There's no woman who wants to work in prostitution

[sam]

Real doozy with details here, folks, but it's also a terrific, well-rounded look at the village it takes to get women out of prostitution. Click the back button if you're feeling sensitive today.

'I'll always have a scar in my heart'
By Vered Lee
Israel

http://www.haaretz .com/hasen/spages/1022506.html

"I was a mess when I arrived. Emotionally and physically crushed. My legs were full of marks from shooting up, bleeding wounds. I weighed less than 40 kilos. I was a mother of two, wandering the streets all the time. One child was in a boarding school and the other hung around with me. He suffered terribly. I would leave him here and there, I would throw him somewhere and go work. And he felt it. When I arrived at the hostel I didn't talk, I didn't have the strength to breathe. I would sit for days and stare into space. I would say that time would pass and I would recover. I felt that I had to recover, I felt that I had one foot in the grave."

That is how Suzy, 38, describes the first time she tried to leave prostitution after years of working in apartments, with escort services and finally on the street. It is hard to absorb the disparity between her fragile appearance and captivating blue eyes, and the painful and rocky story of her life.

Suzy is the fifth in a family of nine children. Her mother deserted the family and ran off with another man; her father couldn't handle it and the children were scattered in foster families. At the age of eight Suzy was sexually abused in her foster home; she didn't dare report it. At 11 she fled the home and was sent to a boarding school. At 13 she met a drug addict, who gradually led her into a life of drugs and prostitution. At 16 they married; he became her pimp so he could get his fix.

At the age of 27, Suzy arrived for the first time at a hostel for former prisoners in the center of the country, but she left after a short time. "I was a child, I had just been released from prison," she recalls. "Three years later I was in great emotional distress, both because of drug use and prostitution. I gave birth to a child and they wanted to take him away from me. A welfare worker came and told me, 'Either you go to a drug-rehab center or we're taking your child away.' I didn't consent. She said to me: 'Find a place that will want you with the child and I'll approve it.' I called the hostel, and I'll never forget it. I begged, I cried terribly and asked them to help me. I called from the street - and Anat Gur accepted me."

'Desire to help'

Anat Gur, the director of the hostel at the time, took Suzy under her wing and allowed her to live in the facility. In her book "Mufkarot" ("Women Abandoned"), which was recently published in Hebrew by Hakibbutz Hameuchad, and presents a comprehensive study of the lives of prostitutes in Israel and their rehabilitation, Gur devotes a long chapter to the story of Suzy, who decided to talk "to show others that it's possible to be rehabilitated from prostitution, and possible after such a trauma to love life and to love yourself. Today I love myself, I'm concerned about myself. And this concern preserves me. I'm independent, I have children, a partner, a family, love, a new life - things to keep me busy ... We don't know how to work, we're excluded from society, we have a long road in front of us. We have to take care of our souls. We cannot be taken out all at once into a busy life. We can easily fall back again."

In her book, Gur, 50, head of the women's division of Israel's Prisoner Rehabilitation Authority, leads readers through the women's childhood, their decline into prostitution and their attempts at rehabilitation. She says that one day when she was a child, she joined her father, the maintenance director at a center that was run by the Women's International Zionist Organization (WIZO), where the children of prostitutes were staying.

"At the time it was accepted that women who worked in prostitution didn't raise their own children; they were sent to institutions," she explains. "I remember that I came to help in the summer, and I saw women who had come to visit their children. They begged for help, for a social worker. I remember that I said to myself that when I grew up, I would be a social worker. During the course of my research, I understood that writing the book has helped me realize that goal when it came to my desire to help the women I saw as a child."

Gur began her career in social work 25 years ago, in the Neveh Tirza women's prison: "In therapeutic work with the women, I discovered that they had all experienced severe sexual abuse, both physical and emotional, in their childhood, as well as suicide attempts, addiction and prostitution. Professionals involved in treatment ignored the broader context of the phenomenon, which is exploitation of women, and treated them as individual, disturbed people. They preferred to keep everything at a distance so as to avoid dealing with the phenomenon, and considered them wanton women. It was clear that the ostensibly frightening prisoners had been victims from an early age, who ended up in the sex industry and the drug trade. They are victims of society, and Israeli society cannot shake them off and abandon them."

