Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Government Brutality’ Category

17th December, International day to End Violence against sex workers.

Posted in Escorting Lives, Feminism, Government Brutality, Human Rights, Safety, sex worker politics on 17 December, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Today was international day to end violence against sex workers. Sex workers exist in every culture and in every nation. Sex workers, male, female and trans work in a diverse industry and in many different environments. Sex workers represent every socio and economic and academic strata within society. The media and governments present sex workers as stereotypes but the truth is there is no stereotype of who a sex worker is or any shared reasoning for why anyone becomes a sex worker. Every story within sex work is unique just as every client has a unique reason for why they use the services of sex workers.
Once, long ago, sex workers were respected within societies that rejoiced in pleasure but now sex work has become an easy target for moralists, often posing as feminists and for lazy governments eager to prove they care, especially about women. Their eagerness to show how much they care however has resulted in discriminatory laws that harm sex workers. The truth is that every sex worker who is beaten, raped, murdered is the direct result of governments who claim they have created laws that will protect the vulnerable, protect women, and protect sex workers. These laws more often than not represent an ideological and aggressive understanding of sex work rather than reflect the realities of sex workers lives and experiences. They are laws that infantalise women as incapable of autonomous thought and behaviour and which perpetuate myths and untruths about sex work.
Sadly existing injustice toward sex workers is to be made worse if proposals to criminalise clients presently being presented to the governments of Ireland and Scotland become law. Sex workers and the public must now unite to tell government in clear terms that state violence toward sex workers in the form of laws that deny sex workers their basic human rights will no longer be tolerated. Sex workers are mothers, daughters, sons and brothers; they are human beings, workers, citizens who require the full protection of the law. Politicians must listen.


Dr Brooke Magnanti, formerly known as Belle de Jour, wrote this article about the 17th of December campaign, which appeared today in the Telegraph.

You can access the full article with links “HERE”

The event calls attention to crimes committed against sex workers all over the globe. (Don’t worry; you don’t have to get me a card. Cards Galore isn’t stocking any for this yet.)
It was created by legendary sex goddess Annie Sprinkle in memorial for the victims of the Green River Killer in Seattle, Washington.
The International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers encourages people from around the world to come together and organise against discrimination and remember victims of violence.
In particular I would like to remember Michaela Hague, a woman in Sheffield who was brutally murdered in 2001.
At the time I was a student there, not yet a sex worker, living in student accommodation in an area of the city that had once been well-known as a red light district. During that time the city began a crackdown on kerb crawling and street prostitution that drove sex workers out from the well-trafficked, well-lit and policed city centre to the industrial fringes of the city.
Related Articles
Scotland’s proposed sex bill ‘won’t protect sex workers’ 10 Dec 2012
Plan to criminalise buying sex from prostitutes rejected 20 Apr 2010
It’s no surprise students are turning to the sex trade 14 Dec 2012
It was in this time that Michaela was attacked. Stabbed multiple times, her killer got away unobserved. She died far from where anybody could have been alerted to her distress in time to save her life.
I became aware of the crime because I was working in the city’s mortuary the next day (as my doctorate was with the Forensic Pathology department). I saw a woman who in her life had been not just liked, but loved. A daughter, a mother, a friend. Michaela’s murder had a profound effect on me: it seemed clear to me that her death was the result of a policy that cares more for the appearance of propriety than for the welfare of sex workers.
Michaela’s murderer has never been found.
Sex workers talk about what we want, in terms of rights and treatment. We want a say in the policies that directly affect us – almost none of the legislation currently grinding its way through the UK and Ireland has consulted sex workers in any meaningful sense. We want acknowledgement that widespread attitudes against sex work make things more dangerous for the people involved. Some nod towards the reality that not all sex workers are the same wouldn’t go amiss. And we want people to realise that behind the highly publicised and politicised images are people, not just prostitutes.
Throughout this week sex worker organisations and their allies will be holding vigils to raise awareness, not just of crimes against us, but of the laws that aid these crimes. Laws that criminalise sex work thus preventing sex workers from reporting violence. The stigma and discrimination that is perpetuated by the prohibitionist laws makes violence against us acceptable. Thankfully I never experienced any attempts of violence against me while I was a sex worker but I am all too aware of the scale of the problem.
Please join with sex workers around the world and stand against criminalisation and violence committed against our communities.
Like I said, it’s a pretty new holiday, so you don’t have to get me a card or anything. But a donation to a local sex work outreach programme surely wouldn’t go amiss.

