Posts Tagged Sex Work

Louisiana ends sex offender registration for sex workers


Women With A Vision Executive Director Deon Haywood.
Image via The Louisiana Justice Institute.

A law that branded many sex workers in Louisiana as sex offenders has finally been changed. From The Louisiana Justice Institute:

Governor Jindall’s office announced today that he had signed into law a bill, sponsored by Louisiana State Representative Charmaine Marchand Stiaes, that effectively moves prostitution convictions back to the level of misdemeanor.

Previously, police officers and prosecutors in Louisiana had a choice between charging accused sex workers under the prostitution law, which was a misdemeanor, or under Louisiana’s 200-plus year-old “Crime Against Nature” law, a felony. That law was interpreted to apply specifically to solicitation for oral or anal sex, but ...


Women With A Vision Executive Director Deon Haywood.
Image via The Louisiana Justice Institute.

A law that branded many sex workers in Louisiana as sex offenders has finally been changed. From The Louisiana Justice ...

People in the sex trade respond to GEMS media storm

An INCITE! affiliate and collective of radical women of color, queer people of color, and Indigenous people who identify as people in the sex trades has written a compelling response to Rinku Sen’s ColorLines article “The Complexities of Sex Trafficking, and Some Simple Solutions.” I see their piece as addressing the larger media storm around “Girls Like Us,” the new book from GEMS founder Rachel Lloyd, which is the focus of Sen’s original article. In discussing any issue, especially one like the sex trade where those involved are marginalized in our culture, I think it is vital to center the voices of those most impacted. Lloyd was formerly in the sex trade, but her work is ...

An INCITE! affiliate and collective of radical women of color, queer people of color, and Indigenous people who identify as people in the sex trades has written a compelling response to Rinku Sen’s ColorLines ...

Research behind Craigslist Adult Services shutdown debunked [Updated]

Yesterday, the Village Voice City Pages published an article debunking the Women’s Funding Network (WFN) sex trafficking study that played such a pivotal role in the shutdown of Craigslist’s Adult Services section last fall and was cited by some of the biggest newspapers in the country.

The article exposed the WFN study as bogus and faulty, lending credence to something that sex workers and sex worker advocates have been saying for years: oft-cited stats about unrealistically high numbers of women and children being trafficked into the sex industry tend to have serious flaws. At best they paint an inadequate and victim-focused picture of the industry, and at worst they manufacture shame, fear, and sensationalism for private gain. ...

Yesterday, the Village Voice City Pages published an article debunking the Women’s Funding Network (WFN) sex trafficking study that played such a pivotal role in the shutdown of Craigslist’s Adult Services section last ...

Case contesting “crime against nature” law rocks my world

A lawsuit has been brought against the state of Louisiana for its nonsensical and discriminatory use of an antiquated “crime against nature” statute to arrest and prosecute sex workers.

And it is kind of rocking my world.

According to a recent press release, Women With a Vision (WWAV) has brought its campaign for repeal of Louisiana’s Solicitation of a Crime Against Nature (SCAN) statute to the steps of the federal court with the lawsuit Doe v. Jindal. Calling the SCAN statute “unconstitutional” on equal protection grounds and “cruel and unusual punishment”, the complaint names nine plaintiffs, including a grandmother, a mother of four, three transgender women, and a man, all of whom have been required to register as sex offenders from ...

A lawsuit has been brought against the state of Louisiana for its nonsensical and discriminatory use of an antiquated “crime against nature” statute to arrest and prosecute sex workers.

And it is kind of rocking my world.

According to ...

Hey Long Island District Attorney: Sex workers don’t deserve to be murdered

Actually, no one does, regardless of their work.

Tell that to the Long Island District Attorney’s office, who just released a statement about the four bodies that were found in sand dunes in Long Island last week.

Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota says Waterman’s work as a prostitute led to her death. “We believe that each of the four victims met their pre-arranged client or clients shortly before their deaths and that their deaths are a direct result of their business as prostitutes,” said Spota.

Actually, District Attorney Spota, their deaths are a direct result of being murdered.

The fact that these women were likely targeted because they were sex workers should bring awareness to the ...

Actually, no one does, regardless of their work.

Tell that to the Long Island District Attorney’s office, who just released a statement about the four bodies that were found in sand dunes in Long Island ...

“Their words are killing us”: Violent language of anti-sex work groups

Today marks the 7th annual International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.

To mark this important day, we’re featuring this guest post on the impact of violent language of anti-sex work groups by Calum Bennachie & Jan Marie. The article was excerpted from “Research for Sex Work 12”, a journal published this month. Both the journal and the website amplify the voices of sex worker-led organizations around the world that speak out about violence from police, institutions, clients, and intimate partners, while challenging the myth that sex work is inherently violence against women. You can download the full journal, with eight more articles about sex work and violence, for free here.

Written by Calum Bennachie & ...

Today marks the 7th annual International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.

To mark this important day, we’re featuring this guest post on the impact of violent language of anti-sex work groups by Calum Bennachie ...

Nothing foreign about it: The commercial sexual exploitation of children in America

When we think about sex trafficking, we tend to think of it as a foreign problem. Something that happens in eastern Europe, in south east Asia. Not something that happens in the American south, or on America’s east coast. But we’re wrong.
Last week at the No Violence Against Women conference, run by the National Council for Research on Women and UNIFEM, and hosted by Hunter College, I attended a presentation about the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) right here in America.
The organization A Future Not a Past, has been working on this issue for over a decade. It’s a problem that’s growing, and quickly. In New York in February 2010 alone, 2830 girls under ...

When we think about sex trafficking, we tend to think of it as a foreign problem. Something that happens in eastern Europe, in south east Asia. Not something that happens in the American south, or on America’s ...

CLPP 2010: Feminism and the rights of people involved in sex work and street economies

This panel was an incredible conversation about the issues surrounding sex work and street economies. What was so great about it was that it featured and centered the experiences of folks who are sex workers themselves or work directly with sex workers.
So often conversations and debates about sex work simply leave the workers themselves out completely.
These notes are not a comprehensive view of the discussion, but some notes after the jump. Check out the organizations that were present for some really great work that is trying to address the needs of folks in the sex work industry directly.
Update: There is some confusion in comments about the speakers and their histories with sex work. If they self-identified as ...

This panel was an incredible conversation about the issues surrounding sex work and street economies. What was so great about it was that it featured and centered the experiences of folks who are sex workers themselves or ...

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