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The Twin Cities will see an influx of 35,000 visitors during the Republican convention Sept. 1 to 4.
Vednita Carter, executive director of Breaking Free, a St. Paul organization that helps women escape from prostitution, told the Star Tribune that talk among prostitutes is that there will be a lot of money to be made.
However, St. Paul police spokesman Tom Walsh said his department discussed the issue with police in New York and Boston, the site of the 2004 political conventions.
“And what they have reported to us is that is that there is not an increase in that kind of traffic,” Walsh said.
Nevertheless, activist groups in both the Twin Cities and Denver, site of the Democratic National Convention, have been collaborating based on the idea that the conventions will give them a wider platform to spread their anti-prostitution message.
That message? That prostitution is not a victimless crime. They say many prostitutes started life as abused children or teenagers.
“We want to raise awareness,” said Carla Ferrucci, director of public policy and prevention for the Minnesota Coalition of Battered Women, who has been helping to coordinate the campaign. “It’s violence against women,” she says of prostitution. “Girls are recruited as young as 12.”
The men who pick them up should be held accountable, she said.
The group plans to distribute anti-prostitution fliers and is raising money for a billboard campaign.
Still, even some familiar with the sex trade are skeptical that the political conventions translate to a jump in business.
“In 2004 there were all sorts of media reports that sex workers were coming from all over the country to New York City because there were going to be so many potential customers during the Republican National Convention,” said Juhu Thukral, director of the Sex Workers Project at New York’s Urban Justice Center. “The reality was that a lot of (prostitutes) we heard from said they were leaving because there was going to be such a strong police presence, and so many people coming to town.”
