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| Breaking Free |
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St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
(1) 612 645 6557 |
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Breaking Free was established in St. Paul in October 1996 to serve women
and girls involved in prostitution and other battered women who have been
involved in the criminal justice system. Vednita Carter, former Director
of Women's Services at WHISPER, founded the Afro-centric agency to fight
commercial sexual exploitation by providing direct services for all prostituted
women and girls and by educating the community to recognize prostitution as
systematic violence against women. In the same way, we fight for the safety of
other women involved in the criminal justice system. Breaking Free provides an
alternative to the revolving door nature of social services and the criminal
justice system. Our structure addresses the core issues of women's social,
sexual, and economic subordination underlying violence against women and the
racism which often facilitates it. Breaking Free maintains a contract with the
VOA Women's Correctional Facility in Ramsey County to provided case management
to incarcerated residents there and a contract with Olmstead County to provide
weekly case management to female offenders and consultation and education to
probation officers and social workers. Breaking Free provides services through
offices in inner city St. Paul and in rural Rochester, Minnesota. |
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| Mission Statement |
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| Breaking Free exists to assist prostituted women and girls and battered women
involved in the criminal justice system to escape from violence in their lives. We
provide advocacy services and educational support groups that women may examine the
experience of violence in their lives. We seek to empower women to speak and act for
their own freedom. |
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| Philosophy Statement |
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About Prostitution
Prostitution is simultaneously an obvious fact of society and hidden behind distortions
and inaccuracies. We define prostitution as systematic sexual violence and
oppression against women and girls. This system is institutionalized in the
sex industry: stripshows, nude juice bars, massage parlors and saunas, brothels,
adult book and video stores, peep shows, live sex shows, sex rings, escort services,
mail order brides, streetwalking, and pornography. Each of these forms of
prostitution provides men with unlimited sexual access to women and girls
based solely on their ability to pay.
Prostitution is not inevitable. It is a socially sanctioned tactic for male
power and control. Prostitution is a system of oppression that differentially
targets females for commercial sexual exploitation. It is a direct result of
women’s social, sexual, and economic subordination. The recruitment, coercion,
and entrapment of women and girls into prostitution is facilitated by rape,
battery, child sexual abuse, educational deprivation, job discrimination, poverty,
sexism, racism, classism, heterosexism, and ageism. These systems of oppression
serve as delivery systems; in other words, a woman’s vulnerability as a result of
her oppression increases her vulnerability for being designated a prostitute.
About Prostitued Women
We know that women and girls are coerced and forced into systems of prostitution.
Others become involved in prostitution as a survival response. Prostitution has
been imposed on African American women since the days of plantation slavery.
Being used in prostitution is not an all-encompassing definition of who a woman
was, is or will be. The differences that set prostituted women apart are seldom
of choice or morality, they are simply differences of circumstance. The concept of
choice implies existence of at least two options from which one chooses. The
difference between starvation, abuse, homelessness, loneliness, and death or
prostitution can hardly be called a choice.
Prostituted women and girls live lives of unlimited exposure. They are exposed
to the constant harassment and degradation of verbal assault, to conditions of
weather, to malnutrition, homelessness, disease, incarceration, sleep deprivation,
mental illness, physical and sexual abuse, torture, and murder. There is no safety
or comfort in sleeping or waking hours. Drug and alcohol abuse provide fleeting
moments of escape, only to become addictions that magnify the horror of the reality
in which they are trapped. Unlimited access and unlimited exposure, this is the
‘lifestyle’ called prostitution. The women and girls who suffer unspeakable violence
as a matter of daily life, who suffer distortions of mind and spirit beyond comprehension
are our friends, our sisters, our mothers, our daughters.
About Breaking Free
Breaking Free understands prostitution as a vicious cycle of violence, incarceration,
and addiction. We understand how repeated experiences of violence undermine women’s
and girls’ capacities to avoid further victimization and how prostitution distorts
the lives of prostituted women and girls. We know that women’s prisons are filled
with women who are victims of battery and sexual abuse and that many women in prison
were first arrested on prostitution charges. We know that African American women are
over-represented in prostitution and in correctional facilities. We know that
prostituted women and battered women involved in the criminal justice system
encounter comparable barriers that impede their attempts at change for healthy,
safe living. Above all, we know that these barriers are often impassable, especially
for African American women.
Women and girls who are able to survive the violent and traumatic experiences
of prostitution and battery face a journey of recovery. Breaking Free provides
services for escape, healing, and empowerment designed and administered by
African American women. Breaking Free believes in women’s capacities for reflection
and action and seeks to empower women to speak and act for their own freedom.
