DSW’s Melissa Broudo Featured in Film Series on Inspirational Women

August 18, 2020

DSW’s Melissa Broudo was featured in “As a Woman,” an interview-based film series diving into the lives of six inspirational, female-identifying New Yorkers. Written and produced by Majella Productions, the documentary explores how these individuals relate to their womanhood, and the ways this identity impacts their lived experience. The production is a beautiful examination of the multitude of meanings gender can inspire. 

Broudo has dedicated her career to supporting the rights of individuals criminalized for their identity. She decided in college to pursue law with the particular intention of decriminalizing sex work and defending survivors of sexual exploitation. While working as a senior staff attorney at the Sex Workers Project, Broudo won the first-ever vacatur motion for a survivor of human trafficking. She has since provided technical expertise on these critical motions throughout the state and country.

In her interview, Broudo describes her particular brand of feminism and the nuanced way she understands the human experience. Rarely seeing things in black and white is what makes Broudo such an incredible lawyer and advocate. She integrates this understanding, and her tenure combating racial and gender injustice in the court system, into her work at DSW and the NYC-based SOAR Institute.

Sex work is an issue that so often divides feminists, as some see the work as inherently misogynistic and degrading. “I look at it [in] a completely different way,” says Broudo. “If women and women-identifying individuals have been sexualized, why not use that to your advantage … and that is not inherently disempowering. It varies from person to person.”

“As a Woman” was produced by Melbourne-based production house Majella with an extraordinary all-female crew. “We created a space for original thought and honest feeling,” said Gabrielle Pearson, director and producer of the series. “[We intended] to genuinely provoke the strength, fire, and ambition in our female communities. We hope that this series binds together our female power and provides an uplift to those who could draw from the wisdom of what these women have to say. We are all heard, and we are all important.”

You can watch the series on Sticks & Stones Agency’s website.

Melissa Broudo was one of six interviewees highlighted in the film series. (Photo: Majella Productions)

L to R: Frances Steele, Ceyenne Doroshow, Melissa Broudo, Crystal DeBoise, and Kaytlin Bailey pose for the film. (Photo: Majella Productions)

Broudo was featured in the New York Times for her groundbreaking work on vacatur for survivors of trafficking. (Photo: Nicole Bengiveno/NY Times)

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DSW’s Melissa Broudo Featured in Film Series on Inspirational Women

August 18, 2020 DSW’s Melissa Broudo was featured in “As a Woman,” an interview-based film series diving into the lives of six inspirational, female-identifying New Yorkers. Written and produced by...
Read More
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DSW Newsletter Archive

EARN IT Act Is a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

New animation shows how the EARN IT Act, now on the Senate floor, will curtail end-to-end encrypted messages, ending internet privacy as we know it.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – July 22 – The Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act of 2020, also known as the EARN IT Act, by a unanimous vote of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has moved to the Senate floor. The bill was originally introduced by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. If this dangerous bill becomes law, it will end private communication on the internet.

The EARN IT Act is part of a long history of using sex panics to expand state power. If we fall for it this time we may effectively end freedom of expression and open communication on the internet as we know it. To raise awareness of this wolf in sheep’s clothing, Decriminalize Sex Work, a national advocacy organization, has released a new animated short:

EARN IT threatens website providers’ and other intermediaries’ ability to provide end-to-end encrypted services. End-to-end encryption is critical to ensuring private communication and often personal safety.

“Do voters really want the government snooping into their most private communication, with therapists, journalists, or intimate friends?” asks Kaytlin Bailey, Communications Director for Decriminalize Sex Work. “It’s easy to imagine how Trump’s DOJ will abuse these new surveillance tools to attack whistleblowers, protestors, and adult consensual sex workers.”

End-to-end encryption allows journalists to communicate about sensitive issues with sources, allows doctors to communicate with patients, and allows the average person to share sensitive financial information with trusted people. EARN IT can destroy all of this by exposing web platforms to an “enormous number of lawsuits in which they will potentially face liability for their choice to protect users’ privacy and security through end-to-end encryption (E2EE),” according to Emma Llansó with the Center for Democracy & Technology. “Prosecutors and civil litigants will point to the encrypted status of an intermediary’s services as a relevant consideration in their claims, even for criminal and civil provisions with a ‘knowingly’ mens rea. Even if an intermediary successfully defends against a particular claim, the consistent threat of litigation, and challenge to their decision to employ encryption, will be a strong disincentive against providing E2EE and continuing to have to defend that decision in court.”

“We can learn from the damaging consequences of the 2018 Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) and Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA),” says Bailey. “Donald Trump signed FOSTA-SESTA into law in April of 2018 to devastating effects. Rather than protecting children and victims of sex trafficking, this set of laws has made sex work more dangerous.”

Llansó writes, “The clear lesson from the SESTA-FOSTA debacle: When content hosts, website operators, social media services, search engines, and other intermediaries face increased legal risk for user-generated content, it is the users who end up suffering, a cost often borne by the most vulnerable.”

Like so many of the save-the-children bills before it, EARN IT will not combat child sexual exploitation, but it will be the largest expansion of state surveillance powers in recent history, eliminating private communication on the internet.

Decriminalize Sex Work

Decriminalize Sex Work is a national organization pursuing a state-by-state strategy to end the prohibition of consensual, adult prostitution in the United States. We work with local organizations, advocates, and lobbyists to build community support and convince legislators to stop prostitution-related arrests. Evidence shows that decriminalizing sex work will help end human trafficking, improve public health, and promote community safety.


Kaytlin Bailey
Communications Director
512-942-6078 Ext 1
[email protected]

Decriminalizing Sex Work Is Part of Reducing Police Brutality

Anti-prostitution laws are often used to target poor people of color. This often leads to arrest, incarceration, and trauma, rather than assistance or support.