Read Full Post »

Evangelicals, Feminists, and The Rescue Industry

Posted in Anti Sex Work, Campaigns and Groups, Feminism, Government Brutality, Religion, sex worker politics, Uncategorized on 22 September, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

I came across this interview on an excellent sex worker rights FB page called Coyote which you can support “HERE” . It is an interview where Melissa Gira Grant who talks about the relationship that exists between Evangelicals, so called feminists, and the very lucrative rescue industry. I think some people still find it difficult to understand how some feminists became so corrupted that they now comfortably works alongside the religious right to encourage the police and governments to persecute women who work in the sex industry regardless of their choice to do so or not. This interview, from mainly an USA perspective, describes the unhealthy relationship that now exists and the history of that relationship which has financially and also in terms of political influence, been a very beneficial relationship for some (so called) feminist organisations.

Read Full Post »

People smugglers target their victims as organ donors and house slaves

Posted in Anti Sex Work, Campaigns and Groups, Escorting Lives, Government Brutality, Government Reviews and Change, In the Media, Law, Migration, Uncategorized on 27 August, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

I was made aware of this article in the Guardian by a fb friend. The article talks about the first official assessment of human trafficking data in the UK. Firstly, the amount of human trafficking appears relatively minimal, the assessment recognises only some 2,077 “possible” trafficking victims smuggled into the UK last year. Secondly, the assessment reveals that less than half of those alleged victims were trafficked for sexual exploitation. Remember, despite what the law says, there is a huge difference between someone who is tricked or coerced, and an illegal, but never the less, willing migrant worker.
Considering there are an estimated eighty thousand sex workers in the UK it suggests that trafficking victims are few and far between, which begs the question why is the government spending vast amounts of money on combating sex trafficking, a crime which appears to barely exist, except in the fevered imaginations of moralists and abolitionists. Is it just an excuse to continue a crusade against the sex industry and prostitution in particular? It certainly appears so.
Sex workers know that trafficking for sexual exploitation is mostly a manufactured hysteria, but with evidence like this, why is the media and government still getting away with a campaign of violence against sex workers? OK, the rhetoric from this present government is less than from the previous government, yet they have not repealed the changes in the law, brought in by the last Labour administration, which encourages the police to target brothels, agencies, and sex workers. I suspect the the reason is that prostitution is such an easy financial target. Fighting prostitution also allows the media to promote government and the police as protectors of women. The fact that such brutal criminalising endangers women and men in sex work, means nothing. Such is the perverse morality of saviours.

You can read the full article “HERE”s

The first official assessment of human trafficking in the UK reveals the increasingly diverse reasons people are being smuggled into the country, including domestic servitude, sexual and criminal exploitation, and organ harvesting.

The United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre’s 2011 baseline assessment concludes that 11% of victims were trafficked for the purposes of domestic servitude; 1% for organ harvesting; 5% for multiple exploitation; 17% for criminal exploitation; 22% for labour exploitation; and 31% for sexual exploitation. The remaining 13% were trafficked for reasons unknown.

The report, which is compiled from information submitted by police forces, the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, the UK Border Agency and other organisations, suggests that last year some 2,077 potential victims of human trafficking were identified in the UK.

The picture that emerges contrasts strongly with the popular perception that trafficking is predominantly for the purposes of prostitution.

The assessment revealed that, “for the first time, two potential victims reported that they had been trafficked specifically for organ harvesting,” and noted a third person was also suspected to have been trafficked for such a purpose.

According to the UKHTC, “the illegal trade is dominated by kidneys, which are in the greatest demand and are the only major organs that can be wholly transplanted with relatively few risks to the life of the donor”.

Klara Skrivankova, Anti-Slavery International’s trafficking programme co-ordinator, said: “The UKHTC 2011′s assessment shows that more than 50% of trafficking in the UK happens for purposes other than sexual exploitation.

“The prevalence of trafficking for forced labour in industries like agriculture, construction or food processing is a problem we have been pointing to for a number of years. It is important that the law enforcement authorities now increase efforts to arrest those who profit from forced labour and ensure that all victims of trafficking see their exploiters brought to justice.”

