Most people think that prostitution is a victimless crime, but the reality is that women and youth are harmed every day through the exploitative and coercive sex trade industry.

In the Chicago metropolitan area, between 16,000 and 25,000 women and girls are regularly engaged in the prostitution industry; 62 percent started before the age of 18 (Sisters Speak Out, Center for Impact Research, 2002) [PDF]; Deconstructing the Demand for Prostitution, 2008 [PDF]). 

Desperation drives people into prostitution. Many youth and women engage in survival sex, the trade of sexual acts for basic needs such as food, clothing or a place to stay. (See Domestic Sex Trafficking of Chicago Women and Youth, 2008 [Word Document])

To address the link between prostitution and homelessness, CCH organized the Prostitution Alternatives Round Table (PART), a network of governmental and private nonprofit organizations and survivors of prostitution.

Now in its ninth year, PART is staffed by a community organizer and by a public policy advocate. Organizer Andrea (Drea) Hall runs regular outreach at facilities serving prostitution survivors and women ex-offenders. Ms. Hall’s outreach reaches more than 50 women a month. From this outreach, she mobilizes a leaders’ group of 10 survivors who assist in the advocacy done in partnership with a senior policy specialist, Daria Mueller. Ms. Mueller oversees efforts to adopt public policies and fund alternative programs that would help women rehabilitate their lives. PART also partners with 24 other women-serving organizations that serve on Steering Committee – an alliance of advocates, academics, service providers, survivors, and law enforcements agencies.

CCH advocacy is effective because it is partnered with authentic community organizing. PART is the only Illinois advocacy project that mobilizes women survivors who recently left the sex trade. The relationships that the women develop with each other and our staff, the advocacy they pursue together, and the public platforms they take empower survivors to begin to address issues that will better their lives, and the lives of young women behind them.