One-third of all sex workers unable to call 911 due to fear of repercussions from cops: study | Vancouver Sun
The Palermo Protocol: 20 Years Later
November 24, 2020
The conflation of consensual adult sex work and human trafficking remains a harmful paradigm that continues to be promoted by a number of organizations and individuals, especially those who seek to prohibit prostitution. Human trafficking is a horrible human rights violation and exists in many labor sectors. Trafficking in agriculture and the hospitality industry is much more common than trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation, yet much of the world’s concern is focused on “sex trafficking.” Treating adults who freely engage in sex work as victims and over-relying on criminal justice to end trafficking have led to disastrous outcomes for sex workers.
The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children was one of three Palermo protocols adopted by the United Nations to supplement the 2000 Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (the Palermo Convention). Sex workers have been targeted under this protocol from its inception. With 20 years of data to consider, it is clear that the criminalization of sex work causes immeasurable harm and makes it more difficult to identify and assist actual victims of trafficking.
In “Missed opportunities and exclusion: sex workers reflect on two decades of anti-trafficking,” the International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe (ICRSE) writes: “Sex workers and their organisations continue to challenge punitive anti-trafficking policy frameworks that target their workplaces and clients, rather than traffickers. Over the last twenty years, sex workers have not only had to combat the criminalisation of sex work, but have also endured global crises such as the 2008 financial crisis and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. They have also been faced with the erosion of human rights, shrinking civil society spaces, and volatile political environments.”
“Prostitution prohibitionists claim that trafficking increases in times of public crisis, but the reality is that poverty, precarity, and the need to cross borders to obtain a better life are the key factors leading people to sell sex,” the ICRSE says. “The post-COVID recession will be a crucial time to determine which approach is best suited to protect those most at risk in our society. Do we want a punitive approach that denies the root factors making people vulnerable to exploitation and trafficking? Or a community-led approach, where sex workers engage with policymakers and other marginalised communities to shape the decisions that will affect their lives?”
Artwork by Carys Boughton. All rights reserved. (Photo: Open Democracy)
DSW Newsletter #21 (December 2020)
Hero of the Month: Mataoe Aiden James Nevils
The Palermo Protocol: 20 Years Later
Transgender Day of Remembrance Summit
G.L.I.T.S. Opens First Housing Complex of its Kind
NYC Council Repeals ‘Walking While Trans’ Ban
Mark Your Calendars for December 17
DSW Newsletter Archive
Missed opportunities and exclusion: sex workers reflect on two decades of anti-trafficking | openDemocracy
The Second Anniversary of Sex Worker Pride
September 14, 2020
Sex workers and allies celebrated the second anniversary of Sex Worker Pride. The holiday was launched last year by the Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) to celebrate the achievements of our movement and allow sex workers the chance to share stories of self-determination and survival.
This event extends to all groups who are marginalized by criminalization, discrimination, and stigma. The sex worker rights movement celebrates the diversity within our community as a sign of its strength. In particular, the intersection between LGBTQIA pride and sex worker rights is recognized. Umbrella Lane, a Glasgow-based direct service and advocacy organization in the U.K., released a video to celebrate their pride event.
In 2019, organizations around the world hosted parades and celebrations. This year, social distancing limited the events that could be held, but the meaning is no less poignant. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a severe impact on sex workers’ ability to survive. Many have pivoted to online work where possible, bolstered by mutual aid funds started by community organizations like SWOP Brooklyn, Red Canary Song, Trans and Gender Diverse Community Financial Assistance Programs in King County, WA, SWOP Behind Bars, and many more.
As we honor the rights and dignity of all workers and all identities, please consider donating to an organization that supports these values, whether that be DSW or another organization.
Ashodaya Mandya, an organization founded in India last year, hosted a Sex Worker Pride march in 2019. (Photo: NSWP)
(Photo: @jess_the_fairy/Instagram)
DSW Newsletter #18 (September 2020)
Hero(es) of the Month: Honoring the Dancers of the Lusty Lady
The Second Anniversary of Sex Worker Pride
De Blasio To Change NYC Sex Work Policy
OnlyFans’ New Policy Endangers Sex Workers During COVID-19
DSW’s Melissa Broudo Featured in Film Series on Inspirational Women
DSW Newsletter Archive
International Whore’s Day 2020: Virtual and Vibrant
June 2, 2020
The 45th annual celebration of International Whore’s Day (IWD) departed from the usual, where sex workers and their allies don red attire and march through city streets across the country. This year, the IWDNYC Coalition collaborated with Kink Out Events to launch an online rally and social media takeover honoring protests for sex worker rights around the world. The live stream featured NYC-based sex workers, organizers, and activists who spoke about survival, community, and resilience in a criminalized industry.
Speakers included Ceyenne Doroshow of G.L.I.T.S. and DSW, who highlighted her organization’s harm-reduction work, providing relief to sex workers amidst the pandemic; Aneesha and Alisha of the Black trans-led organization, SWOP Bronx; Bianney Garcia of Make the Road, a formerly undocumented, Mexican-born, trans human rights activist who survived 18 months on Rikers Island after a transphobic attack; and so many more inspirational figures.