The five most common countries of origin for victims of trafficking were Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Nigeria.

The assessment reported evidence that 99 UK citizens were trafficked within the UK last year, of whom 52 were trafficked for sexual exploitation, with more than 80% identified as female children. However, an Observer analysis of trafficking figures recorded by the Serious and Organised Crime Agency’s National Referral Mechanism database provides an alternative snapshot.

Between 1 April 2009, when the database started recording trafficked incidents, until March 2012, the latest set of figures available, some 2,445 people were suspected, or were found, to have been trafficked into the UK.

The figures reveal 1,566 were female, 596 were male and the remainder were children. Some 431 people were believed to have been trafficked from Nigeria, compared with 255 from Vietnam, the second most active trafficker of people to the UK. China was the third largest trafficker, responsible for bringing a suspected 224 people to the UK.

Europol, the international police agency, has identified Nigerian organised crime as one of the largest law enforcement challenges to European governments. In many cases, Nigerian victims are trafficked after a friend or family member offers a child a chance for a better life abroad.

On accepting the offer, the victim will have a “juju” ceremony performed by a witchdoctor to ensure success in their new life. Victims fear they will be magically harmed should they report their plight to the authorities, meaning the true scale of the abuse remains hidden.

A 2010 report by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre identified the trafficking of Vietnamese children into the UK as another key trend. The majority were forced to work in cannabis farms, with others being exploited in brothels and nail bars, or pressed into committing street crimes such as selling illegally copied DVDs or breaking and entering.

The UKHTC assessment found many trafficked victims were told that they owed debts of up to €70,000 (£55,400) for their travel costs. It notes: “They are then subjected to labour exploitation, sexual exploitation or criminal exploitation until they are perceived to have repaid their debt. In some cases, the debt increases through a combination of high costs for food and accommodation and low wages, and the victim is unable to reduce or repay the money owed.”

Read Full Post »

“Are they bad girls or brilliant?”A Harlots review of a brilliant book by Aphrodite Phoenix.

Posted in Escorting Lives, Feminism, Government Brutality, Human Rights, In the Media, Law, Organisations Comment, Religion, Safety, sex worker politics, Uncategorized on 10 May, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

I was delighted to be congratulated by Aphrodite Phoenix on a paper that I recently presented at the Brunel university sexual cultures conference.

Aphrodite asked me if I would be interested in reading and possible reviewing her book “Are they bad girls or brilliant?” I was delighted to be asked and agreed at once.

The book is actually two books in one. The first is entitled “A personal journey” and book two is called “18 audacious essays”.

The first book primarily details her experiences working as an escort in the USA. Aphrodite tells us about her reasons for joining the business, her family life, illness and tragedies and joys and also about her intellectual journey and her spiritual awakening through her work as an escort. In book two Aphrodite gives us her thoughts about feminism and sex worker activism through a series of essays. She includes an idealised manifesto for a sex worker future where sex work is once again revered and understood as a positive force within society.

I found myself agreeing with so much in this book which reaches out both to the public and academics. It is an easy and enjoyable read that is also insightful and positive.

Aphrodite’s experiences as an escort in many ways resembled my own experiences. Her thoughts about her work, her views on activism and about feminism also mirrored in many instances my own thoughts.

Her book intriguingly is titled “Are they bad girls or brilliant?”. She used the question mark because she wants her book to answer the questions that an outsider to the sex industry may want to ask in order to understand why someone like her would enter the sex trade. She leaves the answer to the question posed in the title however, to the reader.

This is a journey that we can all empathise with in so many ways. Aphrodite, for example, describes in an early chapter; entitled, “Just an afternoon of terror and joy”, the mixture of excitement and terror that escorts in the USA, where prostitution is a criminal offense, feel when meeting a new client. That excitement is however tinged with a real sense of danger. The fear is not that the client may be dangerous but rather that the meeting may be a police sting. The danger, the fear felt by the escort is also experienced by the client who is equally fearful of a police sting on him, because in the USA the client also is criminalised. The sense of relief felt by both the escort and the client as they hug and discreetly frisk each other for hidden wires is palpable. It is a story of two people in danger, not of criminals.
At the end of that chapter Aphrodite gives an early explanation for why she is prepared to risk arrest. She writes:

“I walk back through the bustling housekeepers. We resume all those sweet wordless greetings. My heart goes out to them now. I think of all the cleanings they have to do, and how, as with me, their work is performed for strangers. They purge away dust, lint, litter, loose hairs. Used sheets, semen-streaked towels like the one I’ve just left behind, tub scum, toilet filth…I consider their low pay. I consider how awful some people think my work is. How much “worse” it must be for the maid’s.
I think of the pleasure I give. I think of the stress I relieve. I think of how I do it all-naturally. Not Toxically. Not pharmaceutically.
And I think of the money I make.
I feel so good I could shout.”

