SEX WORKER RIGHTS GROUPS TELL THE UNITED NATIONS HOW U.S. VIOLATES HUMAN RIGHTS
OCTOBER 3, 2019
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SEX WORKERS TO UN: THE US VIOLATES HUMAN RIGHTS
Newark, NJ – October 3rd, 2019 – Today, the Black Sex Worker Collective, the Outlaw Project, Desiree Alliance, BPPP and New Jersey Red Umbrella Alliance submitted a shadow report to the United Nations.
The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a United Nations session to hold member countries responsible for their human rights records. The United States is being reviewed in 2020 for the first time in five years. Today we submitted a 10 page shadow report to the United Nations about the human rights abuses sex workers face and in the coming months sex workers will travel to Geneva, Switzerland to speak to member countries about the criminalization of our communities.
“We are calling on the United States to immediately end the atrocities of current border policies in the United States that impact all immigrants, including sex workers,” says Janet Duran of New Jersey Red Umbrella Alliance. “Our report documents the death of migrant sex workers at the hands of state agents, the incarceration of migrant sex workers in rights violating detention centers, and the deportation of vulnerable people back into harm’s way. The deaths of people like Yang Song and Roxsana Hernandez must not happen again.”
The U.S. is obligated to uphold everyone’s human rights, including the rights to housing, education and healthcare; the right to be free from arbitrary arrest, due process violations, and invasions of privacy; the right to be free from torture and inhumane treatment; the rights of migrants; as well as rights related to the U.S. obligation to eliminate racial discrimination. The U.S. violates these rights on a routine basis when it comes to sex workers and people in the sex trade. The UPR provides a space for the world to hear about how the U.S. has violated human rights over the past four years.
“The U.S. government has engaged in a sustained campaign to roll back the rights of transgender people and we are calling out these abuses at the UN so that the world will learn what is happening,” says Monica Jones, founder of the Arizona based Outlaw Project, “We believe that member states of the UN will agree that it is time to put an end to anti-sex work policing practices targeting transgender people.”
To download a full copy of the report pls visit: http://www.
To download a short one page summary of the report pls visit:
To learn more about the UPR process visit: tinyurl.com/UPR2020info
COMMUNITY MEMBERS TO GATHER ON DECEMBER 17
DECEMBER 10, 2015
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMMUNITY MEMBERS TO GATHER DECEMBER 17
Newark, New Jersey – On December 17, community members will gather in front of Newark City Hall in recognition of International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. This will be the New Jersey Red Umbrella Alliance’s (NJRUA) second public event in recognition of the day, and will be co-hosted this year by the African-American Office of Gay Concerns (AAOGC), a community-based organization dedicated to HIV prevention among the greater Newark LGBTQ population.
Sex workers, their friends and allies will gather at 6PM in front of Newark City Hall where community members will recount instances of violence and call on public officials to enact change that allows sex workers to take action when they do experience violence. The demonstration will then move to AAOGC’s office, a few blocks away, where food will be provided for participants. An event flyer can be found by clicking here.
It is fitting that this message is sent out on December 10, International Human Rights Day. Social marginalization and criminalization creates an environment in which violence against sex workers is allowed to happen undeterred. When a sex worker faces violence, they are unlikely to report crimes committed against them due to a history of police violence and police inaction when crimes are reported. In 2006, four sex workers were found murdered in Atlantic City and nine years later their case still remains unsolved.
NJRUA recognizes that the most marginalized members of our community experience the most violence. According to the Sex Workers Outreach Project, of the 41 known sex workers killed in the United States this year, about a quarter of the victims were transgender women of color, and many others were women who had a history of drug use. Unfortunately, it is often people living on the intersections of oppression that bear the brunt of failed governance and social marginalization.
We call on policymakers to recognize and change the failed model of criminalizing the activities of sex workers and their clients. While discretion is given to local law enforcement agencies and individual officers to give amnesty for sex workers who report violent crimes, we call on local municipalities, counties and the state to enact legislation that gives blanket amnesty to any sex worker who does come forward to report acts of violence and to ensure their protection. We call on the public to embrace and love sex workers in their community, and to end the social marginalization that allows perpetrators of violence to act without thinking twice.
As we prepare for December 17, we remember all those whose lives we have lost. No longer will the community hide in the shadows and remain silent. We demand action for the living!
RESPECT SEX WORKERS’ RIGHT TO PRIVACY
OCTOBER 21, 2015
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RESPECT SEX WORKERS’ RIGHT TO PRIVACY
Secaucus, New Jersey – State advocates condemn the recent arrest of two women who have been charged with prostitution related offenses in Secaucus, New Jersey last week. “Regardless of the circumstances leading up their arrest, sexual activity that people make a choice to engage in is not a crime,” mentioned Janet Duran, the North Jersey Regional Director of NJRUA, “If people are concerned with the lack of choice available for those who trade sex, then arresting them should not be seen as part of the solution.” Evidence-based research continues to show that arresting people for engaging in sex work violates people’s right to safety and health as community members are driven further underground and must make riskier decisions in order to avoid the law. According to reports available on the State Police website, about 830 women throughout the state have been arrested for prostitution related offenses in 2013.
