PA Women: Extreme Differences Of Opinion

One op editorial. Two totally different opinions. Posted below: Project SAFE's Aisha Mohammed's January op ed in Philly dot com, and Villa Nova's Legal Fellow Shea Rhodes discussing the op ed from an abolitionist perspective. Compare / Contrast. For those of us defined as youth survivors and adult sex workers we are caught between these radical extremes. As the PA motto goes its seems that No: both can’t survive!

Bella Robinson on Sex Trafficking Inside the Trump Campaign

The gig is up. The government now admits that they don’t see any difference between trafficking victims and sex workers. They see both as criminals; women who refuse to conform. Poor women that refuse to live in poverty and become homeless. Mothers that struggle to pay their rent and feed their kids are all seen as criminals. Services should never have required anyone to prove that they were a victim. Services should be for all people who are living in poverty. However, the government invented the trafficking narrative so they wouldn’t have to provide any services for sex workers and they only had to pony up when it came to legal services for victims. - Bella Robinson

Philadelphia Free Press On: #IDTEVASW

"We, as one global community renew our commitment to solidarity on December 17,” said Melanie Dante, former sex worker who was one of the organizers at the Philadelphia events this year. "December 17 Events aim to raise outrage at violence against sex workers and strengthen sex worker communities and responses to the systematic, daily violence and exclusion sex workers experience.” Philadelphia Free Press. Article by David Block

I Support The New Zealand Model

Remembering Robyn: Whore Mother Patron Saint Of Prostitutes

Robyn Few (October 7, 1958 – September 13, 2012) was an American sex workers' rights activist who worked for the decriminalization of prostitution, against violence targeted at sex workers, and, generally, for the improvement of sex workers' working conditions. A former prostitute, she founded and directed the Sex Workers Outreach Project USA (SWOP-USA), and helped organize the annual International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. She was born in Paducah, Kentucky. She advocated the complete removal of prostitution from criminal codes. - WIKIPEDIA

OPPOSE FL 540: FL Senate Considers Creating Prostitution Registry

WE OPPOSE FL 540: Senate Considers Creating Prostitution Registry: Florida Senate Bill 540 with the Orwellian title “Human Trafficking” would create a registry for people found guilty of the loosely defined crime of “soliciting, inducing, enticing, or procuring” another to commit “prostitution, lewdness, or assignation.” #sexworkersagainsttrafficking

FOSTA: A Death Sentence for Sex Workers

FOSTA: A Death Sentence for Sex Workers By Meghan Peterson and Bella Robinson Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics (COYOTE) Rhode Island
 Introduction On April 11, 2018, the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) and Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) were signed into law. While outside the Capitol building sex workers condemned the bill for its inevitable impact on safety, the bipartisan FOSTA-SESTA package sailed through the United States House and Senate. FOSTA/SESTA outlined new provisions to amend the Communications Decency Act to note that websites can be prosecuted if they engage “in the promotion or facilitation of prostitution” or “facilitate traffickers in advertising the sale of unlawful sex acts with sex trafficking victims." While supporters of the law claimed to target sex traffickers, its text makes no effort to differentiate trafficking from consensual sex work. Its passage was hailed by abolitionists as a victory in the fight against “sex trafficking,” an invisible force that anti-trafficking lobbyists claim victimizes innocent women and coerces them into the evils of sex work. Among actual workers, its passage was denounced as a death sentence for sex workers who were then further pushed underground and away from tools used to maintain safety and screening.