I think this just about sums up how most sex workers feel about their work when criticised for their choices. I am sure the public will also sympathise with the fear and ask; where is the crime?

I also felt a personal resonance when Aphrodite describes how sex work has had a positive effect upon both her physical health and mental well being. She understands this as part of her personal awakening to an awareness of Goddess worship. She describes (with many references) the fact that healing once was the preserve of women and that part of that healing process was sexual healing. The sacredness of sex as practiced by priestesses who were also sacred prostitutes resonates through out the book.

Aphrodite describes her life as an escort as a learning experience, a journey of discovery. It is an experience in which she learns not only about herself but also about the human condition. She writes:

“I INTUITED RIGHT FROM THE ONSET, THAT SEX WORK CAN BE HEALTHY BECAUSE SEX WORK CAN BE SPIRITUAL”.

Aphrodite goes on to say:

“I was a mother, homemaker, gardener, exerciser, healer, writer and whore. All were seamlessly, wholly, my path”.

“Are they bad girls or brilliant?” is a revelatory vision of a woman’s journey of discovery. It is the story not of a “Happy hooker”, and many will try and dismiss her as such, but of a real woman who falls in love, is arrested, brings up children, is a mother, who copes with illness and loss and does all of this while also being a sex worker.
This is a story of an intelligent and well read woman whose intellectual and emotional journey has resulted in the writing of a book that will become a classic.

This book is available exclusively as an ebook from Aphrodite’s web site “HERE”.

The book will also be available in good old fashioned print very soon. Details will be available on Aphrodite’s web site and also from Harlots Parlour.

I genuinely recommend this book….enjoy and please write and leave reviews.

Both myself and Aphrodite will be speaking on the Charlie Spice show tonight at 8pm UK time. We will be discussing the book and coming out as a sex worker activist.

Please join us: “HERE”

Read Full Post »

STATEMENT by ECP. English Collective of Prostitutes on ACPO call for decriminalisation.

Posted in Campaigns and Groups, Government Brutality, Government Reviews and Change, Safety, sex worker politics, Uncategorized on 4 November, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

ENGLISH COLLECTIVE OF PROSTITUTES ON ACPO CALL FOR DECRIMINALISATION
It is a tragedy that it has taken the murders of countless sex workers including of five young women in Ipswich and three women in Bradford in the last few years, for the police to question whether the prostitution laws are ‘fit for purpose’ and suggest that decriminalisation as introduced by New Zealand should be considered. New Zealand successfully decriminalised all prostitution (as opposed to legalisation) both indoors and on the street, eight years ago. There has been no increase in prostitution and sex workers find it safer.
Any measures on prostitution should be first of all judged by whether they make sex workers safer. Women driven from the streets, including in Ipswich, have been shunted into other areas and driven underground into more danger. Self-help safety networks have been broken up. Hundreds of sex workers are being criminalised for working together in premises for safety. Fear of arrest (and for immigrant sex workers, deportation) deter women from coming forward to report rape and other violence. In some high profile cases where women have reported violent attacks, they have been arrested for prostitution while their attacker goes free.
ACPO is right to ask why New Zealand’s decriminalisation is not being followed? The government should act before more sex workers lose their lives.
Cari Mitchell
English Collective of Prostitutes
Crossroads Women’s Centre
230A Kentish Town Road
London NW5 2AB
Tel: 020 7482 2496
Fax: 020 7209 4761
Mobile: 07811 964 171
Website: http://www.prostitutescollective.net

Read Full Post »

Good ECP video at Slut walk- Shame about the stereotyping.

