Decrim now world news digest for January 2025

MA Supreme Court To Decide If All Prostitution Is Trafficking

USA. Massachusetts st.

January 12, 2025

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) is currently deliberating a critical case that raises the question of whether all prostitution should be treated as human trafficking. The case involves five men who responded to online advertisements, believing they were arranging to meet consensual adult sex workers; however, the individuals they communicated with turned out to be undercover state troopers. While the men were initially charged with the misdemeanor of attempting to pay for sex, prosecutors also sought to indict them under the state’s human trafficking statute, felony charges that carry a minimum five-year prison sentence. The five men have been fighting the charges since 2021, arguing responding to an ad to meet an adult for consensual paid sex does not meet the criteria of the state’s anti-trafficking law.

The key issue before the court is whether such charges are appropriate under the state’s human trafficking laws when there is no evidence of force, fraud, coercion, or exploitation. Prosecutors argue that the application of trafficking laws is necessary to combat the demand for prostitution, while the defendants argue that this ideological approach unjustly and falsely equates all prostitution with trafficking, regardless of the circumstances.

This case is emblematic of the broader issues surrounding the criminalization of consensual adult sex work. Laws against prostitution often create a false equivalence between voluntary sex work and trafficking, erasing the complexity of people’s lived experiences in the sex industry. Evidence from around the world demonstrates that criminalizing consensual adult sex work allows for trafficking to proliferate as it forces sex workers into the shadows, making it harder for them to seek help or report abuses.

This case also highlights the principle and human right of autonomy, emphasizing that individuals should have the freedom to make choices about their bodies, including the consensual decision to engage in sex work. Under current laws, even when individuals engage in sex work consensually, they are treated as victims or perpetrators in need of legal intervention. As the Massachusetts SJC considers this case, the broader implications of its decision could set a precedent for how sex work and trafficking are handled in the future, not just in Massachusetts but across the U.S.

Source decriminalizesex.work

Illinois state lawmakers propose legalizing consensual sex work

USA, Chikago

January 14, 2025

Illinois could become the first state in USA to fully decriminalize sex work among consenting adults.

Some state lawmakers are proposing legislation that would eliminate criminal penalties for adults involved in consensual prostitution.

In 2013, Illinois lawmakers approved legislation that reduced the crime of prostitution to a misdemeanor, but even still, sex workers and their clients are operating in the shadows.

Now some state lawmakers are looking to fully decriminalize the exchange of money for sex among consenting adults, citing safety and access to services:

"Sex workers face an unprecdented amount of violence, because they are stuck and forced into the shadows," said Illinois State Sen. Robert Peters (D-Chicago).

dvocates have been working on the proposal for years, saying it will allow safer practices of vetting clients, reporting crimes, and finding suitable locations to work.

The proposed legislation also would remove past arrest and conviction records for sex workers, and create a sex workers’ bill of rights.

"Sex workers should have the same basic protections when they engage in their work as anyone else does," said Illinois State Rep. Will Guzzardi (D-Chicago).

While the legislation would decriminalize sex work among consenting adults, it would not remove criminal penalties for sex traffickers or abuse against sex workers.

"It’s really just making sure that when we’re making these exchanges that we’re not so worried about the policing of our bodies, and also getting your door kicked in when you’re engaging into sex work," said Reyna Ortiz, chair of the Sex Worker Advisory Group, a coalition of Black and Brown current and former sex workers who have spent years advocating for this legislation.

Ortiz said she spent 20 years as a sex worker, under the constant fear of arrest or violence.

Source cbsnews.com

New York Reintroduces Bill To Decriminalize Sex Work

USA, New York

January 22, 2025

Senator Julia Salazar has introduced Senate Bill S2513, or Cecilia’s Act for Rights in the Sex Trade (Cecilia’s Act), in New York. The bill would decriminalize consensual adult prostitution offenses and amend provisions relating to eliminating prior criminal convictions. In previous legislative sessions, this bill was named the Stop Violence in the Sex Trade Act (SVSTA). It was renamed to honor the legacy of the late Cecilia Gentilia, a beloved advocate for sex workers and human rights.

Cecilia’s Act co-sponsors include Senators Jabari Brisport, Kristen Gonzalez, Cordell Cleare, Robert Jackson, Jessica Ramos, and Luis R. Sepúlveda.

The criminalization of sex work has jeopardized the lives of sex workers in New York for far too long. The criminalization of sex work is associated with increased risk of sexual and physical violence at the hands of clients, third parties, and domestic partners. Criminalization also encourages increased policing among vulnerable communities, resulting in arrests and police brutality. Studies conducted in New York have shown that prostitution-related arrests disproportionately affect Black, Asian, and Hispanic individuals.

Cecilia’s Act amends and repeals several existing statutes and penal codes so that consenting adults who trade sex, collaborate with, support, or patronize adult sex workers are not criminalized. In addition, the bill allows individuals to trade sex in spaces where legal business is permitted while upholding that maintaining exploitative workplaces where coercion and trafficking take place is a felony.

Presently, New York state law has more than two dozen anti-prostitution penal codes. About half of these codes target sex work between consenting adults, and the other half focus on trafficking, the exploitation of minors, and coercion into commercial sex. Cecilia’s Act upholds all felony anti-trafficking statutes that are designed to hold traffickers accountable.

Source decriminalizesex.work

russia mulls creation of databases to track LGBT people and sex workers

January 28, 2025

Since early last year, russia’s Interior Ministry has been considering the creation of databases to track both members of the LGBT community and sex workers in russia, but has been hindered by the drain on resources caused by its staff leaving to fight in Ukraine, an investigation by russian independent news outlet Meduza revealed on Monday.

Citing anonymous sources both within the Interior Ministry and close to it, Meduza said that discussions had been taking place since spring 2024 on creating a “large-scale” system to track members of what russia calls the “international LGBT movement”, which the country’s Supreme Court banned as an “extremist organisation” in 2023.

In 2024, police conducted at least 42 raids on queer-friendly venues across russia, with patrons often forced to lie on the floor for hours while their documents were checked, an investigation by independent news outlet Current Time and human rights organisation Sphere found.

Alongside the lists of LGBT individuals, the ministry also planned to create a similar database of sex workers, which “might even be public” to allow anyone to “check a friend or fiancée”, the Interior Ministry source said.

It is unclear, however, which forms of sex work would be targeted by such a database. Sex work, while widespread, is illegal in russia.

Neither database has as yet been formally established on a large scale due to a lack of funding and manpower in the ministry, the Interior Ministry source told Meduza, with many police officers leaving their jobs to fight for the russian military in Ukraine.

Source novayagazeta.eu