THE IMPORTANCE OF ADDRESSING DEMAND

In Chicago, 16,000-25,000 women and 6,500 youth are involved in prostitution each year. Studies have shown that substantial percentages of women in prostitution are homeless, survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, and often start selling sex at a very young age. Many of these women also experience mental health and substance abuse issues that go untreated. These individuals face endemic amounts of violence including rape, being threatened with a weapon and physical abuse . They also face a variety of health problems resulting from this violence including migraines, memory problems, sleeplessness, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and loss of appetite. These problems add further complications to physical health problems associated with prostitution such as suffering from sexually transmitted infections and HIV/AIDS.

Research consistently concludes that the institution of prostitution is violent and detrimental to those involved. Yet men continue to prey on the vulnerabilities of individuals in the sex trade, often without knowledge of how their actions negatively impact the individuals they are viewing as commodities. It is precisely this mentality of looking at an individual in prostitution as an object for purchase, rather than a human being, that contributes to customers being the most frequently identified perpetrators of violence across all types of prostitution. Women who reported being regularly involved in prostitution were twice as likely to be victims of sexual assault than women who were not involved in prostitution, and a survey conducted by the Center for Impact Research found a quarter of women involved in street prostitution had been raped more than ten times.

Despite the high number of individuals trapped in the sex trade who experience excessive levels of violence and physical and mental harm, there are almost no programs or initiatives in Chicago geared toward preventing men from purchasing sexual services. Prevention, education and intervention on the demand-side of the sex trade is desperately needed to fight the harms of commercial sexual exploitation.

Understanding this need, CAASE was developed in the summer of 2006 to work toward eradicating the harms of the sex trade through eliminating this demand.