A shocking 20.9 million people are victims of human trafficking around the world today—more than the populations of New York, Chicago, Miami, Houston and Los Angeles combined. In their new feature-length documentary TRICKED, filmmakers John-Keith Wasson and Jane Wells follow pimps, johns, sex-trafficking victims, parents and law enforcement agents in several U.S. cities, paying special […]
Prostitution or Sex Work
Sex work or prostitution is the selling of sexual activity for payment, which can be dangerous if coercive or unregulated.
Turning the Corner on Sex Workers’ Rights in Argentina
The Association of Women Sex Workers in Argentina in Action for Our Rights (AMMAR) has painted the walls of Buenos Aires with new ads demanding legal protection for female sex workers. The ads, commissioned by AMMAR and designed by the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather, are carefully positioned on various street corners, revealing a sexualized woman on one side […]
The Merseyside Model: Crimes Against Sex Workers Are Hate Crimes
When prostitutes are made to disappear, most of society does not care, and most of the cases remain unsolved. Women in prostitution suffer higher rates of murder (the mortality rate for women in prostitution in London is 12 times the national average —according to Home Office, a UK government agency that deals with crime and policing), higher rates of […]
Women’s Rights Key To Effective Global AIDS Response
As the XIX International AIDS Conference proceeds in Washington, D.C., this week, its pertinent to note that a new report by the Global Commission on HIV and the Law, an independent body of former world leaders and top legal, human rights and HIV experts, has labeled the global response to the AIDS epidemic as “stifled” by various […]
Will NYC Cabbies Be Forced To Profile Sex Workers?
We’re told that being a prostitute will mark a woman for life. Yet after several millennia of practice, lawmakers and social reformers still struggle to identify what a sex worker looks like. “You know,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said (in a June 15 appearance on WOR’s perfectly named “The John Gambling Show”) when asked what might […]
Greek Sex Workers Face Forced HIV Tests; Malawi Workers Fight Back
Greece has been a mainstay in the international press as it endures harsh austerity measures in the face of the global economic crisis. But recent news reports have also focused on a second disturbing reality: At the end of April, Greek police began systematically arresting sex workers, forcing them to undergo HIV testing and posting the […]
Sexual Exploitation of Native Women: Challenging the Shame
Last week, Indian Country Today published a story by independent journalist and photographer Mary Annette Pember (Red Cliff Tribe of Wisconsin Ojibwe) about generations of American Indian women who have been sexually exploited—in Duluth, Minn., of all places. Pember begins her story with Mary G.: Mary G. was born from the boats. Her children were […]
Condoms As Evidence of Police Endangering Public Health
Currently in the state of New York, police and prosecutors use condoms as evidence of prostitution-related offenses, including the murky crime of “loitering for the purpose of engaging in a prostitution offense.” Even when they don’t use condoms as evidence to aid them in making arrests and convictions, in the process of doing their stop-and-frisks […]
Future of Feminism: Sex Workers Deserve Dignity and Care
There’s no doubt that sex work in its various manifestations, ranging from stripping to prostitution to pornography, remains a contentious issue. It’s one on which even feminists notoriously disagree–a “fracture in ideology,” according to Kate Holden–with discussions veering back and forth between victimization and empowerment. Of course there’s a substantial difference between becoming a sex […]