as a representative of an abuse violations. How do you draw that look like is there is it is it a fine line or a really clear like two different? Well, I'm going to do this whether you feel and how do you describe your experience and they didn't even have it?

15:53 Eeyore street base workers does the monthly use transgender people of color homeless people not all of them are drug addicts called Project Reno that actually runs around and chases the three girls and I went to a presentation where they wanted to train postal workers to identify residential Bravo's picture blankets. So they know they're not all victims. They know when they do raids and stuff. They know usually there consensual sex workers, but I had to tell you what we do to immigrants sex workers. They tell the woman if you walked today,

16:50 Do you need to say your boyfriend this pain manager somewhere that it may say it if you if you'll see one day and don't come home now. We're allowed to like 500 of the most extreme trafficking cases in the United States in the world or a refugees being labeled a Muslim and you're not allowed to consent law enforcement targeting Asian and Korean Spas. A lot of them are American, but just because they look as in they tend to get caught up and then

17:50 Shut down by the police.

17:53 Show me interesting. I want to I want to touch on everything that you do. So can you tell me about the Desiree lines? They have it every two to three years. I went a couple years ago and say guess what it's basically a sex worker organization and academics from all over the world. We had 300 people in attendance and I was on a labor caucus where we caveman exercise we use what we learned that labor is full and we went back in and did a fun exercise and teach him some collective bargaining skills. I was also wanted H caucus and end it we had a good show out and they want to talk about how how your body changes how how your lifestyle things cuz I never thought I'd still be a sex worker still work and then we had the other thing I did.

18:53 And I've been working with her students for about 2 years every semester and last semester their project was to come up with short films and one was called Brown's last rescue and it was about to make it sound like a whistle would be $79 and a hat and they go in and ask, what's the weather condition so I can rid of somebody go in there and discriminate against anyone they want so I will say that I partnered with Sojourner house domestic violence shelter and I volunteer there the second Saturday of every month for 8 hours.

19:53 I wanted to let Max out services. I don't want to refer a sex worker and try to somewhere where she's not going to be treated well, and they're letting me to develop in August will be developing an hour training that will be given to all their volunteer, but they didn't seem to want to stand up for it until they started resting the clients in the mat, but I'm glad they showed up.

20:39 Human trafficking is it can be in labor wages or factories as women make $0.27 an hour. There was a lady I don't pronounce your name, right Somali May and to have trafficking organizations and we can go to school and to prostitution. So basically what they did in Cambodia that he would do major Rage 2 spas and bras and bars and stuff and all the sex workers a lot of more raped.

21:39 PlayStation game be held indefinitely unless they will go to be real and it's just over three months to not pay for that training and then you expected to go work at the dangerous garment factories for $80 a month of December 1st. Religious women that went out to save the prostitutes for the street hired them to clean their toilets and they wanted to go with work at Walmart and live in the streets and no one can get old when we don't want to pretend that's not a problem. What would you say is collective bargaining skills, like for your profession just says how example so I can get a reference.

22:39 Negotiations but it's Elizabeth Edwards introduce a secret bill. It was her first year in office. He took on a solitary confinement that she had heard about the report. So I went out and we took a pill number and she took a YouTube and a picture of the coliseum in 2 weeks later. They said he don't do paperwork before we expected to start the conversation, you know, just because we're decriminalize does it make it's always been at least illegal to kidnap and force women into prostitution.

23:39 Heading for the most domestic violence and how to remove cuz he's going to tell the police you the horror the horror and it might take her to jail and leave him in a household with her children. So we are forcing her to stay in the same time as when we when we look at this.

24:28 Just a thought prostitute that's there real gold in when you win the kind of take try to keep taking it back and it's going to go on and on and on even when we do when was for you what you are to these younger women who reach out to you when you were younger. I was just out of the Yellow Pages and yellow page.

25:26 You would walk into a spawn pay $56 D'Orsay and then you would walk in the back and you would make a deal with a girl when she wanted $150 and I see that is a very talkative. You have to get a sheriff's card, which is like what they make the dancers get they want to make sure you don't have a prostitution and drug charge within a year. So if I can actually go home now, I can't be able to go on to make sense. Then. You have to get a work permit. So your word is all you have.

