Sitting in a warm room in Phnom Penh with several other women from the Asia Pacific region, Kamalabai Pani, a sex worker and a board member of Veshya Anyay Mukti Parishad (VAMP, Prostitutes’ Collective Against Injustice) in India, became visibly upset when discussion turned to the efforts of U.S.-led feminist groups to discredit several United… Continue reading “Dragged Off By The Hair”: An Indian Sex Worker Recalls a Raid
Tag: anti prostitution loyalty oath
Equality Now, Or Else?
While Western-led feminist groups such as Equality Now continue to conflate consensual sex work with trafficking and violence, where do sex workers themselves fit into concepts of feminism and gender equality, especially if they live in countries like India? “When you are coming from a place like India, you have the whole caste system, stigma… Continue reading Equality Now, Or Else?
The Week In Links—July 19th
On July 2nd, 24 year old Turkish trans sex worker Dora Oezer was murdered by a client. The following Friday, a 100 plus person protest against transphobic violence, organized by Turkish sex workers’ rights organization Red Umbrella Sexual Health and Human Rights Association, was held in Istanbul, while a similar protest was held in Berlin. International… Continue reading The Week In Links—July 19th
The Week In Links—June 28th
Registration for the Desiree Alliance Conference is still open with hotel room discounts until July 7th. Tensions over escorting simmer in rural Australian towns, where touring sex workers follow the market that transient miners create, even after the Queensland Supreme Court upheld a ruling that allows hotel owners to refuse accommodations to sex workers. Beijing… Continue reading The Week In Links—June 28th
Lonely Little Red Umbrella: Sex Workers’ Rights in the Anti-Prostitution Loyalty Pledge Hearing
On April 22nd, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments for Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, Inc. concerning whether the Anti-Prostitution Loyalty Oath (APLO), written into the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), violates the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. The contested legislation is the U.S.… Continue reading Lonely Little Red Umbrella: Sex Workers’ Rights in the Anti-Prostitution Loyalty Pledge Hearing