We are a collective of sex worker organizations working on international harm reduction issues. We would like to provide you with some information about next year's International Harm Reduction conference that will be held in Thailand April 19 to 23rd, 2009.
We are encouraging sex worker representatives to submit abstracts for
general review and we are also seeking expressions of interest from people interested in being a plenary speaker and to be on a major panel. Our priority is for sex workers to represent themselves and their communities. We are particularly keen to include speakers from Central Asia, Eastern Europe, SE Asia, and Southern Asia on the major panel but are open to expressions of interests from any region.
We also encourage sex worker representatives to consider joining our group, the International Sex Worker Harm Reduction Caucus, to work on sex worki and harm reduction issues. If you are interested please contact us.
Dear Allies, friends, SWOP-ees around the world,
We are so proud to announce that we SUCCEEDED in our efforts to secure the endorsement of the Democratic Party! Due to our hard work and lobbying (which was truly a culmination of many years of sex workers working directly with city politicians and politicos) the Democratic party endorsed us! Am I dreaming?
We were very fortunate to have remarkable allies such as Greg Shaw, former president of the Harvey Milk Club, who initiated, explained and helped coordinate the strategy, as well as Slava Osowska, a queer activist and member of Industrial Workers of The World, who did much of the physical work of actually getting the 12,745 signatures needed. Slava has helped write the materials and works tirelessly.
About 40 (or maybe more?) sex workers and supporters showed up and most testified, the majority identifying as sex workers. Long time allies from the HIV prevention/harm reduction movements and from the medical marijuana movement were instrumental in their support.
Declaración del Movimiento Internacional de las Trabajadoras Sexuales, Trabajadores Sexuales y Trabajadoras Sexuales Trans
para la Conferencia Internacional de Sida México 2008
Sex Workers´ Declaration at the 2008 International Aids Conference in Mexico
Participación en las Conferencias / Participation in Conferences:
Tara smiles at March in Mexico City!
Sex workers from across all continents, including most countries in Latin America, have come together in Mexico City prior to the International AIDS Conference to build community, increase sex worker visibility, and unify to demand recognition of sex worker rights as an integral part of HIV/AIDS work. Following on the great sex worker organizing that happened in Toronto at the last International AIDS Conference (IAC), activists are hoping that by coming together before the actual IAC sex workers will be better positioned to advance their messages and visibility, especially at a crucial time when new attacks on sex worker rights are happening in name of saving sex workers.
(Please follow this link to the AIDS2008 Blog where Darby posts!)
To view videos as well as the District Attorney and Public Defender arguments, also to appear in the ballot pamphlet visit the BAYSWAN San Francisco Prostitution Ballot Measure Info Page at:
http://www.bayswan.org/SFInitiative08
The language for the San Francisco Prostitution Ballot Measure has been approved and here it is below:
San Francisco Prostitution Ballot Measure 2008:
ENFORCEMENT OF LAWS RELATED TO PROSTITUTION AND SEX WORKERS
Prostitution Ballot Measure as it will appear
in the San Francisco Voters' Pamphlet 2008
THE WAY IT IS NOW:
State and local laws prohibit prostitutioni. State and federal laws prohibit human trafficking for prostitutioni or forced labor. Criminal laws also prohibit crimes such as battery, extortion and rape, regardless of the victim's status as a prostitute or sex worker.
In 1994, the Board of Supervisors established a Task Force on Prostitution (Task Force) to examine prostitutioni in the City and to recommend social and legal reforms. In 1996 the Task Force released a report recommending that:
Celebrate a decade of Research for Sex Work!
The tenth issue has been released and can be downloaded from http://www.researchforsexwork.org.
It is bilingual, with text in Spanish and English.
SEX WORKERS' RIGHTS!
Contents
Editorial - Melissa Ditmore
Resisting Raids and Rescue -VAMP Collective and SANGRAM
Los trabajadores sexuales en la India enfrentan abuso en Ataques de
incursiones en la Colectividad de VAMP
Sex Worker Activists: Embodying Aberrance - Stewart
Activistas trabajadoras sexuales: Expresando la Aberración - Stewart
A participatory-action and interventional research approach to HIV
prevention and treatment among women in survival sex worki - Shannon
and Bright
Una aproximacion participativa e intervencionista en la prevención
del VIH y tratamiento en mujeres que hacen trabajo sexual para
sobrevivir - Shannon and Bright
"My one-way ticket to Kamathipura": Rights of sex workers
compromised - Karandikar and Próspero
Not huge on the issues, they both did an Amazing Job!.
Their press release..
ON THE ISSUES: The Progressive Woman’s Magazine
Works Hard For Her Money: Feminists and Prostitutes
http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/july08/index.php
A print publication from 1983-1999, ON THE ISSUES MAGAZINE ONLINE offers full archives and all content for free as a committed public service to upgrade the level of feminist conversation. Visitwww.ontheissuesmagazine.com
“NEW YORK: Prostitution penetrated the news in a major way in recent months — from ex-governor Eliot Spitzer of New York and his paid binges with women to the suicide of DC madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey and the Showtime fluff of “Secret Diary of A Call Girl”
But the media, politicians and feminists have not grappled with the real complexities of prostitutioni. In its new Online edition, “Works Hard for Her Money: Feminists and Prostitutes” ON THE ISSUESMAGAZINE releases compelling original content — diverse articles, art and poetry that challenge current notions and urge new thinking.
Sex Workers from all over the country party down at Big Chicks after the four day political conference held here in Chicago. Come grind and rub elbows with the naughtiest of the them all.
Meet sex workers from San Francisco, NYC, and everywhere in between as they converge here in Chicago for the Desiree Alliance conference of 2008. Saturday night will be the night we put aside planning the revolution to get loose and dress up and meet Chicago locals who have supported the movement this year. Come and bring a friend!
WHO::
You (21+), dressed to impress, costumes encouraged... WEAR RED!!
Donations are welcome, but not required. Open to the public!
When::
Saturday Jul 19, 2008
at 9:00 PM
Where::
Hello Jessica!
I read your "article" entitled "Undercover 'John' takes on trannies, pimps" on the website for the Boston Herald. It was widely circulated after you succeeded to piss off the LGBTQ community starting with your opening line "James Fong has been trapped inside houses of ill repute by giant naked trannies... " And the transphobia didn't stop there.
Geez, Jessica? Could this article be anymore terrible? It's salacious and ignorance portrait of sex worki and transgender sex workers, I feel like I am reading a tabloid. Or the NY Post! Did you not realize as you typed away you were being lascivious and derogatory? Hard day at the office? Do you have a repressed sexual desire you want to share with the group?