The three key principles practiced by Breaking Free are harmlessness, right use
of power, and community building. We promote these principles in our program
concepts: stop harming oneself and others; building community between women;
reclaiming one’s unity with God; reciprocity rather than charity; moving from a
system of victimization to accountability; creating fundamental change rather
than stop-gap solutions.
About the Movement
Women’s human rights are seriously threatened by the massive and growing sex
industry. Breaking Free views commercial sexual exploitation as an integral part
of social practices which deprive women of their human rights. Prostitution,
stalking, sexual harassment, rape, ritual abuse, battering, pornography, sexual
molestation, and incest constitute a continuum of violence against women. Like
all forms of violence against women, prostitution degrades and deprives women of
freedom of movement, threatens women’s safety and security, and creates conditions of
terrorism, war, and slavery. In the same way that our efforts confront the
interconnection between prostitution and all violence against women, we believe
any competent examination of social justice, peace, women’s rights and human
rights must include prostitution.
As agents for systems and social change, formerly prostituted women and battered
women conduct the Breaking Free public education campaign to destroy the pervasive
attitudes and oppressive systems which maintain prostitution, to develop effective
community responses to violence against women, and to overcome the legacy of slavery
for African American women. In addition, prostituted women and battered women are
involved in every facet of planning and policy making in the organization. Breaking
Free strives to be an inspiring force creating and fostering long-term changes for
the benefit of women, their families, and their communities.
Advocacy Services
Staff is involved in legal advocacy, accompanying clients to court and
child protection hearings, information and referrals to appropriate
services and advocating on behalf of clients with other systems and
agencies.
Case Management
Intensive case management is provided. Services consist of information
and referral, follow-up with referrals to other agencies, monitoring
progress with child protection case plans and probation conditions,
and serving as liaison with child protection workers and probation officers.
Community Organizing
Staff does community education and organizing regarding issues of prostitution
with neighborhood block clubs, community activists, elected officials
and public servants, law enforcement, corporate leaders, and county
medical facilities. Breaking Free is a founding member of the Metropolitan
Coalition Against Prostitution.
Educational Support Groups
Weekly educational support groups facilitated by Breaking Free staff
are held at women's correctional facilities and at both Breaking Free
offices and are a combination of women sharing their experiences and
learning about the dynamic of prostitution and other forms of violence
against women. We also offer the Expanded Life Choices course for personal
growth.
Public Policy / Expert Testimony
Staff has assisted a number of committees, agencies, and institutions
with public policy making regarding prostitution and prostituted women
and girls. Staff serve as expert witnesses in court cases and legislative
hearings.
Six Month Mentoring Project
Breaking Free implemented an intensive mentoring program to reintegrate
women and girls into the community by assisting them in making fundamental
change for self-supportive, safe living and developing leadership at
Breaking Free, in their families and communities.
Breaking Free has developed a 6 month mentoring program to reintegrate
prostituted women and other battered women involved in the criminal
justice system into the community and assist them in developing leadership
in their communities and in their lives. We have designed a program
according to ideas generated by women from these populations to assist
women in overcoming barriers of low self image, lack of education, nonexistent
or limited job history, and isolation that keep them trapped in systems
of violence and the penal system. The mentoring program seeks to assist
women to escape violence in their lives; to broaden their social, spiritual,
educational, and professional opportunities; to promote self admiration
and personal worth; to help women realize the value of their experiences
and wisdom; to support their involvement in peer education and encourage
advocacy on behalf of other women who have been victimized by violence
against women.
Each woman attends 2 two hour groups per week on topics of personal
empowerment, personal relationships, daily living responsibilities and
meets with the coordinator for a 1 hour consultation. Guest speakers
also conduct groups on conflict resolution, relaxation and meditation
techniques, money management, job seeking skills, and professionalism.
Breaking Free recruited mentors from the Skyway Business and Professional
Women's organization who completed training on our mission, philosophy,
ethics, and clientele issues before introducing the mentors to the women.
Additionally, Breaking Free holds monthly follow-up meetings with the
mentors and provides technical assistance as needed.
After being involved in the 6 month mentoring program, women interested
in advocacy or activism will be encouraged to participate in the Breaking
Free volunteer training. In turn these women will intern or co-facilitate
groups as role models and peer educators to other prostituted and battered
women. Women in the program organized to create a seat to represent
prostituted women on the Minnesota Commissioner's Task Force on HIV/STD
Prevention and are involved in the Metropolitan Coalition Against Prostitution.
Training
Breaking Free staff has trained women's programs, social service providers,
community activists, health care providers, and law and court personnel
on issues specific to prostituted women and girls and battered women
involved in the criminal justice system.
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