26:26 And you have to live during the time you were in you can't live in the same county and you're not allowed to advertise its not appear model. When I look at the Rhode Island model with so much stronger that people could work from home hotel spas agencies. We could dial 911 to report crimes. My friend did Alaska change their laws in 2012 theme that all prostitutes in with trafficking and violet pimps up there.

27:26 The grand Cherry who was indicted in the he only got a 30-day sentence for that guy got pulled over. So there's been a couple cases where there was an abusive pimp, especially if it's a young unit 19 20 year old girl, and he's beating you up and he makes you kind of organized the rest of the women and going to prison and harassing her in jail.

28:26 Started the bill adding language to a trafficking a murderer being charged her with each other and all the women that were involved said she could have just judge never forced to take from you know a cause that we didn't want to any other girls that did drugs he could see was in recovery did more people working if they were on drugs. He wanted him to do batter and poor Amber went to jail for 5 years and was labeled the traffic her when she was really providing say

29:26 Key for these women tend to go underground and cheese more violent when you trust me and professor and it would go white when they saw us and they would say, oh no New York do body rub your body works without a license and no one's gone to get license address anymore, except for one and only one spot on the whole state that list and address in that kind of makes me think negative paying off the place.

30:23 Now we can't even locations lot of mean that they didn't advertise it. So we were still able to get back to talk a minute about done a lot to do with us getting criminalize. She's out of URI is saying that the only leave two at a time when you go to the store and he was actually really means when she did and animal genetics.

31:23 Ironic

31:36 The part of the wash it is the first of all we want to be decriminalized which will remove all penalties against us like it was before but we know that's it's the first place we need all this money that's going to the anti-trafficking people to create a Serie to go to organizations that actually do the work on the ground with the people. We need to go find out what these people need. I personally don't believe that you should be forced to exit to get housing. I don't think the prostitutes and like I can barely anyone anymore. But now we have all these social workers that make a whole celery and they're doing the same thing. There is no money, but horrific Lee when I started mapping out the shelter's crossroads.

32:36 Rhode Island and New Hampshire, Nebraska the people and the shelter and shut down three days before the winter this year. He was tied to an NGO that got $200,000 and he had mentioned yet tied to it and it was a prostitution scandal. Please step down whenever you heard no more about the prostitutes in but Rhode Island LGBT getting $50,000 a year for kids from 16 to 24.

33:19 Could go in and they took that money away and said the guy who thinks being gay or transgender is conversion therapy is not going to be helpful to where you thinking creatively and you know looking towards the future you have liquid. Where do you see the profession either like hopefully or what are your fears for the next 5-10 years?

34:05 Reform Act some pretty special in New York for evidence. I think we can all agree. That cough is getting condoms from street base workers or tried to arrest you cuz you have more than two or three is not the best interest of the sex workers or the public health committee to get to abrazo manager for sexual harassment or 50000. She called the police and they said you're going to get it.

35:05 You got sex by fraud which is right, you're paying her back and you're doing 8 months in jail longer allowed to refuse this population. We have about 5 minutes, and I do want to hear about the urban Justice report in from John Jay College and Rhode Island, so you can teach you how to spot trafficking.

36:05 I think something roads are good or bad and they get back into the Foster system to recruit other gets caught up.

37:05 Going to the kids are not asking them what they want an education with. The only requirement is that you check in with the social worker once a month to make sure you're still in school cuz I believe if you have your own little apartment Tookie, you're probably not going to run the street so much and we need to provide to where you to tell their 21 and I believe now when the age out of the Foster system to just kind of jumped into society with very little to reach out to organizations to see if we can help you find Services while I don't believe teenagers should be arrested for their part in the sex trade. I think if we need the service done in Detroit, that was a fifteen-year-old girl named after all of the news so I can tell you her name Leticia clay whether she put her Backpage ad up or someone else. Did she still legally?

38:05 Trafficking back down and I guess it was a scam to rob a guy with a BB gun when he got there. They sent certain 9 years in prison. They didn't you know, Safe Harbor laws in 2015 in Rhode Island that was sentenced to 10 years for sex trafficking. He was arrested for it when he was 17, so weird and another hundred years for a seventeen-year-old. Well, I think you should have been in trouble A lot of people are going to go to jail and then we have one more minute left, but I know where you see the future of the industry and I know where you see sort of the future of the building.

39:05 What's next for you to file another one and we're going to keep fighting and I think I'll probably till the day I die cuz I believe in it that much.