Greg MacDougall interviews sex workers rights advocates at the 2011 Women’s World conference. Interview with Chris Bruckert, Frédérique Chabot and Tuulia Law — of POWER, Students for Sex Worker Rights, and Sex Professionals of Canada. At Women’s Worlds 2011 conference in Ottawa, July 7. http://womensworlds.ca
Tag Archive | activism
Why are sex workers’ rights supporters upset with Google?
Google announced last week that they are making the largest-ever corporate donation to “ending modern day slavery”: an impressive $11.5 million dollars. We applaud and support Google’s desire to fight slavery, forced trafficking, and exploitative labor conditions, but Google’s funding recipients include three NGOs that cause serious harm to sex workers around the world: International Justice Mission, Polaris Project, and Not for Sale. As front line sex worker support services struggle for funding to serve their communities, it is offensive to watch Google shower money upon a wealthy faith-based group like the International Justice Mission, which took in nearly $22 million dollars in 2009 alone. (In contrast, the St. James Infirmary, a San Francisco clinic that provides free healthcare to sex workers, operated on only $335k in 2010.)
High whore holy day: A San Francisco tradition turns nine
Speaking out for sex: Posters from the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.
PHOTO BY JOHN BONNAR
It was Saturday, December 17. A jazz funeral was being held for victims of violence against sex workers at the Center for Sex and Culture. Post-event, its message was still resonating in its attendees. “The holiday was beautiful,” sex activist and post-porn star Annie Sprinkle told the Guardian about the ninth year of the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers that she helped to found.
Sex workers call for hate crime law, end to violence
As the Missing Women’s Inquiry continues, sex workers and supporters lit candles on the steps of a police detachment yesterday, part of a global day of action.
By David P. Ball
Sex workers and their allies rallied outside the Downtown Eastside (DTES) police station Saturday, calling on Vancouver police to treat women in the neighbourhood with respect, and to put a stop to violence against people in the sex industry.
Sex workers won’t be ‘victims’
Protest draws attention to recent violence against prostitutes
By Meghan Hurley, Ottawa Citizen
Ottawa-based sex workers and their allies called for an end to prostitution sweeps Saturday during a protest held on Parliament Hill.
About 50 people participated in the protest, which took place just more than a week after Ottawa police chief Vern White issued an unprecedented public safety warning to women after police investigators discovered a pattern in homicides among city prostitutes.
The dangers of sex work in Canada
By Andrea Houston
Every night Lexi Tronic risks her life at work.
If she gets beaten or raped, she feels she can’t call police to report the attack because – at least for now – Tronic is also a criminal.
“What happens when you’re trapped in someone’s car with the doors locked? You don’t have any options. It’s fight or flight,” she says.
Tronic is a 10-year veteran in the sex trade who has worked both on the streets and from her home, as many sex workers have, she says.
On Dec 17, the transgender and sex-worker-rights activist will join others to mark the ninth annual International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. Such violence is a pervasive problem that is largely preventable and often ignored, she says, noting that most violent crimes against sex workers go underreported, unaddressed and unpunished.
The Awesome Sex Worker Who Loves Disabled Clients
This story makes me smile! If you want to learn more – visit Touching Base or listen to Global Perspective’s “The Too Hard Basket” by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
If there’s one thing that makes some people squirm more than the idea of a functional, happy sex worker it’s the frank discussion of disabled sexuality. And award-winning Australian director Catherine Scott has set out to demystify both in her new documentary, Scarlet Road: A Sex Worker’s Journey.
Sex worker sweeps will continue: police
Luna Allison / Ottawa / Friday, December 02, 2011
Despite recent claims from the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) that they’re switching emphasis from sex workers to johns when it comes to street sweeps, local cops arrested five workers in Vanier Nov 25.
It’s the fourth sweep in as many months.
“POWER is certainly critical of the street sweeps happening in Ottawa,” says Frédérique Chabot, a member of Prostitutes of Ottawa-Gatineau Work, Educate & Resist (POWER) and co-author of a recent research report on sex work. “Even the name ‘street sweep’ is problematic in our eyes. The language feeds the construction of sex workers as being disposable and dirty.”
POWER and other advocacy groups question why police are still utilizing this tactic despite a ruling from Ontario’s Supreme Court last September that struck down the laws governing sex work. In her ruling, Justice Susan Himel indicated that these laws contribute to the dangers facing sex workers.
What is a representative sex worker?
What is a representative sex worker?
This is a guest post by Wendy Lyon and was originally posted at Feminist Ire. Wendy Lyon is a bi-continental feminist activist who completed an LLM in International Human Rights Law (Griffith College Dublin) in 2011 with a dissertation on sex workers’ right to health. Her other areas of interest include labour migration, refugee law and reproductive justice.
This is a cliché that anyone who advocates for sex workers’ rights will be familiar with. Faced with a sex worker who defies the abolitionist stereotype of a person physically or economically coerced into prostitution, who thinks their job is ok and isn’t desperate to leave it (but could if s/he wanted to), and who argues that the solution to the negative aspects of sex work is decriminalisation and enforceable rights, the inevitable response is:
You’re not representative. Why should the law be made for you?
This argument is problematic on a number of levels, and deserves a fuller response than I’ve been able to give it when it’s appeared in my comments. So here are my thoughts about it.
Elena Reynaga: Sex work is a service, so why can’t we have rights?
Prostitutes in Argentina are taking an unprecedented step – calling for a charity that represents them to be given full union status. As World Aids Day approaches, Metro speaks to the woman behind the move…
‘I’m not ashamed. I’m truly proud of what I do,’ says Elena Reynaga. ‘Through my work, I created possibilities for my children, opportunities I didn’t have myself. My children went to school, got jobs. I have nothing to be ashamed of.’
Reynaga was a prostitute who spent the 30 years since she turned 19 working in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. She has now left the streets behind to lead Redtrasex (Latin American and Caribbean Sex Workers Network) and Ammar (Female Sex Workers’ Association of Argentina).
escorts are for women too 
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