Sisters project: A Milwaukee partnership to address prostitution

Background: Most women are coerced into entering the sex trade as minors and use the income to support a drug habit, to stave off homelessness, or as a general means of survival.  They suffer extremely high rates of victimization on the streets.  Yet the journey out of prostitution, due to the complexity of contributing factors, is challenging.

Purpose: The goal of the Sisters Project is to prevent violence against women involved in street-level prostitution by employing a harm-reduction model as we help them to exit permanently from the sex trade. 

Methods:  The project focuses on women engaged in street prostitution in the predominantly African-American neighborhoods on the west side of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a city with the fourth highest poverty rate in the nation.  The project is a collaborative effort including the Benedict Center, Medical College of Wisconsin, Reformation Lutheran Church and the Milwaukee Police Department.  Activities included acquisition of law enforcement data to determine the scope of the problem in Milwaukee.

Discussion:  The Sisters Project’s approach is innovative in addressing the health disparities of an oft-dismissed, vulnerable, and underserved population facing an unacceptably high risk of violence.  We seek a paradigm shift in the ways that law enforcement, service providers, health care practitioners, and the public respond to women in sex work.  Rather than framing prostitution as a criminal matter, our project seeks to resituate it locally as a public health issue—specifically, as violence against women.