87 notes
19 / 1 / 2012 @ 14:40

Sixteen-year-old human trafficking victim Sara Kruzan was sentenced to life in prison without parole when, after years of sexual, physical and mental abuse, she shot her pimp. When Sara met G.G., the 31-year-old man who would become her pimp, she was only 11. G.G. groomed Sara two years before he raped her. By then, his control was complete and he forced her into prostitution. Sara and the other girls who G.G. exploited were out on the streets from 6pm to 6am, every night. Twelve hours a night, seven days a week, for three years, Sara was raped by strangers so G.G. could profit. After three years, she snapped, and she killed him.

Now 33, Sara has spent half her life in prison as a model prisoner, and has asked Gov. Schwarzenegger for clemency. Sara was arrested and tried in 1994, before anyone was using the term “human trafficking” and when the country was still struggling to understand issues like domestic violence and pimp control that give one person coercive control over another. So there was no expert witness at Sara’s trial to explain how her years of repeated rape, trauma, and abuse had affected her actions. There was no expert to tell the jury that with counseling, support, and care, Sara could heal from her traumatic past and grow to be a strong and moral woman.

Click the link above to read Sara’s story and get involved.

59 notes
7 / 1 / 2012 @ 21:19
(source: projectqueer)

projectqueer:

(TW: cissexist media coverage/language)

By Trudy Ring

 

A Kansas City, Mo., man has been charged with second-degree murder in the Christmas Eve death of a transgender woman.

Kenyan L. Jones, 26, is accused of fatally shooting Darnell D. Pearson, 31, also known as Dee Dee Pearson, The Kansas City Star reports. The paper reports that Jones said he had paid to have sex with Pearson several hours earlier, and after learning she was biologically male, obtained a gun and shot her.

Coverage of the case has upset LGBT activists. Local media have used male pronouns in referring to Pearson, leading to calls from the Kansas City Anti-Violence Project, the Justice Project, and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation to “respect her chosen, lived identity.” Also, according to local blog Tony’s Kansas City, news outlets have characterized Pearson as a prostitute only on the word of her accused killer. Read more here.

If you’re easily triggered in any way, or easily upset, you do not want to read the comment section at the Tony’s Kansas City link.

195 notes
30 / 12 / 2011 @ 01:13

One week. Two car trunks. Four women dead.

Detroit police may be on the hunt for a killer who might be targeting escorts after it was discovered that three of the four women found dead this month are linked to sex-related advertisements on Backpage.com, police said Monday.

The website includes dozens of come-hithers from metro Detroit escorts offering exotic fantasies and erotic playtime.

“This tie for us is disconcerting,” Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee Jr. said Monday. “We’re stopping short of calling it a serial pattern.”

READ MORE by clicking the link above

Please, please reblog this. Please get the word out.

Detroit and surrounding area SWs, please be safe.

thanks to workingoninteresting for bringing this to our attention.