[Jessica] McGraa’s death has prompted many to ask how we have created a climate in which sex workers call anyone but the police. – Frankie Mullin
Melissa Ditmore on Russia’s terrible anti-whore policies:
Russian President Vladimir Putin…half [joked]…that…Russian sex workers are “of course the best in the world”…but…Russia’s regressive policies on sex work, LGBTQ people, and sex education are counter to good health. LGBTQ people are stigmatized and discriminated against and face grave violence, sex work is prohibited, the most effective HIV prevention strategies for people who use drugs are against the law, and comprehensive sexuality education is not offered in schools…
Liz Brown was the only non-prohibitionist invited to appear on this Al Jazeera show; in this article she discusses the incredible ignorance of the other panelists, who call for more laws without even knowing what the current ones say.
An Example To the West
Two thousand signatures:
The National Network of Sex Workers has released a statement challenging the conference being organised by the “The Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution International”…The statement has been signed by over 2000 sex workers in India who reject the conflation of trafficking with sex work, and the conflation of sex work with violence. It calls for…an end to the use of morality to stigmatise and discriminate against sex workers…
Broken Record
The broadest “gypsy whore” claim ever:
…a new report from 2016 [redefines criteria to claim that] the number of human trafficking cases in [Florida] doubled in the last year…Florida’s reputation as a tourist destination means traffickers respond to the demand for sex tourism by trafficking victims to the state during tourist season…[prohibitionist] Bethany Gilot [publicly fantasized about]…the prevalence of sex tourism in the region…
I Swear To God
…Donald Trump signed [an] executive order…reinstating a ban on international aid…to nonprofits that provide abortions or promote information on them, regardless of what other services they offer…A…group of more than 100 public health, women’s issues, and civil liberties organizations have already issued a statement opposing the return of…”the global gag rule”…[the policy is very much like] the anti-prostitution pledge…[which] stipulated that no grant money could be used…to “provide assistance to any group or organization that does not have a policy explicitly opposing prostitution”…
That Old Black Magic
I’m not sure which aspect of this is the stupidest:
A woman accused of trafficking a Nigerian woman into the country and forcing her to work as a prostitute has claimed that the alleged victim was having an affair with her husband…The complainant previously told a jury that she underwent a “voodoo process” in Nigeria during which she swore she would not report the alleged trafficker, Joy Imasogie…once in Ireland she had to have sex with up to 10 men a day to pay off a €50,000 “debt”…arising from her being brought to Ireland…Imasogie said sometimes the woman would come to her house to do her hair in exchange for food but denied making her work as a prostitute…she…also claimed the mother of the alleged victim was using voodoo to take her husband away from her but “did not succeed”…
Monsters
A 26-year-old Detroit man…[shot] a transgender woman in the face after paying her for sex. Jason Lamar Hogan was charged…with [attempted murder]…She escaped and got treatment at Grace Hospital…
Paint By Numbers
“Dumb ‘awareness-raising’ stunts” is going to be the funniest appendix in my history of “sex trafficking” hysteria:
The Crisis Center of Tampa Bay is urging you to drop an F-bomb. No, not the swear word. In this case, F stands for Friend…They’re using memes with a very serious message. It’s something we don’t like to think is happening in our community: kids forced to be sex slaves. But Florida is one of the top three states for human trafficking…Ken Gibson from the Crisis Center…says…“It’s little kids…who are being targeted by pimps”…
Checklist (#542)
There was no dancing when deputies and code enforcement officers were at a strip joint called Icon. Except for the 20 or so officials, the club was nearly vacant…But the deputies didn’t mind the empty stage, as they were there to ensure that the club was in compliance with a new county ordinance requiring anti-human trafficking signs in adult entertainment establishments…
The nauseating sound of bootlicking is deafening.
Perquisites (#582)
Yawning.
…University of Louisville…director of basketball operations Andre McGee hired strippers and prostitutes as a way of gaining favor with high school recruits from 2010 to 2014. The scandal broke wide open in 2015, when Katina Powell, who was in charge of organizing the women to bring to campus, published a book detailing the racket, titled Breaking Cardinal Rules: Basketball and the Escort Queen…
Surplus Women (#614)
It will never be completely safe for any sex worker, or really any woman, to call the cops. But we need to give the cops far fewer excuses to force interaction with sex workers:
Jessica…McGraa’s death sent waves of horror through the sex work community across the UK. As an independent worker, advertising online, she was part of one of the fastest-growing sectors of the industry. Her story was close to home for thousands of people working in similar circumstances. How many of them would have called the police?…
To Molest and Rape 
Once again: if you think it matters whether a rapist cop was “on duty” at the time of the rape, you are part of the problem:
Evan Cramer…pulled [a woman] over…for a minor traffic violation…[he said] she had multiple warrants out for her arrest and said she could avoid jail time if she [submitted to rape]…Cramer…then…[forced] the [woman] into his cruiser and [drove] her to a vacant lot where…he [raped her]…The woman then went to the hospital and reported the [rape]…
A Tale That Grew in the Telling (#705)
Though this is mostly just the usual idiocy, note that “children” is defined as “people under 26”.
There are likely more than 313,000 victims of labor and sex trafficking in Texas, and roughly a fourth of them are children and people under the age of 26 who have been forced into prostitution…[fetishists] from…University of Texas…[pretend these wild exagerrations represent] “a conservative understatement of the prevalence of human trafficking in Texas”…
