Three Awards in Commemoration of Norma Hotaling

Norma Hotaling (1951-2008), founder of SAGE, transcended homelessness, addiction and prostitution to transform her suffering into opportunity and hope for others. Trafficked into prostitution as a child, she remained trapped in it for eighteen years. By sheer personal will, she overcame the vicious cycle of violence, abuse, and exploitation. Determined to create exit strategies for others like her, she spent the next eighteen years of her life creating a safe haven for victims of prostitution and sex trafficking. She also called attention to inequities in the criminal justice system and focused on the demand side of sex trafficking by developing new programs and policies for men and boys. To commemorate the anniversary of her passing on December 17th 2008, we offer three awards paying tribute to Norma's legacy and recognizing individuals continuing her life's work. Together we can celebrate Norma and honor those who are carrying on her vision.

• Survivor-Centered Service Provider Award: $5,000 will be awarded to a person who demonstrates a commitment to providing survivor-centered services to sex trafficking victims here in the United States.
• Demand Reduction Award: $5,000 will be awarded to a person who demonstrates innovative approaches to demand reduction, particularly working with men and boys to changes attitudes and behaviors.
• Josephine Butler Award: $5,000 will be awarded to a person who challenges the status quo and creates new abolitionist policy or approach to sex trafficking in the United States.

Eligibility Requirements

• Nominees must be U.S. citizens or living legally in the United States.
• Nominees must be 18 years or older.
• Nominees must have an abolitionist approach to human trafficking.
• Nominees can head or be part of an organization, but need not be.
• There is no gender requirement for nomination.

About the Awards

Survivor-Centered Service Provider Award

The Survivor-Centered Service Provider Award will be given to a person who has overcome hardship and life struggles similar to those of Norma Hotaling, and demonstrates leadership both in surpassing those circumstances and in working to make a difference in the lives of others hurt in the commercial sex industry. The nominee must display commitment and dedication to helping women and children to escape their previous exploitation and become survivors.

Demand-Reduction Award

The Demand Reduction Award will be given to a person focused on eradicating demand. A key aspect of this Award is reaching young men and boys (and also wome n and girls) to prevent them from becoming part of the sex industry or to help them end their participation in the sex industry. In addition, innovative ways to educate the general public as to how demand creates and fuels sex trafficking will be considered.

Josephine Butler (1826-1906) Award

Josephine Butler, a British feminist and evangelical Christian in the Victorian era was a visionary especially concerned with the welfare of women and girls trafficked into and trapped in prostitution. She was a charismatic leader who spearheaded a long campaign for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts (1886-89), laws that instituted gruesome health checks on females, but not males, involved in prostitution.

This award will be given to a person who demonstrates leadership in abolitionist policy.

Deadline to Apply

Please send all nomination applications before October 1st, 2011. Anyone can nominate, or self-nominate, by filling out an application. All applications are considered based on the eligibility and requirements of each award. Send applications or make inquiries to awards@globalcenturion.org.

Award recipients will be announced and notified on December 1st, 2011.

Application Download (.doc) (.rtf)

Please complete and submit this year's nomination form (.doc) (.rtf) and email to: awards@globalcenturion.org

Eligibility Requirements

• Nominees must be U.S. citizens or living legally in the United States.
• Nominees must be 18 years or older.
• Nominees must have an abolitionist approach to human trafficking.
• Nominees can head or be part of an organization, but need not be.
• There is no gender requirement for nomination.

About the Awards

Survivor-Centered Service Provider Award

The Survivor-Centered Service Provider Award will be given to a person who has overcome hardship and life struggles similar to those of Norma Hotaling, and demonstrates leadership both in surpassing those circumstances and in working to make a difference in the lives of others hurt in the commercial sex industry. The nominee must display commitment and dedication to helping women and children to escape their previous exploitation and become survivors.

Demand-Reduction Award

The Demand Reduction Award will be given to a person focused on eradicating demand. A key aspect of this Award is reaching young men and boys (and also wome n and girls) to prevent them from becoming part of the sex industry or to help them end their participation in the sex industry. In addition, innovative ways to educate the general public as to how demand creates and fuels sex trafficking will be considered.

Josephine Butler (1826-1906) Award

Josephine Butler, a British feminist and evangelical Christian in the Victorian era was a visionary especially concerned with the welfare of women and girls trafficked into and trapped in prostitution. She was a charismatic leader who spearheaded a long campaign for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts (1886-89), laws that instituted gruesome health checks on females, but not males, involved in prostitution.

This award will be given to a person who demonstrates leadership in abolitionist policy.

Deadline to Apply

Please send all nomination applications before October 1st, 2011. Anyone can nominate, or self-nominate, by filling out an application. All applications are considered based on the eligibility and requirements of each award. Send applications or make inquiries to awards@globalcenturion.org.

Award recipients will be announced and notified on December 1st, 2012.

