Sex Work

Litigation for Emancipation is a GoFundMe project to raise enough funds to begin a federal court case proposed by Erotic Service Providers Legal, Education and Research Project (ESPLER). ESPLER’s legal battle aims to advance our sexual privacy rights by attacking the prostitution law of the state of California on the grounds that morality is not a basis for legislation.

On Monday, the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in a case that will decide if recipients of government aid can be forced to oppose prostitution – or potentially any other issue as a contingency of receiving U.S. funds. The case, Alliance for Open Society International v United States Agency for International Development, arises from a controversial policy governing AIDS education, prevention, and treatment, a decade-long fight that's crossed political lines and was kicked off by Rep. Chris Smith as part of a larger conservative attempt to undermine reproductive and sexual health care. With HIV and AIDS projects facing closure if they don't adopt the government's position on sex work, it's sex workers who are paying the ultimate price.

some additional reading on items mentioned in the story:

• The Social Science Research Center at DePaul University’s study of the Chicago Police Department’s “johns” mugshots websites.

• Women With A Vision’s “No Justice” project, which ended the police practice of charging sex workers with “solicitation of a crime against nature,” which had forced them to register as sex offenders in Louisiana.

• Dr. Kumkum Roy, Director of the Women’s Studies Programme at Jawaharlal Nehru University, invited Gloria Steinem to speak on sex work during her trip to India as mentioned in my piece. She writes, after hearing Steinem and her co-panelists speak, “Ms Steinem and Ruchira Gupta of Apne Aap refuse to recognize that unionized sex workers are voicing their own opinions—these women are dismissed as puppets of pimps and brothel owners—a gross simplification in view of the sheer numbers of women across the country who have unionised in a bid to claim human rights and dignity.”

• The 2012 Chicago Reporter investigation into the staggering increase in felony arrests of sex workers, “Escorted to jail.”

• Ann Jordan, interviewed for this piece, publishes at Rights Work, a project of the American University Washington College of Law Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, which includes a valuable Fact Checker feature for researchers, journalists, and advocates.

• The Sex Workers Project continues advocacy and research around sound sex work policy.

• The Best Practices Policy Project also continues their work on bringing the United States in alignment with recommendations on sex workers’ rights made through the United Nations Universal Periodic Review of Human Rights.

"NSWP condemns California's Proposition #35 on the basis that the legislation is based on a dangerous conflation of sex work and human trafficking, which fails to provide a workable approach/solution to stop forced labour and other abuse, but rather serves to heighten the criminalisation and marginalisation of sex workers and those associated with them (including their families). Proposition #35 is based on unfounded claims and a significant lack of evidence and exploits a public concern over human trafficking and slavery. The definitions that are employed by the drafters of the proposition are over-reaching and explode any distinction between sex work and human trafficking."

Chi Mgbako: Supreme court must put public health above misguided moralism and end Pepfar policy that stigmatises sex workers

Who's The Boss is a short film by Maxine Doogan. It poses a rhetorical question in post Proposition K, San Francisco Ballot measure in 2008 to stop the enfor...

MUMBAI: In a first of its kind move, the ministry of women and child in state launched the policy on women with a dedicated chapter on issues faced by sex workers. The policy which was launched by chief minister PrithvirajChavan last week speaks of better access to health, education and other development programmes for women.

"Besides looking at various concerns that face women, it is for the first time that the policy has also considered issues and opinions of those women who are the most marginalised and suffer exclusion," Chavan had said while addressing a gathering in Pune to launch the policy.

"The proposed east end tolerance zone for street hookers is misguided and in the wrong place, say sex workers’ rights advocates"

"this idea seems to be a lot a more about the repression of sex workers than about their safety"

While the Ontario Court of Appeal’s March 26 decision to legalize brothels is a landmark ruling that will make life safer for many sex workers, it does little to support those who still work on the streets, say sex-work advocates.