Posted in Anti Sex Work, Campaigns and Groups, Escorting Lives, Feminism, Government Brutality, Human Rights, Law, sex worker politics on 1 October, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

I think that the essential message within this video is important. I don’t personally agree in any way with the politics or the assumption that sex workers are all poor women forced to sell sex through circumstances. I find that insulting. People choose sex work for all kinds of reasons and most people who are “poor” do not sell sex. Selling sex is an option, a choice among many. I loath the stereotyping of sex workers in this manner.
I also wish that the ECP and their friends would recognise that the labour Party has led a nasty crusade against sex workers. Before being thrown from office it was the Labour Party that made things much worse by increasing the powers of the police to arrest sex workers and by encouraging the police to raid sex worker premises because they would benefit substantially because of changes within the proceeds of crime act.
The present government is not perfect by any means but they are not ideologically driven to hate sex workers unlike the previous Labour administration and they at least are talking to sex workers. I feel frustrated that the political bias of the ECP and other groups in London are hampering efforts to forge links with the present government.

Unfortunately those with strong left wing political opinions control the leadership of sex worker groups and therefore dictate the nature of relations with any government, not least the present administration. When the president of the GMB sex worker London branch publicly declares his unwillingness to talk to conservatives for example then you understand the problems the industry faces by not having lobbyists fit to the task in hand. This is why it is so important that moderates and real industry representatives become more involved in representing sex workers. Personal politics should not affect your ability to lobby with any government regardless of the political colour of that government.
Sadly I fear that so often those representing sex workers at government level within the UK are the real enemy.

The basic message within this video however is good and that is why I have posted it on Harlots. Enjoy.

Read Full Post »

RAIDS ON GODDESS TEMPLES ARE RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION… Understanding sacred sexuality and sacred prostitution.

Posted in Anti Sex Work, Government Brutality, Human Rights, Religion, sex worker politics, Uncategorized on 22 September, 2011 | 5 Comments »

This video is accessible at bottom of page

The recent raids on the Goddess temples in the USA are a sad reminder of how badly our society is damaged by centuries of orthodox monotheism that has denigrated human sexual expression and sexual joy as both sinful and dangerous. Orthodox monotheism has done this through dogmas that denigrate human sexuality as a distraction from its contemplation of the world of the dead rather than the world of the living. Once; sex was an expression of human joy, of the pleasure we take in our humanity for its own sake, a benediction given without expectation or censor.
Sacred prostitution sprang from this concept of sex as a civilising benediction. When the words “A prostitute I am, compassionate am I” were inscribed on the temple walls of Innana and Ishtar they were a declaration of sex as a blessing given from a prostitute in honour of the goddess to anyone who sought her company. The prostitute was an instrument of the Goddess. The Goddess as the compassionate whore tamed the wild nature of man and invited civilisation, romance, poetry, music, pleasure in all its forms into the world. Sex was perceived as a benediction that healed the sickness of the body and of the mind and was given to all with out question or demand.
It is this understanding of sex as a positive expression of the Goddess that we have lost. Today the prostitute instead of being acknowledged as a vehicle of joy has within a monotheist society become a symbol of lost virtue, a dangerous distraction into sin in a world where sex is sinful, dirty, destructive, secretive and furtive.
Our modern revulsion of the prostitute reflects our own self loathing of our need for sexual pleasure for its own sake and any understanding of sex as a healing and positive influence within society.

The men and women who now face prosecution were brave to challenge our modern misunderstanding of sex and of the positive role of the prostitute in dispensing sexual healing in its broadest sense. Orthodox monotheism has corrupted our understanding of sex as a positive expression of the divine and of the importance of sex in maintaining a healthy and balanced body and mind. The compassionate whore is an important reflection of the Goddess of compassion who reaches out to bring the sacred intimacy of human sexual interaction to those within society who may not easily access sexual relations or suffer because of sexual inadequacies or who; perhaps, fear sex or have no understanding of the importance of “good” sex to maintain a healthy body and mind that then reflects positively not only upon the individual but within society as a whole and within personal relationships. Teaching sex as a blessing rather than something to be feared and teaching humanity to understand the sexual needs of their human body as something positive and teaching that sex can be a path to spiritual enlightenment and to discovering the divine was once a duty of the sacred whore within the ancient temples. From my understanding re-establishing this teaching was an important aspect of the worship at these modern temples. Embracing sex as positive and not as something dirty or sinful was and is to the Goddess simply a reflection of her love for humanity.
We have forgotten that access to sexual expression was once understood as important in maintaining a complete and healthy “whole” person. When western society was forced to embrace the repressive dogmas of orthodox monotheism, sex outside of carefully prescribed so called norms; was, and still is perceived as dangerous. The result of this repression has been centuries of punitive legislation that has degraded sex into something criminal. In criminalising human sexuality society has also degraded our shared humanity. The arrests at the temple reflect another example of this brutal repression of human sexuality. Once again the prostitute is the scapegoat, presented as dangerous to a society still governed by patriarchal notions of good women and men and of course of sex that conforms to “their” carefully prescribed so called normality.

