October 13, 2017
Shedding a Light on the Global Sex Trade and its Victims
Rothko Chapel to host conversation and book signing with author Julie Bindel, Monday, Nov. 6
HOUSTON – Oct. 13, 2017 – The Rothko Chapel is hosting a program focused on global sex trafficking -- and the impossible situation many women around the world face every day.
“Double jeopardy: Women and the Criminal Justice System” a conversation with author Julie Bindel, featuring program presenter, Dr. Andrea Link is slated for 7 p.m. on Monday, Nov 6 at the nonprofit, located at 3900 Yupon in Houston. A book signing will take place after the talk, during a public reception on the plaza.
The event is a continuation of the Chapel’s mission to raise awareness about criminal justice reform globally and locally, illustrating the cultural and personal ramifications of the issue in preparation for the 2017 Óscar Romero Awards.
Bindel and Link will discuss the local and global realities for women impacted by sex trafficking. These individuals are victims and yet also being prosecuted as offenders.
Bindel, an investigative journalist based in the U.K., has written extensively on a range of topics, including violence against women, the international surrogacy trade, mail-order brides, trafficking and unsolved murders.
She writes regularly for the Guardian, New Statesman, the International Business Times and the Spectator. She also frequently appears on BBC and Sky News.
Her most recent book, “The Pimping of Prostitution,” approaches the debate on prostitution legislation head-on, contrasting the lives of women in the global sex trade with the dominant discourse in current academic and liberal feminist debates.
Based on more than 250 interviews with individuals involved in and affected by prostitution around the world, Bindel exposes the harms of the global sex trade and documents the emergence of the “survivor abolitionist movement.”
Bindel is working to challenge policy makers, politicians and international human rights organizations to reject the mythology around prostitution, hold sex buyers accountable and fight for the human rights of women around the world.
Bindle will be in Houston as part of a national book tour.
Link is a Houston-based physician who has developed and implemented Healthcare for the Homeless Houston’s award-winning program, Healthy and Whole. The program provides women exiting prostitution and incarceration with comprehensive trauma-informed health and wellness programming.
In addition, Link researches the psychosocial and medical issues involved in street-level prostitution and lectures on the subject at both the local and national level. She is a clinical assistant professor of family and community medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and works as program manager for Healthcare for the Homeless Houston Healthy and Whole program at Angela House.
The Rothko Chapel’s director of public programs and community engagement Ashley Clemmer explained that “Double Jeopardy: Women and the Criminal Justice System” is a continuation of the organization’s focus on criminal justice reform, initiated with its 2017 Spring Symposium “An Act of Justice—Undoing the Legacy of Mass Incarceration.”
The program is also part of the Óscar Romero Awards program series, which culminates with the award ceremony at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 12.
The Chapel gives out the awards biennially to human rights leaders who share the spirit of late Archbishop Óscar Romero of San Salvador, who was assassinated in 1980 for championing the rights of the poor and fighting unjust government tactics in El Salvador at the time, including torture and assassination.
This year, the Óscar Romero Award honorees are two individuals working internationally and locally for criminal justice reform -- Pierre Claver Mbonimpa, executive director of Association pour la Protection des Droits Humains et des Personnes Détenues (Association for the Protection of Prisoners and Human Rights – APRODH) in Burundi and Houston-based recovery coach and peer-to-peer counselor Kathryn Griffin Griñán.
“Building up to the award ceremony, we’ve planned programming that raises awareness on the topic of mass incarceration and creates context around each awardee’s work,” Clemmer said. “This program will give visitors a context of what is happening in the global sex trade, and how we can respond, featuring noted expert on these issues.”
For more information about the Rothko Chapel’s Óscar Romero Award, visit http://rothkochapel.org/experience/the-oscar-romero-award/.