Stop Child Abuse Now (SCAN) - 873

Tonight's special guest is Jody Williams from Las Vegas a survivor of child abuse, rape, domestic violence, and sex trafficking. She has been in recovery from drug addiction and the sex industry as well as mental illness since 1985. In 1987, Jody founded Sex Workers Anonymous - the first program of it's kind to help men and women across this country to exit the sex industry and/or find recovery after having left it. Their hotline has answered over 500,000 calls over the years. What started out as a small meeting in a coffee shop soon exploded to now have meeting across the USA, as well as in five other countries now. Spending five years interviewing 1,000's of recovering prostitutes and sex workers, Jody published the Recovery Guide. This is the her group's version of what is the Big Book in Alcoholics Anonymous. For decades Jody has been fighting back the legal brothels from expanding outside of their small county into both California and Nevada successfully. She put together the first ever press conference about trafficking as it exists within the legal brothels of Nevada in 2008 where she was met with violent retaliation. Many courts are using this program today as part of their probation and alternative sentencing programs, while there are local meeting in many cities and phone meetings for those who wish to remain truly "anonymous" or for those who can't travel. The SWA hotline is the only one answered by a survivor that's not connected with law enforcement. Jody has just come out with an e-book for parents on "What to do if you suspect your child is involved in prostitution" based on years of getting the same call over and over again.