NEW YORK, NY – June 19 –  The conflation of sex work and trafficking has led to a dramatic increase in funding for law-enforcement departments. As a result, law-enforcement officers raid and arrest adult consensual sex workers and their clients, often in the name of rescuing and saving sex-trafficking victims. These policies and priorities have done little to help victims of trafficking or violence. Decriminalizing sex work is one way to redirect resources from law enforcement to the social services that communities want.

“Instead of help, these people are getting put in jail”, explains Ceyenne Doroshow, founder and executive director of GLITS (Gays and Lesbians Living in a Transgender Society) and community engagement consultant for Decriminalize Sex Work. “In the arrest, you are taking away the autonomy of a Black, trans sex worker.” Ceyenne continues, “You are taking away their equity, their mental stability. You are breaking what was already broken because of society and policing. Recidivism is because of the trauma they face in prison and in arrest. And if I had my way, I would go after the police union as they keep excusing bad behavior.“

Laws such as loitering for the purpose of engaging in a prostitution offense give police the pretext to engage and arrest marginalized women. For example, in New York City in 2018, there were 139 people arrested for loitering for the purposes of prostitution, 95% of them persons of color, and a disproportionate amount of them transwomen. That same year more than 500 people were arrested for prostitution in NYC, the overwhelming majority of whom are women and transwomen of color.

Too often, police abuse their power and sexually assault their targets, like the case of West Sacramento, California police officer Sergio Alvarez, who raped several sex workers. In 2018, an undercover Columbus, Ohio police officer shot and killed 23-year-old sex worker Donna Dalton (a.k.a. Donna Castleberry) in an unmarked police car. In 2017, Yang Song leaped to her death to avoid arrest by NYC vice raiding the massage parlor where she worked.

Tens of thousands of people are arrested annually for prostitution and related crimes. The majority of those arrested are adults who engage in consensual, victimless activities. Where sex work is decriminalized, law enforcement is able to focus resources on prosecuting human trafficking and other violent crimes.

“Those who are arrested for selling sex face police abuse or harassment, potential incarceration, fines, lost wages, and significant collateral consequences. They often end up with permanent records that hinder future opportunities for employment, housing, immigration status, and other necessities,” says DSW Legal Director Melissa Broudo. “Criminalizing sex work makes it dangerous. Police, prosecutors and jails don’t improve the lives of people who are arrested for trying to earn a living.”

DSW Communications Director Kaytlin Bailey says, “The police have never served the community of sex workers. Now that the nation is finally taking police brutality and institutional racism seriously, it’s time to redirect funds wasted on policing adult sex workers to helping people who struggle. It’s time to stop the arrests.”



Decriminalize Sex Work


Decriminalize Sex Work is a national organization pursuing a state-by-state strategy to end the prohibition of consensual, adult prostitution in the United States. We work with local organizations, advocates, and lobbyists to build community support and convince legislators to stop prostitution-related arrests. Evidence shows that decriminalizing sex work will help end human trafficking, improve public health, and promote community safety.




Kaytlin Bailey

Communications Director

512-942-6078 Ext 1

[email protected]


Addendum:

Why Decriminalizing Sex Work Is Good Criminal Justice Policy




			
				



				
					

				
					

				
					

				
					


	


		
		
Queens Prosecutor Is Wrong About Human Trafficking and Arresting Johns

		
	


	

						



	
Decriminalize Sex Work
www.DecriminalizeSex.Work
Contact: Kaytlin Bailey, Communications Director
[email protected] (m) 919-649-7725

NEW YORK, NEW YORK
May 25, 2020




Queens Prosecutor Is Wrong About Human Trafficking and Arresting Johns


On Monday, May 18, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced the creation of the Human Trafficking Bureau to “prosecute sex and labor traffickers” and purchasers of sexual services. Criminalizing clients reflects a willful refusal to distinguish between adult consensual sex work and trafficking. Human rights organizations, the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and a growing number of policy experts agree that a more effective policy would be to fully decriminalize adult prostitution and focus law-enforcement efforts on instances of criminal labor trafficking — both in and out of the sex industry.


“As someone who has spent my legal career working with survivors of trafficking and people in the sex industry, I’m continually frustrated that prosecutors like Katz conflate human trafficking and adult consensual sex work,” says Melissa Sontag Broudo, legal director at Decriminalize Sex Work, a national advocacy organization.


Prosecutors can only effectively combat real trafficking when they acknowledge that the majority of sex workers and their clients are adults engaging in negotiated, voluntary exchange. Studies confirm that criminalizing clients increases violence against sex workers. For example, Northern Ireland criminalized clients in 2015, and a 2019 review by its own Department of Justice revealed sex workers felt less safe than before the law passed because of a surge of antisocial behavior directed at them.


Katz inherited a long legacy in Queens related to this issue. In 2008, the Queens Criminal Court pioneered the first-ever “Human Trafficking Intervention Court” (HTIC) to provide services to individuals in the sex industry. While there was no dedicated trafficking unit within the DA’s office, there were numerous dedicated prosecutors who worked on this issue.


“I have practiced in the HTIC, and while the feeling is quite supportive and compassionate, the underlying problem is that my clients should not have been forced into the criminal justice system to get social services. The entire foundational principle of these courts further disempowers victims. Why are we arresting sex workers or victims of human trafficking? The conflation of prostitution and trafficking predates these courts, but the HTICs effectively institutionalized it. Now Katz is continuing to pursue rhetoric and policies that will inevitably hurt those they claim to help,” says Sontag Broudo.


–end–