It is particularly deplorable that Secaucus Det. Sgt. Michael Torres found it more appropriate to leave the name of hotels where the stings were conducted out of the media’s knowledge over the names of the women they have arrested. The sentiment expressed by doing so suggests the privacy of hotels is a higher priority than the privacy of those accused to be sex workers. The right to privacy is a human right recognized by the United Nations, and both the United States and New Jersey Supreme Courts. This is a right particularly concerning for highly stigmatized communities such as sex workers and those who have been through the criminal justice system.
However, the media has played an equally distasteful part in violating sex workers’ human rights. The Jersey Journal found it relevant to release the legal names and home towns of those who have been arrested, making it publicly available online. “This has been an ongoing problem with media in the state,” explained Derek Demeri of NJRUA, “In a state made up largely of small cities and suburban districts, this public declaration of one’s accused sexual activities will follow them for life and can be extremely damaging.” Legal names, arresting photos, and sometimes home addresses are often published by various media outlets when prostitution stings are done throughout the state creating an online permanent record, even if these charges are later discovered to be under false pretense.
Advocates urge the media to respect the privacy of those suspected of engaging in prostitution, and for law enforcement to abstain from arresting sex workers and their customers for engaging in consensual sexual activity, and to end the practice of profiling people as sex workers because of their race, gender or immigration status. For those interested in learning more about appropriate media representation of sex workers, please visit the Media Training Program under the Red Umbrella Project’s website (redumbrellaproject.org) for more information.
Spoken Word/Poetry Competition for Sex Worker Rights Day 2016
Entries due by February 14, 2014
If you are a sex worker/person in the sex trade and have a strong connection to New Jersey (live here or work here or come from here), then contribute a poem or similar to the International Sex Worker Rights Day podcast competition by February 14, 2016. New Jersey Red Umbrella Alliance (NJRUA) will select several of the pieces to read for our International Sex Worker Rights Day podcast. Contributors maintain copyright of their art but will provide permission for it to be shared on our podcast. All contributors will receive a tasteful sex worker rights sticker provided by BPPP (Best Practices Policy Project) and contributors’ work that is read on the podcast will win a sex worker rights t-shirt.
The competition will be judged by founding members of NJRUA. The inaugural NJRUA poetry podcast will be recorded/edited by PJ Starr and released on soundcloud on March 2, 2016. The podcast builds on a tradition begun by Robyn Few, who read a poem created by her friends for International Sex Worker Rights Day in 2010: http://moralhighground.tumblr.com/post/441642564/poem-for-march-3rd-read-by-robyn-few-in
Contribute your poem, words, lyrics, etc to newjerseyrua@gmail.com by Feburary 14, 2016 to be in the running to win a t-shirt and have your poem read for inclusion on the podcast. You may contribute anonymously (ie we don’t have to read any name on the podcast) or you may provide us with a name and short bio if you wish. Also please indicate that we have your permission to use your art/poem/words for our podcast.
Good luck!
VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ARE NOT CRIMINALS
November 11, 2015
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ARE NOT CRIMINALS
Paterson, NJ – Last week on November 2, NJRUA’s North Jersey Regional Director, Janet Duran, was arrested and detained for “willful nonsupport” by the Passaic County Family Court system. She was released Wednesday evening with the expectation that she will be on a payment plan to pay off child support arrears. Advocates with NJRUA find the conditions that have led up to her detention to be rooted in stigma against those who have traded sex and the broken justice system in Passaic county that treats victims of domestic violence as criminals.
The Passaic County Courts, and most recently Judge Sohail Mohammed, have granted the father of Ms. Duran’s children full custody with no visitation access since 2005. This decision was made despite the fact that he has been known to be physically abusive in both private and public settings. Ms. Duran has even filed a restraining order in the past because of the physical beatings she has received from him. What’s more, Ms. Duran’s perceived involvement for engaging in the sex trade was openly used against her during the case. Ultimately, the Passaic County Family Courts found a violent man to be more of a fit parent than a working mother providing for her children.
Sadly, Ms. Duran’s case is not in isolation as this has been an ongoing problem in the North Jersey family court systems. For the past six years, Strengthen Our Sisters has been organizing annual demonstrations outside the Passaic County Family Courts over the systemic problem of courts granting child custody to documented abusive men over fully capable mothers.
Ms. Duran has been expected to pay child support despite the fact that she has been on public assistance as a registered caretaker with the state for one of her parents, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia. It is shocking that the Passaic County Courts so willfully ignores her situation as caretaker, which takes the place of full time employment, and assumes she is fully capable of making payments. Judge Mohammed most recently issued a warrant in July for failure to make these payments, later enforced by Judge Justine Niccollai, which lead to Ms. Duran’s arrest last week.
Throughout this process, Ms. Duran has had to represent herself in court hearings. Services that are normally afforded to victims of domestic violence are unavailable to Ms. Duran because of the deep-rooted stigma against sex workers in New Jersey. Lawyers she has approached have openly told her “prostitutes have no rights.”
Violence is never excusable, regardless of one’s actual or perceived status as working in the sex trade. NJRUA urges anyone with the capacity to offer legal support to Ms. Duran to please contact us immediately at newjerseyrua@gmail.com.
Ms. Duran’s circumstances are a reminder to NJRUA’s commitment in addressing all forms of oppression against sex workers. Even with the removal of prostitution offenses, stigma and social marginalization of sex workers will continue to give systems of power justification to use other laws to further harass and take advantage of a disenfranchised community. Discrimination in all its forms must be addressed for the full empowerment of the community.