Anti-prostitution billboard placed near Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport
Aug 28, 2015, 5:31 PM
(Photo: Bob McClay)
PHOENIX — In a very public attempt to make people think twice before engaging in prostitution, a national organization has placed an anti-prostitution billboard right outside of Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport.
Located along 44th street near the Phoenix Sky Train station, the billboard shows a wedding ring-bearing man in a suit with police lights behind him.
The message?
“Buy Sex, Lose Everything.”
Alongside the less-than-subtle message, CEASE Network, the organization behind the billboard, is advertising the website NotWorthIt.Org, encouraging travelers to learn the facts — and the consequences — that their one-night fling could get them.
Some local members of the organization are on City Councilman Jim Waring’s Phoenix Human Trafficking Task Force. Waring said that the billboard is intended to show people into thinking before they pay for sex.
“We want to make sure that they understand that this (prostitution) is a life-ruiner, both for the prostitutes and for them,” said Waring. “If you get caught, we are going to book you and prosecute you in Phoenix to the fullest extent of the law.”
Waring said that it is a shame that the city has to have the anti-prostitution billboard.
“It appalls me that billboards and advertising like this, to remind people that their behavior is abhorrent, is necessary,” Waring said. “But statistics show us, and the police tell us, that it absolutely is.”