The arrests have also sadly revealed many leaders within modern paganism as either lacking in knowledge of important aspects of the Goddess or more probably unwilling to acknowledge aspects of the Goddess that do not fit easily within their sellable version of the goddess to an audience corrupted by centuries of orthodox monotheism.
There is no doubt that it would be a brave pagan leader who would stand side by side with those arrested at the temples for prostitution. The prostitute is so degraded within modern society that they fear that monotheists will find yet another stick with which to beat followers of the Goddess and to label them as sexual deviants. There is nothing new in this of course; it is what they have done for centuries and what they will always do. This however is not a good enough reason to shy away from avoiding explaining prostitution as a positive refection of the goddess of compassion and to explain sacred prostitution in the name of the goddess as a benediction and not something to be feared. It should not be just sex workers like myself who defend an aspect of the Goddess that some so called pagans feel uncomfortable with. This is religious persecution and it should be understood as such within the pagan community. Pagans who deny the goddess as prostitute and yet talk of sacred sex and sacred healing while denying the sensuous, unadulterated and very explicit and overt sexuality of the goddess is like denying the Goddess as destroyer and bringer of death. The Goddess is not a fluffy Barbie doll. The Goddess has many faces and to deny even one aspect of the Goddess because it does not sell easily tells us so much about those so called pagans. Those pagans who deny the link between prostitution and goddess worship and who try and dress sacred sexuality to appeal to the sensibilities of a corrupted audience are no better than those masked policemen who held guns to the head of the women and men within this temple. They are gaolers of the Goddess and not her priests and priestesses.

It is important that everyone does what ever they can in what ever way they can to defend the arrested practitioners at these temples and to stand up bravely in defence of the goddess and her prostitutes both male and female.

You can read more

“HERE”

“HERE”

Read Full Post »

Dr Belinda Brooks Gordon discusses the Hanna Morris Case on Woman’s Hour.

Posted in Anti Sex Work, Escorting Lives, Government Brutality, Human Rights, In the Media, Safety on 5 April, 2011 | 3 Comments »

Read Full Post »

For Prostitutes, Is Murder an Occupational Hazard?

Posted in Campaigns and Groups, Escorting Lives, Government Brutality, Human Rights, Law on 20 March, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

I was alerted to this article by a face book friend. It poses a serious question that seems to be almost accepted as fact by sectors of society and certainly by some legislators.
Although the article once again talks primarily about limited choices for sex workers which is an idea I personally have some issues with it does illustrate the mentality of those who think that acts of violence and even murder against a sex workers is sort of allowed by society. In a sense this thinking is correct because as long as sex work is criminalised and marginalised and therefore stigmatised then sex workers will remain vulnerable targets unprotected by the law.

I have said before that the real traffickers and pimps and abusers of sex workers wear suits and often have government titles. The rescue industry are equally culpable in perpetuating abuse toward sex workers by demanding the criminalising of our clients and the closing of safe places to work. We have a duty to remind the public of this truth and if I were able to finance an advertising campaign then this simple message would be at its centre.

GOVERNMENTS ABUSE SEX WORKERS NOT CLIENTS

You can read the full article with links “HERE”

Illustration: Charlie CanfieldAs MoJo reporter Mac McClelland pointed out earlier this week, murdered prostitutes don’t often make the news these days. When they do, their deaths may be dismissed as more occupational hazard than crime. Here, for example, is how St. Francis County sheriff Bobby May explained the fatal shooting of trans prostitute 25-year-old Marcal Camero Tye: “You know, prostitutes, these types of folks—it’s a risk. Whenever you’re soliciting, things of this nature happen sometimes.” Translation: If Tye hadn’t been trans and/or a prostitute, the murder would have most likely never happened. But why is it so easy to deny a prostitute’s right to safety?

