March 3rd is International Sex Worker Rights Day, and for the first time, Boston's saluting our local escorts and prostitutes, thanks to the Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP). The national organization's Boston chapter debuts its first major act since its creation in November 2009 by hosting a week of events meant to increase awareness and foster a Bostonian sex-worker community.
It's legal to identify as a sex worker, but illegal to provide, pimp or practice sex work in Massachusetts (great job, legislative compromise). So what rights do people possess when they teeter on the line of legislative existence?
Currently in Massachusetts, prostitution earns you a one-year (max) sentence and/or a $500 fine. Pimping's more criminal than sexing, though ... that'll cost you five years in jail and $5,000 in fines. Two separate bills on this year's docket would amp up the punishment for prostitution, without affecting sex workers directly. One, proposed by Rep. Gloria Fox, D-Boston, would institute a sliding scale of fines for repeat-offender johns, while the other, from Rep. Mike Rush, D-Boston, would double the punishment for pimps' second offenses.
"At this point, we're not here to write or push laws. We don't even have our own lawyer," says Melora Marshall, SWOP Boston's founder. "We want to be able to respond as a community when crimes are committed against us, and do whatever we can to reduce the rates of violence and crimes we experience." According to Marshall, violence against sex workers often goes unpunished, fostering a fractured community that doesn't believe it has any rights. SWOP Boston's events for Sex Worker Rights Day look to fix these problems "all in a week," Marshall says with a laugh.
Seeing the overlap of injustice and sex work in her STI-prevention day job, SWOP Boston's events coordinator, Daunasia Yancey, was inspired to get involved. "There is a separation where sex workers work in isolation and don't often get to talk to somebody," says Yancey. SWOP will offer seminars, self-defense workshops and free HIV testing at events like the "Safe and Sexy Social," where Yancey hopes people will "have some conversation, get tested, have a muffin and just get comfortable."
From:
http://www.weeklydig.com/news-opinio...ry-sex-workers
International Sex Workers Rights Day is celebrated in other countries as well, of course:
Kolkata, Mar 4 (ANI): Over 500 sex workers gathered from different red light areas in Kolkata to stage a candle light procession on the occasion of the 'International Sex Workers Rights Day'.
The Durbar Mahila Samanwaya, a forum of sex workers organised this rally to highlight the socio-economic plight of sex workers.
Children of the sex workers presented street plays and other programmes.
Swapna Gyne, a sex worker said, "Today is the International Sex Worker's Rights Day.n 2001 we observed this day for the first time with the sex workers participating from across the country. But we faced many hurdles in observing this day."
"We were not allowed to observe this day. We challenged the government that we will be observing the day by any which way. The day was March 3. Hence we celebrate this day and take oath that till the time sex workers exist, we will observe this day," she added.
Since 2001, March 3 is being observed as International Sex Worker Rights Day.
Reportedly, the maiden event of International Sex Worker Rights Day witnessed over 25,000 sex workers taking part and voicing their demands. (ANI)
From:
http://in.news.yahoo.com/139/2010030...tional-se.html
And don't forget to visit the
Sex Workers Outreach Project USA here:
http://www.swopusa.org/
You may also be interested in the
International Day to End Violence Against Sex-Workers (
see it on Wikipedia as well), which is also hosted on SWOPUSA.
Finally, visit the global
Network of Sex-Work Projects:
http://www.nswp.org/.
A holiday I fully support: International Sex Worker's Day
