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Today Is

Jill

International Sex Worker Rights

Ren has a whole bunch of resources you should check out. Other sites worth browsing today: Bound Not Gagged; SWOP East; and Sex in the Public Square.

There’s also a celebration tonight at Judson Memorial Church in NYC for sex worker rights. Details below the fold.

Celebrate International Sex Worker Rights Day
with SWANK & SWOP-NYC
Monday March 3rd, 7 to 9 pm

Dear friends of sex worker rights,

This year SWANK (Sex Worker Action of New York) & SWOP-NYC will host a potluck dinner to celebrate International Sex Worker Rights Day. This day reminds us that we are part of a global community of people who refuse to accept the discrimination against us and the criminalization of our work, our means to survive.

When: Monday March 3, 7 to 9 pm
Where: Judson Church, 55 Washington Square South, NY, NY 10012 (Use Entrance on Thompson St)
Cost by donation for dinner: $3 to $15 depending on what you can afford (no one turned away)
Food will include vegan and vegetarian options.
You may also bring food to share if you’d like!

Celebrate Sex Worker rights with… Fun activities! Craft Projects! (Design a placard to demand sex worker rights). Raffle! Win a prize… Conversations with activists for sex worker revolution….

For more info contact: swank@riseup.net
For Announcement List, see our myspace: http://www.myspace.com/weareswank

What is International Sex Worker Rights Day?
The 3rd of March is International Sex Worker Rights Day. The day originated in 2001 when over 25,000 sex workers gathered in India for a sex worker festival. The organizers, Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, a Calcutta based group whose membership consists of somewhere upwards of 50,000 sex workers and members of their communities. Sex worker groups across the world have subsequently celebrated 3 March as International Sex Workers’ Rights Day.

What else is there to celebrate?
We are also celebrating the formation of our two groups SWANK (For Current & Former Sex Workers) and SWOP-NYC (For Current & Former Sex Workers & Our Allies).
SWANK is Sex Workers’ Action New York, a radical sex workers’ initiative based in NYC. [ http://www.myspace.com/weareswank/ ]
SWOP-NYC is a chapter of the Sex Workers Outreach Project. [http://www.swop-usa.org/ ]

This event is also supported by $pread Magazine and PONY (Prostitutes of New York).

7 thoughts on Today Is

  2. I expect this post will soon lead to arguing about whether prostitution should be legal or not. So let me just say, hopefully we can all agree that forced and child prostitution should be illegal. And there is plenty of that to stamp out before we get to seeing what to do about the rest of it.

  3. Thanks for spreading the word, Jill.

    Anna-absolutely forced and child prostitution should be illegal…so it makes no sense to some of us that law enforcement and other concerned groups spend so much time, effort, and money on going after anyone and everyone invovled in the whole of the sex industry when such things could be far better spent on going after the forced and underaged. By all means, help those who need and want it, help them first.

    Yet, at the same time, there are concerns that cases such as the Philly “Theft of services” farce do bring into the light as far as the non-forced and non-child sexual providers face…chief among them a major sense of discrimination under the law…and those things need to be looked at too.

  6. Jill, I’m very glad you posted about this. It’s an important issue that all feminists should be able to whole-heartedly support, regardless of their personal views on sex work. An entire segment of women are being discriminated against and oppressed – THAT is what matters, and that is what needs to stop. And sex workers know better than anyone else what needs to be done to stop the discrimination against them.

    Also, Ren’s link is wrong…

  7. Pingback: Jenny's Pennies » Better later than never: International Sex Workers Rights Day

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