Some sex worker advocates say that if the media did more work to humanize prostitutes, violence against this demographic would occur less frequently. Cyndee Clay, the executive director of Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive, is one. The Washington, D.C.-based counseling and outreach center reaches about 7,000 sex workers a year and has a 24-hour crisis assistance center for sex workers who have been victims of crime and/or who want to transition out of sex work. A few years ago, HIPS submitted its study of police abuse and misconduct cases against trans and female clients to Amnesty International. And recently, it helped prepare a United Nations report vying for sex worker rights in the United States. Clay spoke with me about prostitute safety, decriminalization, and the real reason people get into sex work.

Mother Jones: Based on the people you’ve worked with at HIPS, why do most people get into sex work?

Cyndee Clay: There’s not one story of why people do commercial sexual exchange for money, whether that’s formalized sex work or whether that’s entering into a relationship where you know that being intimate with someone means that you’re going to receive some financial assistance or shelter. I think what we do see is that the more economically disadvantaged or educationally disadvantaged, or the less power you have in the community already, tends to increase the likelihood that you’re going to be or feel coerced into sex work.

MJ: In your experience then, is prostitution a choice?

CC: In my experience at HIPS, probably the majority of people coming into our offices given a variety of choices probably would not choose to do sex exchange as their main source of income. Many of them are doing it because of circumstance.

MJ: In which case, why does HIPS emphasize providing health and welfare services to sex workers rather than alternative employment to rehabilitate them?

I don’t see sex workers as people who need to be rehabilitated. The clients who come into our offices and ask for assistance, they’re not saying I had sex with someone and they gave me money and that really hurt me.
CC: My issues with the word rehabilitation are somewhat problematic because I don’t see sex workers as people who need to be rehabilitated. The clients who come into our offices and ask for assistance, they’re not saying I had sex with someone and they gave me money and that really hurt me. Some people say that but it’s by far not the most common issue in all the 15 years I’ve been here. What people come to me with is I have these charges against me because I was arrested for prostitution.

We had one woman who worked with our program. She had struggled with drug abuse. She finally got to a point in her life where she could hold down a steady job. She had a food service job, so she was up at like 3 every morning, left her shelter, went to go to work at her job, and then after that would come and volunteer at the agency. She actually got let go of her job because she had a prostitution charge, which was a misdemeanor from ten years ago. I’ve heard of countless stories of people who were transgendered, who when they start transitioning or when they show up for their first days of work, because their gender doesn’t match their ID, they get fired or they get told that they can’t work for some reason. So when these people need to eat, when they need to support themselves, body labor, sex work is something that they turn to. Those are the issues that I think we need to work on instead of trying to abolish sex work. It’s those societal forces that are making sex work the best possible option or an option among very few options.

MJ: So you think prostitution should be legalized?

CC: I tend to talk about sex work in terms of decriminalization because I definitely don’t feel like we need more laws around sex work. But through decriminalization we would, in some ways at least, change the relationship that sex workers have with law enforcement, so that law enforcement can spend their time helping people who are victims of abuse, or people who are victims of domestic violence, or people who are victims of sexual assault or robbery. We wouldn’t be spending our time policing people for trading sex which would free up resources to take care of these more real issues for sex workers. Criminalization of people of color and poor people in general is more of what our clients deal with on a day-to-day basis. Lacking jobs, housing, and being profiled and feeling like you’re under the gun all the time. Those are the things that keep people from being safe, that keep people from accessing resources that they need like housing, like medical care, and other social services.