In 1989 Gur established the first hostel in the country for women released from prison, funded by the Prisoner Rehabilitation Authority. She ran it for 12 years. "Most of the institutions that handled female criminals were run at the time by men, and they used harsh methods to reeducate them," she explains.

The failure of the treatment and rehabilitation of women who ended up in prison challenged her, Gur explains, and necessitated the establishment of a framework that would allow for a corrective and curative experience, not based on the principles of hierarchy and punishment as in the past, and which would create a therapeutic space for mutual examination.

The women, who remain in groups of 12 in the hostel for about a year, include former criminals who served time, and substance-abusers that also engaged in prostitution. They are living proof that a person can break out of the cycle of prostitution.

"When we established the hostel, there was a high dropout rate of women from rehab frameworks that were better suited to male criminals and addicts," says Gur. "Professionals said: 'They're bad women, they don't want to rehabilitate themselves, they're happy there. They continue to return to the street and to drugs and prostitution.' It was a vicious cycle that could not be breached. There was a need to establish another framework to show that it's possible. We understood that only through warmth, love, compassion and support can one try to deal with the severe damage that they had experienced."

What is necessary for a rehabilitation program?

Gur: "Frameworks that offer support in all aspects of life: employment, life skills, housing, habits, parenting. Many of the women are mothers - on the face of it, bad mothers, because they had no positive model, just an abusive model or none at all. After many years of prostitution they want to be rehabilitated, and they have a strong desire for a normal life. You have to give them the tools. Many of them are exceptionally intelligent, but they didn't study in school or dropped out, one reason being attention deficit disorders stemming from sexual abuse not treated in childhood. We help them to overcome learning gaps.

"The entire process is based on profound pre-psychiatric, pre-therapeutic work, aimed at achieving basic self-confidence. Being clean of drugs is a central issue, because most of those engaging in prostitution are drug addicts. We work to improve self-image, build a new identity, develop the ability to create boundaries, change destructive relationships that were acquired, and deal with traumatic experiences in childhood, adolescence and prostitution. In addition, we provide a solution to mothers and their children by integrating the children into the therapy programs and empowering the mother, preparing her to take care of the children. We provide solutions including sheltered housing, financial assistance, continuing education, professional knowledge and help in finding a job, plus education in the subjects of health, prevention of sexual diseases and birth control. All the therapy is based on information and experience in treating victims of sexual and physical abuse."

'Broken trust'

On a Friday afternoon a few weeks ago, I sit with Suzy in the park. She is telling me how when she was in her ninth month of pregnancy, her partner forced her to work. "Do you understand? It turned clients on; they're sick. As a pregnant woman to go through 10-15 clients a day was very difficult. Clients of all kinds and all social classes would come. Many people with expensive cars, who are lawyers and executives and celebrities."

Are you able to trust people again?

Suzy: "It was hard for me, my trust was broken. You learn that exploitation crosses social classes, that they're all liars and cheats. What you need most is caring, a hug, help. You're on drugs all the time or suffering from withdrawal symptoms and you have no choice and have to sleep with men for money. And they're disgusting, unclean. They don't shower, they are perverted, insulting, cruel. They abuse you, and their sick and sadistic fantasies emerge during those moments and your soul is crushed."

How did you manage to rehabilitate yourself?

"You don't know that you'll succeed, you just don't know. Today I'm a mother and I have a challenging job, and I have a partner and an egalitarian relationship. I went through eight years of being cured of drug addiction and of rehabilitation from prostitution, and I'm doing well. It's not an easy process, at first I myself didn't know what I wanted. I underwent very intensive therapy with my partner in the hostel. When I arrived there, during the first months my son wasn't with me, I had to become stronger emotionally and physically because I was weak. I had to undergo a process within myself until I was ready for my child to come to me. And then, after three or four months, when I knew that I wanted and was able to do it, I began the process of bringing him. We underwent individual therapy, therapy with the children, therapy with my husband and group therapy. We did a thorough cleansing."

