Compensation and vulnerability have nothing to do with consent .”
She is staring off in the distance , at a spot in the sky past the tree line .
“ I just kept telling myself , ‘ Suck it up ! Suck it up ! You ’ re a bad girl ! Suck it up .’” She talks about the violence at the hands of sex buyers . She was beaten and thrown out of cars . “ The police wouldn ’ t help you back then ,” she says , “ so you dusted your knees off and walked on . I was beaten so badly [ by a sex buyer ] that my face was literally deformed . Sex buyers continued to buy me without asking if I was OK . Sex buyers don ’ t give a shit if you ’ re being trafficked or if your face is deformed . They ’ re not looking for your face . They still picked me up . Even when I was just trying to get back to my hotel to wash the blood off , I was still being bought and sold .”
“ Education is an empowering tool . No one can take it away — not a trafficker , not a jail cell , no one . It ’ s all yours .”
— Autumn burris ’ 11
BURRIS IS AN ABOLITIONIST . She is adamantly against the current movements for the decriminalization , legalization , regulation , and normalization of prostitution . If you mention the words “ sex work ,” Burris fumes . After the Women ’ s March Movement and the World Health Organization and others started supporting the term and Amnesty International called on governments to decriminalize pimping , brothel-owning , and “ sex work ,” Burris petitioned international organizations and urged Amnesty International to change the language being used in regard to prostitution , and explained why the legalization of prostitution is a human rights atrocity .
“ I am not going to pull any punches ; I want [ prostitution ] to end . Look at Germany , where prostitution is legalized — the women in the brothels there are having sexual contact with up to 60 men per day ,” she says matter-of-factly .
Burris is a fierce advocate for change not only in the dialogue surrounding the sex trade , but in policy and enforcement matters as well . She is a firm believer in the Nordic Model , also called the Equality Model , which essentially penalizes sex buyers , decriminalizes those who are prostituted , and offers support services to help sex trafficking victims exit .
“ The Equality Model is what works ,” she says . “ We need to put the onus via criminal penalties and fines and , in some cases , jail time , on the purchasers of sex , and the traffickers . We need that onus to be legally and appropriately placed . This changes culture , as society begins to deem it unacceptable to buy women and girls . But , most importantly , we need to offer some type of exit services to the prostituted persons . We don ’ t force comprehensive exit services onto people , but we offer them , we invite them .”
The services Burris speaks of are ones that saved her from the sex trade .
“ My exit [ from sex trafficking ] was very unintended ,” she says . “ I intended to continue on being a ‘ bad girl .’ I really thought I was going to die out there . What happened instead was , I got a thing called deep vein thrombosis in my leg . I was in my early 30s . That doesn ’ t medically normally happen . I was 85 pounds . I went into a clinic in San Francisco . They never judged me even though they knew what I was doing . They were nothing but supportive . While I was hospitalized , someone from a substance abuse community came in and said , ‘ We would like to offer you some services .’ I said , ‘ Get out ! I ’ m just trying to get through this .’ But I ended up hitting my bottom , so I became willing to get help .”
She received peer counseling from a woman named Norma Hotaling , founder and executive director of Standing Against Global Exploitation ( SAGE ), a rehabilitation project credited with pioneering the approach for holistic treatment and recovery following prostitution . What ’ s more , the organization was predominantly survivor-run — including Hotaling .
“ Norma looked at me from across a table ,” Burris continues , “ and said ‘ I was there where you are now 15 years ago , and you can be where I am .’ I believed her . She built trust and rapport with me much quicker than a clinician could , because she had been there , done that .” Within six months of leaving the sex trade , Burris became heavily involved in running SAGE administratively and doing local activism . “ That ’ s where I found my passion : being involved in the fight , alongside other survivors , holding sex buyers accountable and ensuring that exploited persons had a way to exit .”
Her time at SAGE led her on a path to become a consultant for law enforcement ,
46 TRITON | SPRING 2019