Amanda Brooks published this post about the ordeal a client put her and Jill Brenneman through over the past two years. It’s a horrifying and compelling must-read.
Scarlet Road, a documentary about an Australian escort and her disabled clients, is showing at the Columbus International Film Fest.
An Irish sex work abolitionist group is making fake sex worker profiles on Tinder, conflating sex work with sex trafficking in an attempt to drum up support for abolition.
The defeat of the “End Demand” addition to the UK’s End Modern Slavery bill will not stop the implementation of the Swedish Model in Northern Ireland, where the criminalization of paying for sex passed a few weeks ago over the protests of sex workers and their allies.
Naomi Sayers writes about the reality of being an indigenous woman and a sex worker and the way that marginalized people are betrayed by the people entrusted with their protection.
The drummer of AC/DC doesn’t like when escorts play with his pet dog.
Thuli Khoza, the co-ordinator of Sisonke Durban (the Durban chapter of the South African sex workers’ rights organization Sisonke) discusses the work Sisonke does around outreach, education, and advocating for decriminalization in South Africa.
Monique Emser, a researcher who studies sex trafficking, explains that many trafficked sex workers have worked in the sex industry before and understand that they will be doing sex work once they migrate, they just don’t know how harsh or controlled the circumstances will be.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is Kaufmich.com, a social networking site for the sex industry in Germany. The founders explain that they wanted to create a free market for escorts, and like the now-shut down site MyRedbook, it allows sex workers to find and screen clients prior to actually meeting in person.
Under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, arrested Indian sex workers are currently vulnerable to being detained in remand homes for up to three years, with little to no contact with their families and friends and no way of making money. Unsurprisingly, they’re against this.
Opinions around the Immoral Traffic Act and the proposal to legalize or decriminalize prostitution remain divided. On the one side: morals, on the other side: human rights and safety. The Kashmiri Times does a quick rundown of the differences between the two.
Kerry Porth (the chairman of Pivot Legal Society in Vancouver), with six masked sex workers, spoke out against C-36 after it got royal assent last Thursday.
Jam Jones from SWOP-Chicago writes about the way criminalization and marginalization combine to create a climate in which men like Darren Vann are able to murder street workers and other people in the industry with relative impunity.
The murder of two escorts in Hong Kong has left sex workers feeling nervous; one former worker says that the industry is now more dangerous than it has been in the past.
Angela McGill gives yet another run-through on why C-36 is both hypocritical, unconstitutional, and dangerous.
More on the Oakland ordinance that forces landlords to evict sex workers: City Hall is now saying it’s about preventing trafficking, the fallback defense of all anti-sex work legislation.
The Victoria, Australia Sex Party’s platform includes the decriminalization of sex work, compulsory sex education in schools, and protecting sex workers by including them in anti-discrimination legislation.
A Delhi court sentenced four young men to ten years imprisonment for the kidnap and rape of a Rwandan refugee, declaring:
It may be reiterated that simply because the victim was working as a sex worker before the incident in question, does not confer any right upon anyone to violate her dignity or to rob her and can certainly not be a ground to award less than the minimum prescribed punishment.
In Egypt, women are being arrested, forced to submit to virginity tests, and threatened with being charged with prostitution if they aren’t virgins.
Since you brought up Northern Ireland, here’s a link (with photos and a video) about the first-ever sex workers’ protest there.
#NoClause6 | Sex workers protest in Northern Ireland
http://wp.me/p294H2-197
The research report into sex work in Northern Ireland, prepared by researchers at Queen’s University Belfast, can be found here:
http://www.dojni.gov.uk/index/publications/publication-categories/pubs-criminal-justice/october-research-prostitution-ni.pdf
And here are translations of two interviews with sex workers in Germany published in kaufmich:
[1] http://wp.me/p4r4GT-8l
[2] http://wp.me/p4r4GT-8G
Thank you!
So many horrible things keep happening 🙁
I would like to thank the T&S staff for putting Jill’s and my story on here. It’s important that other sex workers avoid him. We know we’re not his first victims, but we are probably going to be the loudest.
Anyone who isn’t a sex worker and reads this needs to understand that Bruce and Pig did what they did — with impunity — because sex work is criminalized in the US. Criminalization only empowers criminals, and creates victims where there should not be any victims. That message hasn’t been pounded into everyone’s head yet, so this is another (very large) nail.
Amanda and Jill, thank you for sharing your stories and for being such brave and amazing women. Friendship and solidarity with our community is the most important thing we have; through our love and respect for each other we learn to love and respect ourselves.
Thank you, Tits and Sass. I feel my heart growing (and breaking) with every story and truth I have read here since I was a confused young escort. I love the community here, you have all made me want to keep fighting. We deserve better.
<3<3<3Thank you for sharing your story.