IWD commemorates an eight-day occupation by over 100 sex workers at Saint-Nizier Church in Lyon, France, in 1975. The strike called attention to the increasing violence against sex workers perpetrated by the French government. They demanded an end to fines, stigma, and police harassment — and the release of 10 sex workers who had been imprisoned a few days earlier for solicitation. The movement was widely covered by international media, prompting support from labor and feminist organizations. Eight days after the occupation began, the police forcibly removed the protesters from the church, but their mark had already been made.
DSW tuned in to the NYC event, along with hundreds of other participants. Attendees also participated in the social media rally, flooding feeds with stories of survival and expressions of respect for sex worker communities. We were honored to be part of this incredible event — led by sex workers and supported by allies — utilizing the power of art and storytelling to spread public awareness around the issues facing our community.
This year’s digital rally was streamed in four languages, including ASL. (Image: IWD, 2020)
Protesters pictured inside Saint-Nizier Church in 1975 during the eight-day strike. (Photo: Carole Rousopoullos / Centre Audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir, 1975)
Demonstrations for International Whore’s Day filled the West Village of Manhattan in 2018. (Photo: Danielle Blunt, 2018)
DSW Newsletter #15 (June 2020)
Black Lives Matter
Hero of the Month: Ceyenne Doroshow, Celebrating Pride Through Justice
DSW’s J. Leigh Brantly Co-founds Sex Worker Group in Vermont
International Whore’s Day 2020: Virtual and Vibrant
DSW Debates Human Trafficking in the News
DSW Newsletter Archive
Decriminalize, For Public Health
Decriminalize Sex Work www.DecriminalizeSex.Work Contact: Kaytlin Bailey, Communications Director [email protected] (m) 919-649-7725 NEW YORK, NEW YORK May 15, 2020
Decriminalize, For Public Health
Yesterday, UNAIDS, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Health Organization and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime called on global leaders “to make detention a last resort, to close drug rehabilitation detention centers and to decriminalize sex work, same-sex sexual relations, and drug use.
Decriminalize Sex Work, a national advocacy organization, is calling on states and cities to follow the UN’s recommendations and stop policing prostitution-related crimes immediately, as a matter of public health.
Global health experts are urging us to release as many people as possible from incarceration to reduce our collective susceptibility to this pandemic. High-density prisons spread disease amongst inmates, visitors, and employees. Guards and other essential staff bring the virus back home to their families, who then spread it around the community. You don’t need to know a single incarcerated person to want to reduce prison and jail density for your own safety. A simple way to start is by decriminalizing consensual adult sexual activities.
This is a matter of public health and safety. Melissa Broudo, policy director for Decriminalize Sex Work, says “Arresting adults for negotiated, consensual sex has always been a human rights violation for those arrested, but this global pandemic has really shown us how these arrests put all of us at risk.”
Kaytlin Bailey, communications director for Decriminalize Sex Work says “We cannot arrest our way out of this problem. Decriminalizing prostitution improves the health and safety of communities.”
The urgent call for action has never been clearer. Release nonviolent offenders from prison and stop arresting people for adult consensual prostitution.
–end–
He fought to protect sex workers from COVID-19 and much more. Then the virus came for him | Los Angeles Times
Leader of Mexico Sex-Worker Group Dies of COVID-19
May 5, 2020
This month, DSW honors Jaime Montejo, one of the founding members of the Elisa Martinez Street Brigade to Support Women; the sex worker support organization can be credited with decriminalizing sex work in Mexico City. Montejo dedicated his life to uplifting the sex workers of Mexico City. Early this month he died after contracting COVID-19.
Fellow activists and community members continue Montejo’s critical work, fighting for the rights and dignity of all people, even as they mourn his devastating loss.
In a Los Angeles Times article, Kate Linthicum reported that just last month, Jaime was in downtown Mexico City with co-workers from the Street Brigade. Wearing a surgical mask, Montejo and his co-founders, Elvira and Rosa Icela Madrid, brought meals, face covers, and tarps to sex workers who had seen their livelihoods disappear overnight as a result of the pandemic. Unable to find clients, workers were forced out of the $5/night hotels they had been living in and set up a makeshift camp near the subway station.
Montejo and the Madrid sisters met as students together at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, studying prostitution in Mexico City’s red-light district in the 1980s. Their research coincided with the beginning of the HIV/AIDS crisis in Mexico. Sex workers were dying at alarming rates, while being subjected to regular violence at the hands of police, managers, partners, and criminals posing as clients. The trio resolved to make things better. Upon graduation, they set up an advocacy group in the La Merced neighborhood of the city to help workers access healthcare services and contraception and to file reports when they were harassed or assaulted.
They founded the Street Brigade in 1993, named for a sex worker who passed away from complications of AIDS. The organization helps both trafficking survivors — who want to exit the trade — and consensual adult sex workers in need of support. Their advocacy led to a 2014 victory when a judge in Mexico City ruled that prostitutes should be recognized as non-salaried workers, allowing them to access certain benefits. In 2019, city lawmakers effectually decriminalized sex work altogether.
At his memorial, one transgender woman remembered how Montejo’s work had given her a family after she was kicked out of her house at 14 for wearing girls’ clothing. The crowds that gathered to honor him maintained “a healthy distance,” unable to embrace in their grief. Instead, they wrote notes to him and his fellow co-founders and left the notes next to the memorial.