Is it possible to be rehabilitated after years of working in prostitution?

"It most certainly is. Today I respect myself and I'm proud of myself and I appreciate myself. Once anyone could erase me and do with me what he wanted. Today I know how to say no, to set boundaries. I've learned to appreciate myself and I've learned that I'm worth something. If I had then what I have now and what I feel now, I wouldn't have reached those places.

"My cure was a process involving a very long buildup. If you decide that today, I'm getting out of all of this - you'll have the strength to get out. But if you do nothing it won't work. You'll fall into it again and even harder. You have to cleanse everything inside, because you feel guilty all the time. That there's something wrong with you, that you're ruined, defective, bad, the 'other,' different. But when you undergo therapy and talk about everything, you suddenly understand that you're the victim."

Are you overcome by memories of the trauma of prostitution?

"Yes. Less now, but you remember them. You pass by a place where you worked and the memories come. Every time I pass a certain place, I recall being severely raped by a client, who dragged me to the car and beat me and raped me, and I was sure he would murder me. It won't disappear; it's a fear that will always stay with me. Today I'm busy living and my life is full, but I admit that there are days when my thoughts wander to those difficult times. I think that I'll always have a scar in my heart, but I'm trying not to let that interfere with my life."

Did you know other women who wanted to escape?

"The whole time I saw other women who wanted to get away from it, but you need so much help. There's no woman who wants to work in prostitution. When I sometimes pass by in my car and see women who are still in that world it breaks my heart. It's hell. You have to do everything possible to remove women from such situations. It requires profound rehabilitation and help. After all, we don't know anything other than life on the street."

How did you manage to rehabilitate a relationship with a partner?

"We were both released from therapy in the hostel, we rented an apartment. He used to sit in the corner of the living room and I at the end of the room and we had nothing to talk about. Nothing. We rebuilt the relationship. Because I had undergone bad experiences of abuse, I was afraid of love. I was afraid that if I closed my eyes again and trusted a person close to me, there would be vestiges of the past. At first it was very hard for me to sleep with him. It was hard for me that he even touched me. We did couples therapy because I couldn't even enjoy contact, because for me it was something objectionable, humiliating, it would make me angry.

"Now that's behind me, but it took two to three years until I felt that trust had been built and the relationship was developing, until I saw that before me was a person on whom I could depend, who really appreciated me, who really respected me, didn't curse me and didn't raise his hands, and that I had an egalitarian relationship.

"You have to understand, because of the work in prostitution, when I was in the hostel my son used to cry and I couldn't come near him and embrace him. I didn't have the courage, I couldn't fake it and he internalized it. He no longer dared to touch me on his own. Physical contact was a negative thing for me - harassment, something bad, not a positive experience, not connected to pleasure and enjoyment. But I learned to get close to the children and to take care of myself and to embrace others. Today I kiss them and compensate them for all the warmth I didn't know how to give."

In January 2007, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced the allocation of NIS 10 million for a program to deal with prostitution - the first of its kind in Israel. The program, which was developed by Gur and Tzipi Nachshon-Glick, national coordinator for the treatment of domestic violence, is in the process of being established and will offer a wide array of services: from sheltered housing and continuing education to prevention and information programs for high school students. Women who decide to leave prostitution will be offered a shelter where they can stay for a year and receive various kinds of support. Women who are in danger of violence from pimps or clients will be provided with emergency apartments where they will receive not only protection, but medical treatment, psychological help and drug substitutes. Women in the process of leaving prostitution will be able to visit a center for psychological treatment, continuing education and help in acquiring work habits and finding employment.

