Sex workers are the only population besides undocumented people that are criminalized for their status as a person. In fact many of the institutions that are supposed to protect us, are sent to erase our existence. Sex workers face many barriers in organizing, fighting for their labor rights and are often faced with hostility from members of their own communities.
AK Update: Amber Batts Released on Parole
In 2014, Batts was arrested on several felony counts of sex trafficking, accused of running one of Alaska’s largest known prostitution businesses. She pleaded guilty to one class B felony charge of sex trafficking, in 2015, and was sentenced to serve five and a half years. Batts has been serving her sentence on electronic monitoring since March -- after spending time incarcerated and in a halfway house. Her days start early and revolve around the clock. The morning of her release onto parole, she made her coffee as usual, and a cup of hot cocoa for her teenage daughter.
XBIZ Alert: Eros-Guide’s Call Center Raided
XBIZ: Eros Call Center Raided By Homeland Security
If this is the outcome we need to end “end demand”
Hey Laura Le Moon. I share your frustration. Absolutely I hear you when you ask: “When will my story be mine and how come nobody wants to hear my story from my mouth? How come it is only you, piece of shit phony “allies,” that are allowed to get fame and fortune off my story? You rob my story, my voice, my power and run away with it after cutting off my legs and pushing me into the dirt to die. When will survivors be the ones to get rich off of their own stories??? Why am I hated and looked at with disgust and judgment for what happened to me while others are given boundless opportunities for the cotton-mouthed re-telling of someone else’s suffering and struggle?”
Open Letter To Open Society Foundation
The Open Society Public Health Program invites concept forms from civil society organizations and networks that seek to advance the health and human rights of sex workers in Europe. Marginalized by stigma and criminalization, sex workers face enormous obstacles to realizing their human rights, and oppression has led to extreme levels of violence, disease, and exploitation. Justice and health systems routinely fail sex workers, and at times compound their marginalization through harmful law enforcement practices and insurmountable barriers to health care. Sex worker organizing is sometimes vilified, further exacerbating problems related to workplace health and safety. The myriad of health challenges sex workers face cannot be addressed squarely within the health system, and the structural—and often political—determinants of sex worker health extend far beyond health care.
Blood Money: COYOTE on S/W Diversion Grants
COYOTEri Mission: We oppose Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion. Decriminalization is empowering whereas LEAD places people in a cycle of punitive and social services. While we support DECRIM, we vehemently oppose all forms of human trafficking and child prostitution. The victims of these crimes deserve our compassion and support; those who exploit others in such a manner deserve severe punishment. Our goal is to reduce harm by education and decriminalizing indoor consensual sex work between consenting adults.
UUPLAN: Victims of Human Trafficking are not Criminals
UUPLAN's Anti-Mass Incarceration Team has agreed to support SB 554 - Safe Harbor in Human Trafficking. This bill would send minors who are victims of sex trafficking to treatment rather than prosecuting them. The bill was introduced by Senator Greenleaf and has passed the Senate (50-0). It has been referred to House Judiciary Committee which has not yet scheduled a hearing.
E v G 9 Covered On Fox News
The legal challenge was brought by three ex-prostitutes, a would-be client, and ESPLER (Erotic Service Providers Legal, Educational and Research Project). They received good news Thursday after the 9th Circuit judges hinted that some scrutiny of the law was needed. “Why should it be illegal to sell something that it’s legal to give away?” asked, as the Chronicle reported. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White rejected the challenge last year, saying the 2003 Supreme Court ruling was concerning intimate personal relationship and did not apply to commercial sex, adding that California justified the law against prostitution as a deterrence to violence against women, sexually transmitted diseases and human trafficking, according to the Chronicle.
M Dante: I Support ESPLERP v Gascon
M. Dante explains why she supports ESPLERP v Gascon.
E v G In The 9th Circuit
After nearly 30 months working through the US Federal Court system, we finally get to stand up before a panel of judges and argue that California Penal Code 647(b) unfairly deprives consenting adults of the right to private activity, criminalizes the discussion of such activity, and unconstitutionally places prohibitions on our rights to freely associate.
Hit & Run: Real Reporting Thanks To Reason Magazine’s Elizabeth Nolan Brown
Human-Trafficking Arrests Are Very Rare in Most States - shared from Reason.com - Overall, the data do little to support the idea that the U.S. is experiencing unprecedented levels of labor and sex trafficking or that we are in the midst of some sort of "modern slavery" epidemic.
PA Press: Human Trafficking as a Euphemism for Prostitution
Nine men (one local) caught in human trafficking bust - Story http://www.yourerie.com/news/local-news/nine-men-one-local-caught-in-human-trafficking-bust/818793406 Nine men are facing charges following a human trafficking sting in Ohio. One of those men is reportedly from Crawford County. 63-year-old Charles Hart of Cochranton is one of the men facing charges in the arrests. The sting operation was conducted Thursday by … Continue reading PA Press: Human Trafficking as a Euphemism for Prostitution
9/28 Listening Session at Crossroads Women’s Center
NO CRIMINALIZING SURVIVAL: Thanks @espunion for support of sex work inclusion in community discussions on women, poverty and incarceration! ⚜️ 9/28 Thur Eve 6:30 - 9:30 RSVP Required.
Worker Survivor Community Archive 
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