UPDATED: In Memoriam: Norma Hotaling, Founder of SAGE, Standing Against Global Exploitation
Dec 19th, 2008 by admin
Isn’t this a wonderful photo of Norma Hotaling? She was only 57. A celebration of Norma’s life will be held this Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2008, 9:30am at:
The SAGE Project, Inc.
1275 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 905-5050
She was a giant. As with so many others recently, we have lost a hero to womankind at such a young age! Sincere thanks to Donna Hughes/DIGNITY for the photo, the very fine and inspiring obituary below, and the updates.
Norma Hotaling, founder and Executive Director of the SAGE Project in San Francisco died on December 16, 2008 following a short illness.
Norma Hotaling transformed her own experiences in prostitution into a mission of social justice for her sisters and brothers who had also been trafficked and exploited in prostitution. As a direct result of Ms. Hotaling’s life work, many now have a profound understanding of the harm of prostitution and the responsibility of buyers for that harm. Through Ms. Hotaling the voices of survivors of commercial sexual exploitation reached the forefront of the global movement against human trafficking. Her life and her work dissolved myths about prostitution, proving it to be the world’s oldest oppression rather than a victimless crime. She was a beacon of courage and an extraordinarily effective champion of victimized and marginalized women,children, men and transgendered people.
At the SAGE Project, Ms. Hotaling created a service agency for all survivors of sexual exploitation. SAGE especially welcomed those who had been prostituted and trafficked. Her model of peer-led services offered by those who had “been there, done that” as she explained, inspired people in prostitution who felt that they previously had no hope. Many survivors of prostitution who arrived at the doors of SAGE are emphatic that their lives were saved by the example of Ms. Hotaling’s life and her affection for them as people who she deeply cared for.
Ms. Hotaling founded The First Offender Program , a prostitution diversion program run jointly by SAGE and the San Francisco District Attorney’s office. Informally referred to as the “johns’ school,” the First Offender Program continues to offer educational programs to men arrested for soliciting prostitution, teaching them about prostitution’s harms to women, the community, and to their own health. Hotaling’s model of the “johns’ school” is now used throughout the United States and in Canada, South Korea, and England.
Ms. Hotaling led The SAGE Project’s staff while she also frequently spoke at conferences and provided counsel to public policy experts. She frequently testified for the United States Congress and the California legislature about the harms of prostitution and the needs of those in it. Although based in San Francisco, Ms. Hotaling’s work took her around the world where she worked with governmental leaders and agencies. She worked tirelessly with journalists in the print and broadcast media to help create a comprehensive picture of prostitution.
Ms. Hotaling was a board member and leader of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW), one of the many organizations she worked with. She received numerous awards for her work. In 1998, SAGE and the First Offender Prostitution Program were recognized as one of the best examples of innovation from among more than 1,800 nominated programs. The programs were given the Innovations in American Government Award jointly from the Ford Foundation, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and the Council for Excellence in Government.
In 2000 SAGE’s peer education program was celebrated with the Peter F. Drucker Foundation Award for Nonprofit Innovation.
In 2001, Ms. Hotaling was honored with an Oprah’s Angel: Use Your Life Award which brought national recognition to SAGE. Ms. Hotaling accepted the award on behalf of SAGE on the Oprah Winfrey show.
In October 2008, Ms. Hotaling was most recently honored by the Center for Young Women’s Development who gave her the Cheyenne Bell Award honoring her work with young women escaping San Francisco street prostitution.
When she spoke, Norma Hotaling used experiences from her own prostitution that moved her audience to tears while educating them about the cruelty of prostitution. She made it clear that almost everyone in prostitution had a burning desire to get out. Yet when Hotaling herself was struggling to escape prostitution, the only available services were inside jails.
At a San Francisco Health Department hearing on harm reduction Ms. Hotaling described the time in her life when she was turning tricks, was addicted to heroin and was prostituting for a pimp who frequently beat her but to whom she was attached. She described having approached a San Francisco health department program to ask for help and they told her she should resolve her heroin addiction. In the meeting, Ms Hotaling said, “You don’t understand, I said I need help.”