Women who choose to leave prostitution are faced with a difficult conflict: They must build a new life that is open and free of the secrecy that characterized their past. However, the women worry that revealing the past will lead to severance of relationships or a perception that they are sex objects. Says Ofra, a prostitute undergoing rehabilitation, who is quoted in Gur's book and has been involved in a relationship for two years: "Many women put on a lot of pretenses for their partners. I can't. There are certain gestures that are like flashbacks for me. For instance, when someone acts aggressively .... I don't like it when people do this - it's like the clients used to do. In bed they expect me to be a prostitute. [At first with my partner] I felt I was cheating him. I couldn't sleep with him and couldn't lie to myself. He knows I was a prostitute. I cooked, cleaned, barely hugged him and felt guilty because I couldn't sleep with him."

Today Ofra works as a therapeutic counselor, but is still troubled: "I am worried that a former client will recognize me. It is hard for me even today to grasp that I was a prostitute. I want to forget it. You have to go on ... but [the past] doesn't allow you to do so."

Another interviewee in the book, Michal, says: "When I meet someone, I have a problem with the bit about having been a prostitute. I feel it is a stain, that I am worthless. With my last partner, I didn't mention it ... I always have the feeling that people won't want me because of this whole thing. I have this fear that men will go out with me and be with me, but that no one will take a woman who was a whore. You live with prostitution every day ... I am trying to change, but I will live with this until I die."

'Pain and shock'

To the question of whether a woman who worked for years in prostitution can rehabilitate herself and recover from the trauma, author Gur replies: "Yes, definitely, but not completely. It's impossible to whitewash the reality, it leaves deep scars. The severe damage continues to have an influence, but on the other hand I'm privileged to see women whose recovery has been marvelous and moved me to tears."

In 1998 Gur, together with Iris Vadai, a social worker and clinical criminologist, mentored the first group in the hostel for processing the experience of sexual abuse in childhood. There for the first time she heard women talking specifically about prostitution as trauma.

"Often they are embarrassed to admit they did this work," she explains. "They deny it: 'I didn't work in prostitution, what are you talking about. I stole, I dealt in drugs.' During one of the sessions Tikva (one of the patients) said something that made a mark deep in my heart: 'It's the worst trauma that we experienced. All of us. We don't dare talk about it. I understand that you have to talk about the worst experiences: the humiliation, the pain. How we used to stand there in the market place and negotiate with the clients about what you will give, how much you will charge. It's the most humiliating thing in the world.'"

Why is there such ignorance about prostitution?

Gur: "You and I can't imagine that our bodies could experience what such a woman experiences in just part of an evening: beatings, rape, bruises, lit cigarettes being extinguished on them. It's impossible to imagine that the body or the soul can withstand that, and nevertheless many people present it as though they enjoy it. It's dehumanization."

You often mention that this journey changed your professional and personal life.

"At the height of the research, when I was flooded with stories of the violence of the clients, the sadism, the murder - and with recalling those I knew who are now dead - I was overcome with pain and shock. I would sit in the evening and look at my friends and think: 'Which of them goes to a prostitute? Who travels to Thailand?' There were moments when I felt closer to the women who worked in prostitution. There's something very real about them, there's no artifice. They have seen life from down below, from the bottom, in its most real form. They see Israeli society in its nakedness, in every sense of the word."

How does this exposure to human evil affect you?

"From the age of 30 I've been hard of hearing and I use a hearing aid. In recent years my hearing has been gradually deteriorating. One therapist told me it's because of the stories I hear; apparently my body can't take it any more. But seriously, two months ago we mentored a group for recovery from prostitution that lasted 12 sessions. The women keep asking us to start another group. I'm not capable any longer, because I come out without the strength for anything - in pieces, with terrible nausea and dizziness. I'm a very experienced therapist who knows how to cry on the inside and not on the outside, but it crushes you. Sometimes you cry with them, and afterward go back home to your bourgeois environment and look at the people around you and wonder, 'Could I also behave like that?'"