Application Download (.doc) (.rtf)

Norma Hotaling Award Recipients Hall of Fame

2011 Award Recipients

Survivor Centered-Service Provider

Kathrin Hardy, Founder and Director of Freedom From Exploitation based in San Diego, CA. The organization provides peer support and group facilitation to women and girls at-risk or involved in prostitution, human trafficking, and all forms of sexual exploitation. Since it’s inception in 2002, it has served over 1,500 individuals. Ms. Hardy facilitates county-wide groups providing peer support to victims of sexual exploitation, as well as the Survivor of the Streets group (“SOS”) that is a peer-driven group in which one survivor helps and supports another survivor in the recovery from sexual exploitation. Kathrin has also served as a research specialist for The Child and Adolescent Services Research Center (CASRC) for over 16 years, where she conducts interviews with individuals who have been exploited through the sex industry and works to empower and educate those affected that seek to leave the life of sexual exploitation. She is also a survivor of prostitution, homelessness, and drug and alcohol addiction.

I am honored to receive this award reflecting Norma Hotaling’s memory. She was my first inspiration in knowing I was not alone, I was not broken, and that I had self-worth, regarding my own commercial sexual exploitation. She was my mentor in creating Freedom From Exploitation; she gave me faith that I could help someone else that was lost in the chaos of the sex industry. She is forever etched in my heart and it is through her expression of love for others that I do my work. I am truly honored and humbled to receive this award. Thank you and thank everyone that nominated me for this award.

God Bless You All,
Kathi Hardy
Freedom From Exploitation

Innovative Demand Reduction Award

Kaffie McCullough, Program Manager of the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) Program at the non-profit organization, Juvenile Justice Fund, where she addresses key areas known to create vulnerability for the extreme abuse of child sex trafficking. Ms. McCullough also serves as the Campaign Manager for A Future. Not a Past, which works to eradicate demand in Georgia through mobilizing supporters, supporting key legislative efforts, and commissions groundbreaking research that drives strategies of prevention, intervention, and education. She led the groundbreaking “Georgia Demand Study,” which revealed that 7,200 men in Georgia knowingly or unknowingly exploit adolescent females every month. Kaffie leads the Prosecution arm of the Georgia’s Governor’s Office for Children and Families CSEC Task Force, and directs AFNAP’s efforts on We Urge You legislative campaign, which supports the passage of laws to protect victims and prosecute perpetrators. Ms. McCullough also helped create a training program for law enforcement officials to aid in the increase of arrests and prosecutions of pimps and johns in Georgia, reaching 3,000 law enforcement officials in 51 counties.

Thank you so much for honoring me and the work that A Future. Not A Past. has done to eradicate demand for child sex trafficking. When I opened the email this morning, I was totally overwhelmed. I only know of Norma Hotaling and wish that I had had the opportunity to meet her in person because I have heard so many people speak so highly of her. To be getting an award that is in her honor is very humbling to me. I know what her life's journey had been - and the courage, resilience, and leadership that she had shown throughout her life seemed to far outweigh my own. I have been blessed to work alongside many incredible people and know that I would not have qualified for this award without a lot of work from many others. Although the world is big in square miles, the connections of all of us that are working to end child sex trafficking and human trafficking cross those miles and make the world smaller. I am proud to be one of those people, and will continue to stand against those who are tryrng to buy others for their own pleasure and profit. Thank you for all that you do in this arena, and again . . . from the bottom of my heart I appreciate the honor that you have given me.

Josephine Butler Abolitionist Award for Policy Development

Amanda Kloer, Director of Organization for Human Trafficking at Change.org launched the Human Trafficking Cause Community at Change.org, including creating a blog that engages anti-trafficking activists from around the world. As of 2011, the online activist base has grown to nearly half a million activists engaged in anti-trafficking. Ms. Kloer has helped lead over 50 campaigns targeting governmental, corporate, and institutional human trafficking policies from an abolitionist perspective. At Change.org, Amanda has made tangible progress in fighting and eradicating sex trafficking and the related abuses of the commercial sex industry. Amanda promotes the human trafficking abolitionist policy through media and her writings, popular culture, local governments, and her pioneering online and social media activism, including her listserve called Human Trafficking Heroes.

I am very humbled to be honored with the 2011 Josephine Butler Abolitionist Award for Policy Development for my work at Change.org. Josephine Butler was many things I strive to be – a passionate advocate for women and girls, a pioneer of social and economic justice, and a true believer in the beauty and goodness of the world. Josephine dedicated her life to fighting for an end to the abusive, painful, and unjust forced medical examinations of women in prostitution in the 19th century, eventually winning the fight against the legally-sanctioned torture these “exams” included.

But even moreso than her policy victories, Josephine Butler is a person I strive to emulate because she inspired a generation of people – especially young women – to fight against injustice and exploitation in society. In an era when women were rarely empowered as leaders, she took on some of society’s toughest challenges with tenacious grace. At Change.org, I’ve had the privilege of lifting up the stories of people around the world who are fighting slavery, exploitation, and injustice. Some of them, like Josephine, have dedicated their lives to this fight. Others have made incredible changes in their communities while juggling family, work, and other life commitments. All of them are my heroes.

