Civil right group overlooks danger to women and community
Andrea works the corner of Broadway and Verona in Newark, not far from the Belleville border.
She walks the block, crossing the street, trying to catch the eye of lone men in passing cars. On one corner is a pina colada stand, where parents bring their children on summer nights. Andrea is part of their urban landscape.
Andrea is 42. She's been a heroin addict since she was 18, just a kid growing up in Union, and "on and off" the streets of Newark ever since.
The ravages of drugs are apparent. She is frail and undernourished; her skin is dry and scabbed. She is missing teeth. After a 10-minute conversation, she begins to nod off, finding the sweet spot in her heroin high.
The trauma of street life is also apparent. Her left eye is swollen because she was punched and robbed by another woman on Grafton Avenue, where she meets her drug dealer. There are small scars on her face and wrists from other attacks.
Her internal wounds are transparent through her melancholy eyes. She hasn't seen her mother or daughter in a year, stopped by a restraining order because of her drug use. She's been mugged, beaten and sexually assaulted. It's part of her life. Earlier this week, she said was forced to perform a sex act at knifepoint.
"The guy wanted to pay $15, I told him $20. He said, 'Okay, then, bitch, you're going to do it for free' and he stuck something sharp in my back," said Andrea, who asked that her last name not be used. "Two girls got stabbed out here in the last two weeks. It's rough. Frankly, I'm surprised I'm still alive."
Last weekend, Newark police arrested 13 streetwalkers and their clients, bringing the total to 66 for the year. It's part of Mayor Ras Baraka's "quality of life" initiative to clean up the city streets and reduce the chaos. It's not just about image; it's about safety for its law-abiding residents and, in this case, the prostitutes, too.
"People don't understand, these girls are also victims," said Anthony Ambrose, the city's public safety director. "They get raped. They get robbed. They get murdered. They get pimped out. They have drug dealers ripping them off. Anybody who thinks they're out there by choice is out of their minds."
Ambrose was referring to last week's statement by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey that criticized the Newark police over the prostitution crackdown. It was just the latest in a series of ACLU condemnations of Newark police in regard to harassment of citizens and lack of transparency in internal affairs dating back to 2010.
In the statement, ACLU director Udi Ofer likened street prostitution to "a low-level violation ... such as panhandling, littering ... and disorderly conduct."
"Using our criminal justice system to harass, arrest and incarcerate consenting adults who agree to exchange sex for money is a poor use of the NPD's limited resources," he said. The statement also used the term "sex workers" for prostitutes and said "sex work should not be criminalized," alluding to legalization.
"This is not 'consensual sex,' " said Dawne Lomangio-DiMauro, director of Dream Catchers, an Atlantic County-based program that has helped 300 prostitutes get off the streets this year through aid and counseling. "There is brutalization. There is coercion. I can't believe he (the ACLU's Ofer) is that much in the dark about prostitution and human trafficking."
She's right. With all due respect, Ofer should take a ride down Broadway or Sherman Avenue, where Newark's heavy truck industry intersects with residential neighborhoods and prostitutes walk the street all hours of the day.
He should meet women like Andrea or Katherine Forgione, another heroin addict reduced to not much more than skin and bones. He should talk to the people who live where they work.
Asked if she felt she was a "consenting adult" or a "sex worker," Andrea laughed.
"Look, I'm not blaming anybody but myself," she said. "But I'm out here because I'm desperate. Nobody chooses to do this. They're forced by their addiction."
Elois Fredericks works Sherman Avenue. She is 50 and has been a street prostitute and heroin addict since she was 13. Thirty-seven years - of stolen childhood, young adulthood and now middle age. A "consenting adult"?
"Baby, I'm out here to support my addiction, plain and simple," she said. "I don't like it, but that's the way it is. But I try to carry myself like a lady. I don't pickpocket guys or do some of the other (stuff) some of these other girls do. That's why they keep coming back."
Forgione, 33, too, is an addict, starting with opiates she took for a cracked spine six years ago. She's been on the streets for 18 months and has been accepted into a rehab program. Until then, she is supporting her habit.
"Given the choice between this and treatment, absolutely, I'd take treatment," she said.
Baraka is sympathetic to these women - but still wants them off the streets.
"We've got social services out there and the health department," he said. "We don't want to lock them up, we want to get them the services and help they need, but the rest of the community shouldn't have to deal with it."
Good point. Maybe the ACLU should turn its attention to gaining the right to get treatment for these women, instead of fighting for their right to peddle their battered bodies and souls.
"The ACLU is a well-meaning organization," Baraka said. "But in this case, they're pushing what they want and not what the community wants."
Hector Reyes and Crystal Valle live with their three young children on a side street off Broadway. At their corner is truck rental yard where prostitutes congregate - it is a block from where Andrea works.
"My sister goes down there to catch the bus and guys pull up on her," Reyes said. "They think she's a hooker. We get them parked right in front of our house, doing what they do. We got to get the kids inside. It's disgusting."
Between Sherman and Frelinghuysen Avenue, cars with single men circle the block in broad daylight and at night.
"All kinds of cars. Expensive cars," said Luis San Martin, who lives on a side street near Sherman in a newer, well-maintained home, gated with decorative fencing. "I have a daughter, 11 years old, I can't let her play out here. I don't want her seeing this."
As San Martin spoke, two preschoolers were playing in a gated yard, while woman who called herself "Jessica" worked the street.
"I'm not out here all the time," said Jessica, a 32-year-old heroin addict from Clifton, whose skin was pockmarked with lesions.
She, too, got hooked on opiates after having her wisdom teeth pulled. When the prescriptions ran out, she turned to heroin and is waiting for treatment in a Bergen County facility. In the meantime, she's trying to feed her addiction and stay safe.
"I had a knife pulled on me. I've been robbed. It's tough out here," she said. "But you gotta do what you gotta do."
Former Gov. Jim McGreevey said he's seen "literally hundreds" of women who turned to prostitution in desperation, as part of his work with female inmates in Hudson County.
"For some, jail was a welcomed respite from the violence in the streets and from their pimps who beat them," he said. "What Mayor Baraka is doing is right. It's a drive to make a more responsible, more aware community and protect these women. The easy thing to do is to ignore it."
Mark Di Ionno may be reached at mdiionno@starledger.com. Follow The Star-Ledger on Twitter @StarLedger and find us on Facebook.
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