Parents typically don’t talk about it.
Schools rarely talk about it.
Even churches don’t talk about it. (I’ve been attending regularly for 70+ years and I never remember it being mentioned even once.)
We’re referring to teaching young men that buying sex isn’t okay. It’s not a victimless crime. The women aren’t enjoying it like the customers are – no matter what they say.
We also aren’t teaching them that more often than not – the women are being coerced into this work – often drugged and threatened if they don’t bring in a certain amount of money each day.
Fortunately, things are beginning to change with new “john schools” being formed across the country. According to reporting done by Ellen Wolfhurst of Thompson Reuters Foundation News, more than 70 schools are now in operation.
In a typical “john school”, police, therapists, lawyers and survivors tell first-time offenders about the health and legal risks of buying sex and the impact on women who sell their bodies – which many believe is key to ending sex trafficking.
Tonique Ayler, a survivor of brothels, has taught johns – the U.S. term for sex buyers – how prostitutes are often controlled by violent traffickers who hold them against their will, take their money and get them hooked on drugs.
“I wanted them to know how I felt with the things they’d do to me, what my trafficker did to me if I didn’t get enough money from them,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“I really wanted them to feel my pain.”
Initial results are promising, with some men even joining in and helping others raise awareness.
Read the complete report here.
Photo courtesy of Jeremy Perkins on Unsplash.
