Savage violence is a daily part of life for prostitutes, said Deanne Lawson, who sees the carnage firsthand. Layton Blvd. Those who arrive at the center, a safe place for sexually exploited women, often show up beaten, stitched up, drug addicted and without hope, said Lawson.
The women come from broken homes and live broken lives, some forced into prostitution by boyfriends, parents or other family members, while others were plied with heroin, Lawson said. Many of the women who work on Greenfield Avenue were trafficked from out of state, she added.
Any one of them might not have realized she was a victim of human trafficking until she stepped into a house full of women being held captive. The drugs, dope houses, pimps and johns are all there in abundance, Ward explained. Lawson and a team of volunteers, sometimes including city leaders such as Ald. Jose Perez, hit Greenfield Avenue on Wednesday and Friday nights, offering women dignity bags containing food and self-care supplies. Also inside each bag is a resource card with the addresses of IBC and a drop-in center on the North Side.
Last year the outreach teams made contacts with 90 different women; of those, they saw 58 only once, suggesting that they have moved elsewhere, according to Lawson.
The resource card is subtle for a reason, said Lawson, as pimps and their hired associates often circle the women like vultures, providing a menacing reminder that their job is to sell their body for sex and bring money back to their handler.
