Supporting human rights seems like a no brainer, but for sex workers that has, unfortunately, not been the case. Even Bernie Sanders voted for SESTA-FOSTA, the so-called anti-trafficking law passed earlier this year that shut down Backpage.com and other sites where sex workers could post ads and vet potential clients in a way that was safer and more empowering.
But just as laws that hurt sex workers become more extreme, people are throwing more support behind political candidates who openly oppose such laws, support sex worker rights and even call for complete decriminalization of the industry.
A state Senate candidate in New York is doing just that. Twenty-seven-year-old Julia Salazar, who heads into a Sept. 13 primary against an eight-term incumbent, has attended sex worker advocacy meetings and even has a decriminalization platform on her website.
The Intercept goes deeper into Salazar’s advocacy as well as looking at some of the other political candidates standing up for the human rights of sex workers.
Salazar’s platform outlines steps toward decriminalization that include
an end to raids on massage parlors; working with district attorneys to
stop charging sex workers with crimes; and creating a network of
optional social services to address workers’ needs, such as housing,
child care, syringe access, and job training. Her platform would also
make it easier for sex workers with criminal records to access housing
and jobs, along with repealing the exemption for sex workers under New
York’s rape shield law.
This article appears in Aug 16-22, 2018.
More power to Julia. I hope she wins.
Anti-sex worker laws, and the wholesale criminalization of an industry that generates billions of dollars in our economy every year, are pathetic and immoral relics of a toxic religious patriarchy that has poisoned our public policies for far too long.
Sex Worker Rights is just a nice way of saying prostitution which is still illegal in most states, but that’s what the far left is for, breaking laws who else would get marijuana legalized?
What happens between consenting adults is nobody’s business but their own.
The Industry needs to shut down they promote anti-black racism and neo-Nazi style attitudes towards black people and dehumanization of women.
Sex work need to be decriminalized now!
decrimnow.org
Blackhunkdream3, have you actually asked any sex workers if they feel they are being dehumanized? Or are you projecting your own opinions onto them and assuming? The media likes to focus on sex trafficking and on the women addicts who need prostitution for food, shelter, and drug money. I really don’t hear them talking at all about the great numbers of women who see the work as an entrepreneurial venture–be your own boss, set your own damn hours and make your own damn money (and a hell of a lot of it in a short amount of time). Criminalizing voluntary sex work is cutting off a fantastic source of income for the ambitious. The dehumanizing part is when people with moral sticks up their butt try to tell women what they can and can’t consensually do with their own bodies while harming no one, especially when they could make an enviably successful career out of it (or at least get themselves through college or a rough time).
And as a side note, sex work can be crappy, but so can any other job out there. I used to escort, but due to a morally righteous roommate, I currently have to work in fast food instead. Lemme tell you, I was WAY happier escorting. I used to earn in less than two hours what it now takes me a full week of slave work to make. If I didn’t like a client, I only had to slog through an hour and then I could cheerily say goodbye while blocking his number on the way out. Now, I have to slave for 8 hours straight every single day with naggy bitchy managers and the most horrendously rude customers that I’m not allowed to tell to go to hell under any circumstance. I no longer have power over my work environment nor whom I work with or answer to. Talk about a downgrade.