What people are saying about Prostitution Research & Education (PRE)

Prostitution Research & Education is a 20-year-old abolitionist organization offering original research, education and consultation about one of the compelling human rights issues of our time. Through the years, PRE’s work has been used by survivors, advocates, policymakers, researchers, and activists to develop programs, write grants, advocate on behalf of those in prostitution and trafficking, develop policy, and for training. PRE recently conducted an informal survey of organizations and individuals in the field comprised of advocates, government officials, law enforcement, academics, media, and other activists to record the impact of its work.

PRE is…

PRE is absolutely central. Reliable research, trustable facts, honest policies.
PRE offers what every activist needs to make social change!

Robin Morgan

Author and Activist, New York

I have supported the work of Prostitution Research & Education for 25 years, since I worked at a survivor-led program for women exiting prostitution. The 2024 article about prostitution and torture is the most brilliant article I’ve read about prostitution in a long time. It’s the truth, the uncut version about prostitution and torture.

Autumn Burris

Founder Survivors 4 Solutions, USA

PRE and Melissa Farley’s support have been critical in shaping Kafa’s work on prostitution in Lebanon and the Arab world. I used PRE’s resources to inform the research my organization conducted, and to build sophisticated and well founded arguments against the system of prostitution and to advocate for the rights of the victims. Melissa Farley offers the necessary ammunition to resist an ever-growing culture of commodification of women and girls.

Ghada Jabbour

CoFounder, Kafa (Enough) Violence and Exploitation, Beirut

PRE is a leader in the field and has a voice that needs to be amplified and multiplied. PRE should develop into a national think tank.

Taina Bien-Aime, J.D.

Former Executive Director of Equality Now

PRE is doing a fabulous job providing evidence that prostitution IS violence, IS oppression, IS incredibly harmful, and that the consumers/buyers/pimps are creating an incredible amount of harm.

Kristen Houser, MPA

Vice President, Communications & Development, Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape

The research of PRE is of immeasurable value to survivors of prostitution, as it validates the truth about prostitution that is known by survivors themselves. PRE helps to counteract pimps’ lies about prostitution. It is impossible to imagine a conference, policy discussion, or meaningful political meeting today that addresses the sex industry without using these valuable studies

Luba Fein

CoFounder, Voices of Israeli Prostitution Survivors, Tel Aviv

PRE’s prioritization of the most marginalized of women–indigenous and survivors–is very similar to Coalition Against Trafficking in Women/Asia Pacific’s priorities.

Jean Enriquez

Former Director, Coalition Against Trafficking in Women –Asia Pacific, Manila Women

PRE is essential to help “paint a picture” of why the issue of exploitation is so complex.

Rosario Dowling

Regional Director-Northern California, California Against Slavery

PRE is a trusted and respected source of information and data useful for informing tribal officials about prostitution.

Rudolph C. Rÿser

Chair of the Board of Directors & Executive Director, Center for World Indigenous Studies, Olympia Washington

PRE’s role in the movement is essential. What gets measured gets done. We are able to have real discussions about prostitution and trafficking because there exists a serious research arm to this work.

Sonia Ossorio

Former President, National Organization of Women, New York

PRE and Dr. Melissa Farley’s pathbreaking research on prostitution has profoundly shaped US law and public policy on sex trafficking, from Capitol Hill to state legislatures. The material available on Prostitution, Research, and Education (PRE) has been crucial to every breakthrough advocates have had for almost 30 years..

Eleanor Kennelly Gaetan, PhD.

Vice President & Director of Public Policy National Center on Sexual Exploitation

PRE is an international leader in creating victim-centered advocacy and support for women and children bought and exploited for the sexual use of others.

Margaret Baldwin, J.D.

Former Executive Director, Refuge House, Tallahassee

PREs work is one of the building blocks that laid the foundation to the Nordic model. PRE is able to speak truth to power where the people in power no longer can dismiss men’s violence against women as an individual issue but has to acknowledge the structural and intersectional violence of prostitution.

Margaret Baldwin, J.D.

General Secretary of Nemo, Borås, Sweden

PRE is a leader in the movement to end trafficking and prostitution. From their incredible research to innovative direct actions, PRE constantly creates best practices for how the movement can continue to fight to end sexual exploitation and harm.

Rachel Durchslag

Founder and Former Executive Director, Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation

There are so many horrible misconceptions about prostitution. Education is the key and PRE is very important. The website plays a key role in lighting the darkness that surrounds this issue.