Norma Hotaling dedicated her life to what is called harm elimination in today’s public health language: providing women, men, and the transgendered in prostitution not only condoms and emotional support but services informed by an understanding of the multitraumatic nature of prostitution. Rather than assuming that exit from prostitution was impossible, as some allege, Ms. Hotaling fought for the right of those in prostitution to the same quality of life that others in society have.
Ms. Hotaling’s legacy is that the help she herself sought is now far better understood by public health agencies, even if budgets are not yet offering those services to the thousands of people in prostitution who seek to escape it. Her pioneering work lives on in the expansion of services for trafficked and prostituted people, and in the requirement of accountability for those who buy and sell human beings. The loss of Ms. Hotaling is felt and mourned by the thousands of people she touched in her too brief life.
Born July 21, 1951 and raised in Palm Beach Florida, Ms. Hotaling attended San Francisco State University. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in Health Education. She is survived by her mother, Norma Louise Hotaling, her brother James Hotaling, and her beloved companion dog Emma. A public memorial will be announced for January. In lieu of flowers, donations are requested to SAGE Project, 1275 Mission Street, San Francisco 94103, in honor of her life and work.
The world is a sadder place today for we have lost a sister. Not to the streets or to a murder or to a drug but to a disease that she bravely fought. Just like she fought for the women, men and children who have been the cast offs of the world…she fought to make this a better place to live and has left her mark on it. Norma took chances in life just like she did in death…she did it with dignity, love for others and most of all with a fight.
She fought the biggest battle of her life these last few months but did not do it in vain…Her sisters and brothers will miss her intelligence and her guts to make decisions that were not always the way others wanted it to be. She said what she wanted and because of this she became a leader, not only for the women on the streets but also for those who wrote laws and for those who carried them out. She could walk the streets talking to drug addicts and prostituted people and she could walk the hallowed halls in D.C. speaking with Senators and Congresspersons garnering the respect of all.
Norma helped pave the way for all survivors to hold their heads high and to love who they are and be proud of what they now do…make changes in the lives of those who have been trafficked both domestically and nationally.
There is no joy today, only that she will no longer have to suffer. In death she also showed us how to move forward gracefully. She will be missed but never forgotten.
Kathleen Mitchell
Founder/DIGNITY
Norma Hotaling, founder of SAGE, Standing Against Global Exploitation, passed away suddenly Wednesday, December 17, 2008. Friends say she had been doing fairly well but took a turn for the worse over the past couple of days. I blogged about Norma here. We will miss her so much.
Heart
No words can express how much Nroma will be missed.
She gave me new wings to fly………
Her legacy;hope;strenght and spirit will always live.
We too have the obligation to Stand Against Global Expolitation!!
God Bless you Norma
Rest in peace, Norma Hotaling.
We will always remember Norma for her beautiful spirit and courage to fight.
rest in peace.
I am so saddened about this. I have very few words of how much her lfe and work inspire and give me one route out of my past.
I may not of meet Norma Hotaling, but she is deep in my heart.
Rest in Peace.
From today’s San Francisco Chronicle, h/t DIGNITY Listserv:
Meredith May, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, December 20, 2008
San Francisco Chronicle
Norma Hotaling, a nationally recognized advocate for the sexually exploited, died in her San Francisco home Tuesday after a short battle with pancreatic cancer. She was 57.
Ms. Hotaling, tapped by Oprah Winfrey’s “Angel” award program, overcame her own childhood sexual abuse and drug addictions to become an innovative and passionate leader committed to ending the commercial sex trade, coming up with unique social programs that have since been replicated nationwide.
Her work led to a 2004 California law that allows prosecutors to charge pimps and johns with child abuse if they prostitute a minor.
She co-founded the nonprofit Standing Against Global Exploitation project, known as SAGE, in 1992 to serve as a resource, advocacy and counseling center for sexually exploited men and women.
Four years later, she helped the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office create a first-of-its-kind class for johns caught soliciting prostitutes. The First Offender Prostitution Program, now replicated in 40 cities, allows first offenders to have their charges dropped if they pay a $1,000 fine and participate in a six-hour course taught by sex trafficking-experts, neighborhood activists and doctors who discuss the downsides of prostitution.
The program was lauded in a 2008 U.S. Department of Justice study, which concluded that men who attended San Francisco’s “john school” were 30 percent less likely to be rearrested for soliciting a prostitute than men who did not attend such a program.