I know a woman who chose to do escorting because it meant as a single mom she could be off at 3 to be home with her child.
People are violent against sex workers because they think it’s okay, like Jerry Ridgeway who said specifically that he targeted sex workers because he knew they wouldn’t be missed because no one cared about them. We had a guy in DC who started off attacking exotic dancers and then moved to attacking escorts, women who worked on the Internet. I know a woman who chose to do escorting because it meant as a single mom she could be off at 3 to be home with her child. Of the economic options available to her, escorting was one that allowed her to have flexible schedule, and allowed her to take her kid to soccer. Probably like a lot of people she had good days on the job and bad days on the job. But the man who was targeting escorts said, “What you’re doing is illegal and what I’m doing is illegal, so no one’s going to care if I hurt you.” A lot of sex workers at that time were really afraid to come forward and afraid to go to the police, and it’s due to criminalization for the act of paying for sex and the treatment of sex workers by law enforcement. Decriminalization isn’t going to stop all of these problems but at least it would allow us to put a lot of resources into solving the larger societal problems that are causing the abuse, causing the violence, causing the different factors that make people feel like sex work is their only choice. I think sex work can be a choice. It may not be the choice that you want your friend to make, but I wouldn’t want my friend to work at Wal-Mart or McDonald’s for that matter.

MJ: What is the country missing out on by not decriminalizing prostitution?

CC: The real thing for me is at what cost? At what cost to society do we continue to lock people up for prostitution? At what cost do these laws allow us to continue to treat sex workers or people who do sex trading as criminals and not as members of society. We were in court and met a woman who was going to jail and was potentially going to have to be involved in a four-month diversion program and weekly trips to court for drug testing and potential incarceration for what amounted to a $10 exchange of money for a sexual act. How much are we spending on the judicial system and on incarcerating these individuals? And then we she get’ out of jail she’s still going to have a charge that’s going to keep her from getting a job because having a prostitution charge on your record can be the terms for not hiring someone or if it shows up in a background check, people lose their jobs. It’s happened to many people at the agency. We’re just setting up a revolving door where we lock these people away so we don’t have to think about them. And it’s not an effective means of doing what we really need to do which is help increase the options available for people so they can lead self-determined lives and be happy and healthy.
.

Read Full Post »

AFRICAN SEX WORKER SEMINAR CANCELLED. WHY?

Posted in Government Brutality, Government Reviews and Change on 24 November, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

I have been made aware of the following letter that was sent informing all friends of sex workers and of human rights about the disgraceful pressure put upon the management of the Serena Hotel in Uganda. The Serena hotel was due to hold a seminar of African sex workers where issues relating to sex work could be discussed by those who suffer the consequences of anti sex laws the most, sex workers.
The hotel received a letter from the Minister of Ethics and Integrity Hon Buturo on behalf of the Ugandan government warning of consequences if the conference was permitted to proceed. A less fitting title for this minister perhaps could not be invented. Sadly this action illustrates the type of prejudiced persecution that happens everywhere that sex workers come together to demand freedoms that others take for granted. In the UK sex workers voices are ignored by ministers in favour of wealthy anti sex work pressure groups who are often funded by the government. No bias then.

I have written to Akina Mama wa Afrika asking how sex workers and our allies and friends can help. I will keep you informed.

From: Kasha.N. Jacqueline
Sent: 11/18/10 06:37 PM
To: ucscohrcl, lgbti-info-uganda, queerafrica, ILGA-Africa
Subject: Sex worker conference under attack by Government in Uganda-thrown out of Hotel

Its with sadness that I inform you of the cancellation Akina Mama wa Afrika conference for the Commercial Sex Workers Leaderhip institute that was to start on the 18 to 20th November at the Serena Hotel,Ranch on the lake.This is because the Minister of Ethics and Integrity Hon Buturo directed the hotel to cancel their booking as they were hosting a conference for a certain group that is illegal.In his letter to the hotel the Minister states that prostitution is illgeal and so should the hotel go ahead and host this conference on their premises they woudl be complying with illegalities.

Background.In 2008 again the same Minister stopped a sex workers confence which was scheduled to take place in Entebbe and the conference had to relocate and have the confence in Mombasa,this time around the conference unlike in 2008 had started.It is a violation of human rights of the highest order and we need all the support available to condemn this abuse.Everybody has a right to work and this means that the Minister is undermining the work the Sex workers are involved in.Its their bodies and they have the right to choice and bodily integrity.So for the Minister to dictate what they should or shouldnt do with their bodies is a violation of the CSW rights.
Akina Mama wa Afrika has been very involved in fighting for sexual minorities rights in Uganda and needs all your support at this tying time.

We need ally our support to condemn this action and call for the decriminalization of CSW in Uganda.
You are not free until everyone is free.

Inset picture is of letter from minister sent to hotel.

Read Full Post »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 334 other followers