'Matter of choice'

In her book, Gur unravels many myths about prostitution, the main one being that it's a matter of choice. She cites recent studies from around the world, and emphasizes that the average age of prostitutes is between 13 and 18. In her book she presents evidence that most of the women begin to engage in prostitution due to coercion by a man with whom they have an intimate relationship, on the backdrop of drug addiction, which in most cases the man deliberately caused.

A long chapter in the book is devoted to the role of the pimps. She cites a passage from an interview with one, who described what is needed in a prostitute: "Beauty? Yes. Expertise in providing sexual services? That can be learned more easily than you might think. But the most important thing is to obey. And how do we achieve obedience? You achieve obedience if you find women who were raped by their fathers, their uncles, someone they loved, and they were afraid to lose something, so they didn't dare protest."

"The women fled from home in an act of rebellion," says Gur, "because at home they were abused, and they were caught on the street by pimps, who always exploited their isolation and vulnerability, and need for love. They created a relationship based on fear. I have a huge debate with professionals who for years failed to understand that girls who flee from home are not disturbed - they are fleeing for their lives and they deserve another type of therapy. The pimps are very skilled at finding the girls.

"Today I understand that anyone who does a bad deed has a history of abuse, so it's possible that those pimps experienced abuse and severe damage as children. I can regard them with compassion, too, but in this context of women in prostitution, their cruelty is demonic and hair-raising; they do it out of a profound understanding that if they don't break her spirit in the cruelest way possible, she won't survive in prostitution. They understand that if she is to survive and support them, they have to break her entirely, so there won't be a complete human being there any more. Because the moment there's a complete human being, she'll leave, but as long as she's totally crushed she'll remain their slave."

And after that is it possible to rehabilitate relations of trust in people? In men?

"Yes, but not entirely. Rehabilitation - to a certain point. You can't take a woman who from the age of 0 to the age of 30 was betrayed and exploited by her parents and her immediate surroundings, including the people who were closest to her, and rehabilitate her completely."

Do women want to be rehabilitated from prostitution?

"Most of the prostitutes want to get out of it and rehabilitate their lives. In a comprehensive study conducted in nine countries in 2003, it was found that 89 percent of people working in prostitution expressed a desire to escape from there. But women who try to leave face many difficulties, both because of barriers inside themselves and because of a shortage of the therapeutic-rehabilitative systems they need. The prostitution industry, which involves large sums of money all over the world, constitutes a very strong counterweight to the therapeutic services, which in most cases are not properly organized or budgeted."

What makes it hard for women to leave prostitution?

"There's a genuine danger involved in the attempt to get away from the pimps, in the absence of a safe haven, along with homelessness, addiction to drugs or alcohol, a lack of normal skills for earning a living and life skills, and with rejection and social stigma. The women are socially isolated and have few family or social relationships. After years of work in prostitution women suffer from serious emotional and physical trauma, which is expressed in a profound lack of trust in themselves and others, internalization of the identity of a prostitute, the view that they are sexual objects, identification with the abusers, serious health problems and profound depression."

Can one miss prostitution?

"They talk about missing prostitution, and you have to understand it and not condemn it. Apparently there are things there that compensate in some tragic way. In prostitution there's a false sense of control. If as a child I was raped all my life, now I'm presumably giving my body, but in return for money. It's an illusion of control. They get a lot of compliments about what good prostitutes they are. Something in their self-image works only through prostitution: I'm worth something because I give good sexual services, I'm worth something because people want me. And when they stop being prostitutes they are left with a vacuum, with nothing. As though they're zero, nothing. They don't know how to talk, they're excluded from society, they don't know how to do any other work. And to be worthless is the worst thing, it's a type of death, it's depression. So they return to prostitution, because there they feel wanted, someone is paying NIS 50 for them. It's better than nothing. That's one of the things that I emphasize to the professionals: that this nothingness, if you're not sufficiently sensitive to it, is a mortal danger."