Leave it to the great wacky people of San Francisco to put an initiative on the ballot worth voting FOR (like the medical marijuana initiative that people there passed a few years ago) this November. As a sex worker this issue is VERY impt. to me and wish it were a national issue that we could discuss as intelligent adults (in a perfect world...like Holland we could).
I received the following email from a sex worker and decided to share it with you...if you live in San Francisco or know someone who lives in San Francisco please ask them to go to http://www.yesonpropk.org/ to find out more about this great ballot measure and then vote YES on Proposition K...who knows...YOU might just get a proposition in return ; )
For the last century, year after year, sex workers in SF have been hounded, arrested and jailed, evicted, raped and even murdered, their children taken away. Those of us who have least - often women of color - have received the brunt of this persecution. Why has our city famed for being open minded allowed this injustice to continue? Now we can make a change and win greater protection, well-being and safety for all. Join a cross section of communities who want to make this happen!
Speakers include: sex workers and sex worker organizations, criminal attorneys Nedra Ruiz, Stephanie Adraktas, Stuart Hanlon and David Bigeleisen, Conference of Delegates of California Bar Association, Dr. Jeffrey D. Klausner, SF Green Party, neighborhood residents, church representatives, candidates for the Board of Supervisors and other civic leaders, LGBT community representatives, labor representatives, and others.
* Prop K was put on the ballot by more than 12,000 San Franciscans to ensure that basic human and civil rights are extended to sex workers. It follows the recommendations of the path breaking SF Task Force on Prostitution.
* Prop K calls on the police to prioritize sex workers' safety by vigorously enforcing coercion, extortion, battery, rape and other violent crimes.* Prop K will end the criminalization of sex workers, many of whom are mothers trying to support their families in increasingly hard times. Criminalization traps sex workers in prostitution, increases vulnerability to violence and sets sex workers apart from the rest of the community.
* Prop K is an anti-racist initiative. Women of color are disproportionately arrested under the prostitution laws and make up the majority of women in prison.
* Prop K will not stop the prosecution of traffickers. But it will protect immigrant women from being targeted for arrest. According to the Public Defender, not one trafficker has been prosecuted in SF under the California Trafficking Victims Protection Act (2006). However, many sex workers of color have been rounded up and deported.
HUGS & KISSES from your sexy, smart and lovely sex worker,
Emma : )
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2 comments:
I really hope this passes and gains momentum throughout the country. I've never understood why it's been criminalized to begin with. Why criminalize the sale of an activity that's perfectly legal to give away?
While there are dangers there, I think it's more appropriate to make it safer by taking care of the actual problems of violence and disease rather than just labeling it immoral and creating a worse enviornment for those who decide to engage in this profession.
Thanks Michael...I am with you there....as soon as we protect the workers we give it some sense of legitimacy and then we can have some national discussion on the value this work like massage therapy, sex surrogate therapy and surrogate mothers.
Sex is not going away. We are primates and therefore animals....sex is a natural part of our animal instinct. Let us make it safe and healthy and keep laws out of our natural behavioral activities.
Peace!
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