Quotes

While Senator Barack Obama rejects prostitution and trafficking as an abuse of human rights,  San Francisco voters are being urged to make our city a sanctuary for pimps and traffickers.
What we have to do is to create better, more effective tools for prosecuting those who are engaging in human trafficking and we have to do that within our country. Sadly, there are thousands who are trapped in various forms of enslavement, here in our country - oftentimes young women who are caught up in prostitution. So we've got to give prosecutors the tools to crack down on these human trafficking networks. Internationally, we've got to speak out and we've got to forge alliances with other countries to share intelligence, to roll up the financing networks that are involved in them. It is a debasement of our common humanity, whenever we see something like that taking place.
~ Senator Barack Obama
I exploited my body and gave myself to any man who wanted a piece. It was a vicious lifestyle. What these men don't know -- or maybe what they DO know -- is that prostitutes or streetwalkers or "happy hookers" are women with a deep sense of pain. Most have been abused in unimaginable ways.
~ Brenda Myers-Powell
Proposition K conceals the inhumane nature of prostitution and cripples the efforts of law enforcement, human rights groups and social service agencies to assist those who seek escape from sex-traffickers.
~ Kamala Harris, SF District Attorney
..there is nothing broad-minded about looking the other way when 14-year-old girls and boys sell themselves on the street and massage parlors are staffed by women who are being held against their will. These are not consenting adults.
~ Debra Saunders
A Survivor's Story | Print |  E-mail

As a former client of SAGE Project in San Francisco, I cannot express enough how instrumental SAGE was in transforming my life. When I was first introduced to SAGE, I was drug addicted, living on the streets and prostituting myself to survive. Obviously, that lifestyle was very damaging and involved horrific amounts of violence and degradation. I felt completely isolated from society and saw no hope or future for myself. I came into contact with SAGE through the San Francisco County Jail system. Looking back, I can truly say that it was my introduction to SAGE which saved my life.

Due to my involvement in prostitution, all threads of self-esteem, self-worth, and self-respect as a woman were completely destroyed. Prostitution is a lifestyle that forces one to be at the mercy of those who want to use and abuse other human beings. The myth of the loving, fatherly-figure pimp is a complete fabrication, as is the myth of the kind and caring ‘customer.’ There may be a few ‘lonely men’ who would never dream of harming someone, but the majority of people pursuing prostitutes do so specifically for the purpose of being able to physically, psychologically and sexually control someone. That is what prostitution as an institution is based on and the same reason many people compare it with slavery.    

When I became involved with SAGE, they helped me to rediscover my worth as a human being. They helped me to hope, dream and plan for a future for myself. They guided me through the process of recovery and learning how to become self-sufficient in a way that did not force me to compromise my values. SAGE taught me how to become empowered, speak my voice and fight for opportunity in life. These opportunities that I speak of included  securing a safe place to lay my head at night, participating in employment skill training so I could enter the San Francisco job market, and receiving unconditional caring, support and guidance throughout the entire process. These may sound like qualities that most people already possess, but like the other women and girls who I knew who were involved in prostitution, these never existed for me. 

When you look at me today, you could never imagine that I was once sleeping on the streets, meeting up with ‘customers’ behind dumpsters, and doing everything in my power to avoid accepting my reality. I appear as the typical college student who is secure, confident and full of hope and promise for the future. I appear this way because that is who I am. Today I am very confident in my strengths and abilities, very secure in my identity as an empowered woman, and extremely driven to seek out a better future for myself and the community in which I live. These are traits I was taught by SAGE. These are opportunities that should be made available to all who want them.

There are hundreds of women like me in San Francisco. You don’t recognize us because we don’t walk around with a sign saying “I’m a former prostitute.” We have carved out new identities for ourselves. We have learned how to be healthy, happy human beings. We are working hard to make this world a little better for ourselves and the next generation. Please understand how important it is that all SAGE services remain available for others like me. Whether you recognize us or not, we exist. Whether you see it or not, there is true potential there if you encourage it to blossom.