Ms. Hotaling was instrumental in opening a six-room safe house in San Francisco for girls trying to leave prostitution and stay in school. The house, located in the Outer Sunset neighborhood, opened in October 2005 and was one of only a handful in the country until city funding cuts forced its closure in 2007.
“Her life in many ways could have been considered a tragic one, but she turned a tragic life into the life of a hero,” said San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, who collaborated with Hotaling on the law to bring child abuse charges against pimps and johns.
“Almost more important than the law was what Norma did to demystify and stop romanticizing prostitution. She got people to understand that women and girls are being treated as commodities,” Harris said.
A board member of the international Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, Ms. Hotaling used her personal history as a homeless prostitute in San Francisco as a way to educate others about the harms of the sex trade.
She was often called on to speak at conferences, counsel public policy experts, and testify before the U.S. Congress and state Legislature, providing a uniquely informed viewpoint. Months before her death, state Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, D-San Francisco, presented Ms. Hotaling with a proclamation for her advocacy work.
Although she was struggling with her illness, she led a successful opposition to Proposition K on the November ballot, which would have decriminalized prostitution in San Francisco.
“She used her own experiences to educate advocates, policymakers, government officials and other survivors by calling prostitution a form of violence against women rather than a job,” said Melissa Farley, director of San Francisco’s nonprofit Prostitution Research & Education.
She grew up in Palm Beach, Fla., where she earned an associate degree at a Florida college to work as a cardiopulmonary technician. Nearly two years later, she moved to San Francisco, where she struggled with drug addiction and homelessness until she eventually found a treatment program that worked at the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics.
At 40, Ms. Hotaling earned a bachelor’s degree in health education from San Francisco State University, graduating magna cum laude in 1992. She found work in an outreach program that helped prostitutes, and then formed her own nonprofit.
By 1996, San Francisco State had put her on its list of outstanding alumni.
“Her death is a tremendous loss because of the incredible spokesperson that she was,” said Francine Craae, interim co-director of SAGE and a longtime friend.
“She was an advocate for those people who didn’t have a voice,” she said.
Ms. Hotaling received numerous awards for her work.
SAGE and the First Offender Prostitution Program were honored in 1998 with the Innovations in American Government Award given jointly by the Ford Foundation, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and the Council for Excellence in Government.
In 2000, SAGE’s peer education program was celebrated with the Peter F. Drucker Foundation Award for Nonprofit Innovation.
In 2001, Oprah Winfrey chose Ms. Hotaling as an outstanding national advocate worthy of her Oprah’s Angel: Use Your Life Award, which brought national recognition to SAGE. Ms. Hotaling accepted the award on behalf of SAGE on the show.
Most recently, in October, the Center for Young Women’s Development in San Francisco gave Ms. Hotaling the Cheyenne Bell Award honoring her work with young women escaping San Francisco street prostitution.
In an interview with The Chronicle in 1997, Ms. Hotaling described her life’s work this way:
“It’s like caring for orchids. They die so easily. But you take the dead-looking stem to someone who knows orchids and that person can look at the root and say, ‘Look! There’s still a little bit of life here.’ ”
Ms. Hotaling is survived by her mother, Norma Louise Hotaling of Berkeley, and her brother, James Hotaling.
A public memorial will be held in January. Donations may be made to SAGE Project, 1275 Mission St., San Francisco, CA 94103.
YES. Let’s talk about harm elimination.
Norma was recently honored by San Francisco young women in October, being the only recipient of the 2008 Cheyenne Bell Leadership Award from the Center for Young Women’s Development. I remember Norma from my days at CYWD in the late 90’s and always remember her as a force to be reckoned with. You were excited when she showed up at a conference or City Hall meeting. You knew you were about to hear wisdom. She had a confidence and a conviction about the words that would spill from her lips on behalf of young women involved in sex work all over SF. She was so necessary then and unfortunately, still is. We will miss her.
It was great to see her at the Cheyenne Bell awards, while it was obvious that she was fighting an illness, she did not lose that light behind her eyes that glowed when she talked about the young women she loved so much.
Rest In Peace Norma, you are a legacy