With this award, I will remember and honor the legacy of powerful women like Josephine Butler and Norma Hotaling, who have made the work I do today possible. And I will see this as a call to action to inspire, empower, and encourage future generations of abolitionists to continue to work for a freer and more equal world.

---

2010 Award Recipients

Survivor Centered-Service Provider

Vednita Carter, founder and president of “Breaking Free” and a survivor of sex trafficking, won the Survivor-Centered Service Provider Award. Vednita has built a series of programs providing support services, including emergency services such as food, clothing, shelter, medical assistance, legal assistance to victims of trafficking. Her pioneering work facilitating rescue and rehabilitation for hundreds of survivors is a model for survivor-centered service provision.

I must admit, I am thrilled and humbled to receive such a prestigious award. Being chosen to receive “The Norma Hotaling Award” is an immeasurable honor, as I know many of my respected colleagues must have also been nominated. I personally knew Norma Hotaling for many years and I understand the trials and tribulations that come with being on the front lines of the battlefield concerning the issue of prostitution/human sex trafficking. Norma Hotaling was a trailblazer and she opened up many doors for all of us doing abolitionist work whether they knew her or not.

I have been doing the work of educating and providing direct services for prostituted women and girls since 1989. It is because of my own experiences of being involved in the sex industry that I became involved in rescuing women/girls from this life. In 1989, I began working for one of the only agencies in the country that provided services to prostituted women/girls as a Program Director. It was in developing services for women at this agency, that I realized the great need for such services throughout Minnesota and the entire country. When that agency closed its doors in 1996, I saw firsthand the effect it had on the women being served and I felt led to open Breaking Free.
My main goal for Breaking Free was to provide housing for exploited women and girls. At that time, there were no other housing programs in the country specifically designed for this unique population. I realized that this was going to be a difficult and daunting task however; I knew that most women needed safe housing first and foremost before they could truly benefit from other services. It broke my heart to provide just “band aid” services and I kept seeing the same women over and over. We had no choice but to keep sending her back to her abusive lifestyle because we could not help her find a safe place she could lay her head down and call her own.

I put the bulk of my time and efforts into finding ways to provide housing for this population and by 1998, Breaking Free was able to master lease a twelve unit apartment building and we began providing permanent housing for trafficked women and girls. To date, Breaking Free has a seventeen unit apartment building and runs three transitional houses specifically for prostituted women and girls. This is the only program of this kind in the country (that we know of).

I know that working with women and girls who have been used in prostitution/trafficking is my destiny in this life…. it is what I am meant to do. When I think about the millions of women and children throughout the world who are exploited and have no other options to change the course of their life, I feel compelled to do all that I can do to help them in some way. Like Norma Hotaling, I know and understand the lifelong pain of having to endure and remember how exploitation has impacted my life. Receiving this award confirms that the work that I have been doing for the last two decades is not in vain. This award has given me even more encouragement to continue to rescue women and girls from the drudgery of prostitution and to educate the community at large that prostitution is violence against women and girls.

Once again thank you to the Norma Hotaling Selection Committee for selecting me, Vednita Carter to be the first recipient to receive such a prestigious award.

God Speed,
Vednita Carter
Founder & Executive Director
Breaking Free Inc.

---

Innovative Demand Reduction Award

Rachel Durchslag, President of CAASE, won the award for Innovative Demand Reduction. Her organization, Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation is working to eradicate the demand side of human trafficking in Chicago. A key project is a prevention education curriculum for young boys and girls to prevent them from becoming part of the sex industry. In addition, she has worked to educate the general public as to how demand creates and fuels sex trafficking.

I first learned about the horrors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation after seeing a film in 2003 about a Bosnian victim trafficked to Chicago. Haunted by the psychological and physical trauma inflicted on the victim day after day, I started researching the issue and eventually joined coalitions and worked in Thailand to help young survivors. Though the faces of the girls I met abroad will always stay with me, what was even more impactful was acknowledging the faces I didn’t see: those of the pimps and johns who inflicted this harm.

Norma Hotaling was a champion in helping San Francisco and the entire country understand the necessity of addressing demand. It was because of her research and initiatives that I was able to build an organization solely dedicated to eliminating the demand for prostituted individuals. Norma’s legacy has been a guiding light in my work, and receiving an award in her honor means more than I can find words to express.

Fighting demand requires a multitude of strategies, but most important is to prevent the harm from ever occurring. That is why the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation has created a curriculum for high-school-aged boys so that they have the knowledge and tools to make more informed decisions regarding sex trade patronage and can be part of the solution instead of part of the issue.

Working to eliminate demand is no easy feat, and Norma worked tirelessly to try to do so. It is an honor to be able to continue her work and her vision in Chicago.

---

Josephine Butler Abolitionist Award for Policy Development

Dr. Donna Hughes, professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Rhode Island, won the Josephine Butler Award for her work developing new policy to combat human trafficking. Her fight to link prostitution and sex trafficking and to make prostitution illegal in Rhode Island, as it is in almost every other state, has closed legal loopholes in Rhode Island that attracted johns and traffickers to the state.

Thank you to our donors!