Roger Truman

Young Special Agent, FBI, retired; Part-Time Professor at University of Nevada, Reno; Officer of the Nevada Coalition Against Human Trafficking; Private Investigator, Consultant, Instructor

PRE is one of the primary organizations that understands and knows this field. Melissa Farley is one of the only people in this field to really go in depth, to go deep, in detail and who really knows about prostitution.

Vednita Carter

Founder and Former Executive Director, Breaking Free, Minneapolis

PRE fills a critical gap in research in showing the connection between prostitution and sex slavery.

John Miller

Former Ambassador at Large on Modern Day Slavery 2004-2006, Visiting Scholar at Institute for Government Studies, UC Berkeley

I appreciate PRE’s focus on prostitution as systems of racial and gendered oppression. PRE serves as both Iconoclast and Interlocutor in critical dialogues for justice.

Hiroshi Fukurai

Professor of Sociology & Legal Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz,USA

People Use Our Work for:

I used PRE’s work…

to inform our thinking as we develop the documentary film, “Refuge: Caring for Survivors of Torture.

Ben Achtenberg

Project Director, The Refuge Media Project

for presentations ….and for legislative recommendations.

Rachel Durchslag

Executive Director, Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation

for a task force on police responses to prostitution and to educate interns.

Vanessa Kelly

PsyD, Associate Clinical Professor, UCSF Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine

for teaching a class on the Psychology of Trauma.

Eileen Zurbriggen

Ph.D., Professor, Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruzto

to promote United States 20th century leadership of the abolitionist movement around the world. And to explain the harms of sex slavery in different countries I visited when I was Director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the United States Department of State (2002-2004).

John Miller

Former Ambassador at Large on Modern Day Slavery (2004-2006), Visiting Scholar at Institute for Government Studies, UC Berkeley

to write stories on prostitution, trafficking and related stories for Newsweek and Daily Beast.

Leslie Bennetts

Special Correspondent

to advocate with the City of Seattle for changes to an intervention for sex buyers.

Peter Qualliotine

Director, Men’s Accountability Program, Organization for Prostitution Survivors

for up to date information about the links between prostitution, trafficking and inequality.

Janine Benedet

Associate Professor, Director, Center for Feminist Legal Studies, University of British Columbia

to show how prostitution affects native peoples in our public presentations.

Rudolph C. Rÿser

Chair of the Board of Directors & Executive Director, Center for World Indigenous Studies

for speaking out as a survivor. PRE’s research confirmed what I knew–women in prostitution suffer from the same symptoms of trauma as victims of state-sponsored torture. It became so much easier to speak out because I could refer to this study. PRE’s work put a floor beneath beneath me –they gave me a place to stand.

Stella Marr

Activist, Survivor of prostitution

for educating community and faith based leaders on myths about legalizing prostitution and for lectures in Women’s Studies, Human Trafficking, and Family Violence.

Sandra Morgan

Director, Global Center for Women & Justice, Vanguard University of Southern California

for my writing as a book author and in workshops for professionals.

John Briere

Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California and Director, Psychological Trauma Program, Los Angeles County –USC Medical Center

to inform philanthropists about the realities of prostitution, pornography and trafficking.

Twiss Butler

Board Member, Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, National Organization for Women

for statewide training for California law enforcement and first responders.

Lt. Derek Marsh

Management Services, Westminster Police Department for education throughout the state of Nevada.Terri Miller, Program Director, Frederick Douglass Family Foundation

to educate and lobby for passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection and Justice Act in New York and for meetings with reporters.

Sonia Ossorio

President, National Organization of Women, New York

for drafting legislation and explaining why changes are necessary with the Dept of Justice,Congress and Trafficking in Persons office.

Shelby Quast

Senior Policy Advisor, Equality Now, Washington, D.C.

for training leaders of rape crisis programs and for developing a position paper on prostitution and trafficking that will shape policy and services for victims in Florida and to guide our program services at Refuge House where we serve 3,000 victims of abuse every year.

Margaret Baldwin J.D.,

Executive Director, Refuge House, Tallahassee

as part of an international debate on prostitution.

Jean Enriquez

Director, Coalition Against Trafficking in Women –Asia Pacific

to educate lobbyists, to introduce legislation,to provide evidence to our members that prostitution is sexual violence.

Kristen Houser

Vice President, Communications & Development, Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape