In December, the Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition hosted a rally on the steps of the Civic Center.  Speakers, many of which hold offices such as member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, spoke on behalf of immigrants and policies that they want to see changed regarding their rights.  They discussed topics like education programs (ESL training), adapting to culture, and other needs of immigrants and the injustices that they may face.

This past month at Because Justice Matters, we’ve been collecting donations along with combining our own resources to provide a generous amount of gifts for the women of La Casa de las Madres shelter. 

We were able to obtain a wide variety of gifts for the women such as bath and body gift sets, pajamas, robes, slippers, socks, scarves, hats, gloves, journals, and alarm clocks.

It was such a privilege to be able to see these women provided for and to have a hand in such a wonderful cause.

Thank you to all the individuals, churches, and organizations that gave your time, energy, and resources to help make this possible.

Merry Christmas from  Because Justice Matters!

The city of San Francisco voted and decided against Proposition Measure K! Although at times standing in the wind and rain handing out “No on K” fliers was a bit draining, I believe our efforts as well as those with No on K, and the others that made themselves available to fight K, DID make a HUGE difference! The investigations of massage parlors and the prosecution of pimps and traffickers can continue! We just again, would like to state that this was not an issue of us being anti-prostitution protection, or even a prostitution issue, but a trafficking issue! And now we longer have to worry that our current problem in San Francisco of trafficking will explode. Hopefully this will light more of a fire in the people of San Francisco to do what they can to come against this problem. And I would just like to say that I am personally just thankfully that now SAGE (Stand Against Global Exploitation) is no longer in danger of having funding cut or classes they offer removed. Overall I think we can all just be thankfully that San Francisco will not become an open door city to modern day slavery!

I would like to urge you all to make sure on future ballots to always do your research and make sure you know what you are voting for! Because just like Prop. K, it is easy to be deceived by a well written proposition and one good point that someone makes. Dig deep, be informed, and always vote!

Article—Bay Area News: Voters Choose Not to Legalize Prostitution in San Francisco:

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/elections/local/Voters_Choose_Not_to_Legalize_Prostitution_in_San_Francisco.html

Ten months ago when I first came to San Francisco, I was introduced to trafficking through hearing about the film “Call & Response”. At that time it was still in process of being made; now it has been released in some theaters and it turned out to be an incredible film, well made, good music, good information, very moving! Before I even actually saw it, it moved me to find out exactly what trafficking is and where it is. A couple of my friends I walked through the city that night and realized how many massage parlors are in our neighborhood alone. Quite honestly it is a disgusting amount! This is not a proven fact, but my guess is there is a lot of trafficking just in the 6 by 6 block community I live in.

  After realizing this my friends and I decided to do what research we could to uncover which of these parlors do have trafficked women held against there will, and which are really just brothels with women stuck in prostitution but choosing to be there. We mapped the Tenderloin, and began to keep track of The Guardian, Redbook, and made some phone calls to the actual parlors. Much of what our interns are doing now.

Human slavery IS an issue today, it DOES exist. It’s right here in our city, and many other places in our country in other forms besides sex slavery. This cannot be ignored. Why is our world so driven by money! Quite honestly it drives me crazy! If money was not put on this pedestal as the golden key to life and happiness would human slavery still be an issue today? Why do people sell people? Because people don’t run out, because people can continue to make you money, once u sell a drug it’s gone, you have to buy more to sell more. But a person you can buy once and continue to sell and sell and sell. Money should not come above the value of human life! For anyone who reads this I just want to challenge you to evaluate where money stands in your life. Money is not evil, or well it doesn’t have to be. But when we place money higher then people, it does. Even if you’re not trafficking people into the U.S. money can still consume you and bring more stress and upset to your life then needs there needs to be.

Why do we all care so much about it? I include myself in this, I personally have to keep myself in check on where I am holding money in my life, and where I am putting to much importance on what money can give me. But really think about it, if we could all just decided to give like 5% of our earnings to help people in poverty or out money towards people’s education that can’t afford it. Couldn’t we solve a lot of the problems we have here in the U.S and even beyond our own country? If we could all just choose to think of other people over ourselves what could that do to the money crazy world we live in?

Anyways, I’m going to get off my soap box now! Basically, I care about human life, I believe that every single person has value and has a purpose. When I hear about human slavery, families stuck in poverty, or women beat up in there own home and told they are worthless, I just don’t like, there’s a lot of injustice in this world and I hope “Because Justice Matters” can be a part of bringing justice to the places where people are held captive in the dark, they deserve to live in the light too.

-Katie, BJM Staff

At one convenient store, right around the corner from a massage parlor we were lucky enough to find an English speaking woman who worked there. She was familiar with human trafficking, and thrilled to receive our poster, compact mirrors, and chap sticks. And to me, knowing that she could bring help to one victim made the whole afternoon worth it.

But more importantly we were trying to spread awareness to businesses that might come in contact with women who might have been trafficked. We explained what trafficked women might look like, and also gave out compact mirrors, and chap sticks that the businesses can pass onto who women they suspect could be victims of trafficking. These items have contact information printed on them so that if the women decide they want help, they know who to call.

At first I found going out and talking to these people intimidating. I’m not used to just walking up to people and asking them about trafficking. I was scared that maybe I wouldn’t be able to answer there questions or that they wouldn’t make time to talk to me, but neither of those things were actually a problem! The language barrier however was a problem for my group. Only a few people spoke English, because we were in China town, so often all we could do was hand them a poster and some brochures to look at. Thank fully SAGE was well prepared with compacts, chap sticks, brochures, and posters in numerous Asian languages! But I do feel like even if we were able to discuss trafficking with them they did understand what we were doing, and what trafficking is.

Even though I have only been interning for BJM for about six weeks, it’s hard for me to remember that there was a time that I had never heard of human trafficking. So when we went out to talk to people in local businesses about the subject, I was surprised to see how many people had never heard of the term. We worked with some members of SAGE (Stand Against Global Exploitation) we went to various businesses in China town that surround massage parlors that are suspected of holding trafficked women. When talking to the businesses we promoted a 24-hour social service line called HELPLINK 2-1-1, anyone can call at anytime and they operate in 160 languages, by calling this number people can get help with food, clothing, and even child care.

http://www.sagesf.org/

-Julie