(The Center Square) – Seattle is utilizing a total of $5.3 million to help women involved in commercial sex work get out of the industry.
The Seattle Human Services Department presented its current response to commercial sexual exploitation to the Seattle Housing and Human Services Committee on Wednesday.
The city already dedicated $3.3 million toward survivors of commercial sexual exploitation last year, with funds currently being used for contracted services that entail shelter and housing, mobile advocacy to provide individualized support on scene, education and outreach, and medical advocacy.
Aurora Avenue is a notorious street in Seattle where sex crimes frequently occur, making it an area to target in terms of getting women out of the commercial sex business.
“We have children that are being trafficked and sexually exploited, we have fully-autonomous sex workers, we have the whole spectrum of commercial sexual exploitation and all of that requires a little bit of a nuanced response,” said Alison Forsyth, sexual assault victims advocate for the City of Seattle, during Wednesday’s committee meeting. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all solution for service delivery.”
Approximately $2 million will be added in 2025 in order to expand services, according to Seattle Human Services Department Director Tanya Kim.
However, more financial could be needed to address the problem, she said, adding that “$2 million is wonderful in comparison, especially with the $3.3 million that we currently have, and we’ll probably hear that there is a greater need out there, but we are going to do the best that we can.”
Kim and Forsyth said it’s a long-term effort to remove women from sex work, with an average of seven attempts to convince a woman participating in commercial sex to leave a pimp. The reason is that women see the incentives of doing sex work as a way to make ends meet financially.
“If you know that you could go on Aurora [Avenue] and make a quick $1,500 and you have rent due tomorrow and a child crying, there’s a very real incentive to continue to go back to [sex work],” Forsyth explained.
Forsyth added that the organizations that the city partners with do a “real good job” at identifying and building up the lives of women working along Aurora Avenue.
Seattle City Councilmember Cathy Moore said the city needs to continue to build up affordable housing capacity to relieve the women of cost burdens related to housing.
Moore previously led city efforts to provide the city with more tools to address commercial prostitution and the gun violence associated with it.
Last September, the city council passed Moore’s bill that creates a new loitering law that targets buyers of commercial sex, including charging people who promote loitering for purposes of prostitution in Stay Out of Area of Prostitution zones with gross misdemeanor offenses.
