DECRIM NOW WORLD NEWS DIGEST FOR JANUARY 2024

JANUARY IS HUMAN TRAFFICKING AWARENESS MONTH

January 1, 2024

January is nationally recognized as Human Trafficking Awareness and Prevention Month. Human trafficking can occur in any labor sector and can happen to men, women, and children of any age, race, sexual orientation, or country of origin. Trafficking is defined by force, fraud, or coercion. Human trafficking is an abhorrent abuse of power and violation of human rights. Decriminalize Sex Work (DSW), along with a number of other human rights and anti-trafficking organizations, fights to end human trafficking and exploitation through the decriminalization of consensual adult sex work.

This past October, the United Nations Working Group on discrimination against women and girls released a report calling for the full decriminalization of consensual adult sex work globally. The group cited a 2021 investigation that found that criminalization endagers and undermines the work of sex worker rights advocates who are best suited to do life-saving anti-trafficking work as a reason for supporting full decriminalization. We know that sex workers are the strongest anti-trafficking advocates and are uniquely suited to identify traffickers and their victims. However, due to criminalization, sex workers often fear reporting crimes to law enforcement due to fear of prosecution and victims of trafficking are often arrested for crimes they were forced to commit.

The conflation of consensual adult sex work and human trafficking has dire consequences. Notably, up to 96% of anti-trafficking resources in the United States are directed towards combating trafficking in commercial sex, neglecting survivors in other industries. Anti-trafficking raids often target sex workers under the guise of rescuing them, leading to arrests, court fees, and immigration consequences without concrete evidence of trafficking. Furthermore, survivors of trafficking are often arrested for prostitution. Criminal convictions prevent trafficking survivors from accessing critical social resources while attempting to recover from being exploited. A key solution to addressing human trafficking lies in the decriminalization of consensual adult sex work. Evidence suggests that resources currently used to criminalize sex workers could be more effectively redirected towards trafficking prevention.

DSW Legal Director Melissa Broudo was recently interviewed for a Forbes piece advocating for a public health approach to prevent human trafficking. She is quoted as saying, “I advocate to remove criminal penalties that are forced upon sex workers and survivors of trafficking so that they are not further harmed by criminalization (arrests, police brutality, etc.) and the burden of a lifelong criminal record. Everyone deserves a chance at obtaining employment, housing, immigration status, as well as a life free of harm, violence, and stigmatization. Hopefully human trafficking awareness will bring these issues to the forefront and allow us to pass critical legislation to ensure survivors can live a life free of harm and gender-based violence.” This January, we hope that advocates, law enforcement, and legislators explore a human-rights and public health approach to address the egregious crime of human trafficking.

Source decriminalizesex.work

VT BILL AIMS TO END HOUSING DISCRIMINATION AGAINST SEX WORKERS

USA, state Vermont

January 31, 2024

Companion bills S.277 and H.605, introduced this month in Vermont, propose to eliminate offenses related to the location of prostitution while retaining the offenses of aiding or abetting, engaging in, or procuring or soliciting prostitution. Passage of this bill would increase access to housing for individuals formerly or currently engaged in sex work, allow them to access justice should their right to housing be denied based on their occupation, and reduce stigma and discrimination against sex workers, which gravely affects all aspects of their lives. DSW and other advocates claim the bill is critical to ensuring equity, health, and safety for sex workers and should be part of the state’s strategy to keep marginalized and vulnerable individuals housed.

Some individuals choose sex work among other well-paying jobs and some are in circumstances, namely exclusion from the traditional labor force due to discrimination, that lead them to sex work even if it is not their first choice for earning an income. Like most individuals who engage in any form of labor, sex workers name accessing and maintaining housing as one of the primary motivators for engaging in sex work. Simultaneously, criminalization, along with stigma and discrimination often make it impossible for them to access and keep safe and adequate housing. In a 2016 report, Amnesty International writes, “Criminalization and discrimination often lead to violations of the right to adequate housing for many sex workers, even though this right is enshrined under international laws and standards.”

Criminalization punishes everyone involved in sex work, including those who are seeking a way out. Burdened with criminal records, many former sex workers who wish to exit the sex industry find themselves unable to do so and must return to sex work to make ends meet. Private housing providers often implement policies that restrict individuals with arrests or criminal convictions. Under current law, landlords may discriminate against sex workers. These circumstances push many sex workers, current and former, directly into homelessness.

Homeless or housing-unstable sex workers are more vulnerable to violence due to lack of access to private space for working and living. In particular, women sex workers face a high burden of unstable housing and evictions, which are linked to increased odds of intimate partner and workplace violence. Stigma and discrimination cause tremendous harm to all people engaged in sex work, whether their form of work is legal or not and whether they are working by choice, circumstance, or coercion. Laws that further stigma, shame, misogyny, and discrimination enable and amplify harms to an already vulnerable population.

Sourse decriminalizesex.work

“An erotic prison”: sex workers oppose plans for mega brothel in Amsterdam

Netherlands, Amsterdam

January 31, 2024

A multi-storey erotic centre planned by Amsterdam was described as an “erotic prison” and compared to the 16^th century “spinning house” exploiting those deemed to be “fallen women” at an event for residents to share their views.

At a meeting with councillors lasting more than three hours at the city hall, the majority of more than 40 speakers said they opposed the erotic centre.

In December, Amsterdam’s mayor Femke Halsema recommended a location in Zuid as the best site for a multiplex with 100 prostitution windows, entertainment and erotica. The plan is intended to provide more safe space for sex work, improve conditions, reduce criminality and human trafficking and reduce nuisance in the red light district.

Several sex workers said they were concerned that if prostitution were pushed out of the historic centre – De Wallen – it would be further stigmatised and they would be unsafe travelling to and from their work.

Mariska Majoor, a former sex worker who has recently been a spokeswoman for a self-described “monster” coalition of opponents to the plan, said the proposal was simply too big. “A prostitution window on the street is very different from one in a closed erotic centre,” she said.

“The location is dark at night. There will be more stigma and more danger…I’m worried they will be waited for on the paths by people with nefarious plans.”

Mariska Majoor contributes to debate on erotic centre Photo: S Boztas

Other sex workers protested that the place would be like a prison. “Sex workers have moved from doorways to windows…and now into a segregated centre pushed to the edge of town, out of sight, out of mind,” said one speaker. “Keep your laws off our bodies and no erotic prisons.”

The project was described as “megalomaniac”, an “ego trip” and a poor use of millions of euros in closing 100 windows in the red light district. Cynthia Cournuejouls, a campaigner and resident of Amsterdam Zuid, led speakers in song, in an alternate version of the Dutch classic pop song, Niet of Nooit Geweest calling it “the biggest ever magnet for every bachelor party”.

“Sex work is part of the heart of Amsterdam,” said architect Anna Torres, who has come up with an alternative plan to spread out the red light district. “Why would you want to rip out that heart and put it in a box?”

Councillors, who will also be formulating new policy on prostitution, will vote on whether or not to go forward with an erotic centre in Zuid in two weeks.

Source dutchnews.nl