Category: News Archive

Phoenix Update: Monica Jones interviewed on MSNBC’s “All In with Chris Hayes”

March 14th, 2014 · · Campaigns, News Archive, Uncategorized No comments - Tags: , , , , , , ,

Tonight Monica Jones got to speak about her fight for justice to an nationwide TV audience via an appearance on the MSNBC show “All In with Chris Hayes.” It was a very short segment, but she did a great job. To have a mainstream media TV show feature Monica’s efforts and conversations about sex worker rights, walking while trans, and police mistreatment of people of color feels like quite a victory!

Prior to Monica’s interview, our friend Sienna Baskin from the Sex Worker Project at Urban Justice Center discussed sex work legal policy issues. You can see her segment here.

UN Update: Stop Arresting Sex Workers under the guise of ending trafficking

March 11th, 2014 · · Campaigns, News Archive No comments - Tags: , , ,

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On Monday, March 10th, the US Human Rights Network Working Group, a national network that includes BPPP and SWOP-Phoenix, delivered a statement to the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva. The statement called for the US to end criminalizing approaches to sex work and trafficking in the US. Specifically the groups requested that the US Justice Department to remove criminalization of sex work from current Model State Criminal Provisions that were ostensibly designed to stop trafficking, but that call for arrest and jail sentences for people doing sex work. Beginning Thursday, the Committee will review the U.S.’s adherence to its human rights obligations under the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights. SWOP-PHX and BPPP submitted a joint report to the Committee showing how the U.S. violates civil rights of sex workers and people profiled by police as sex work, under anti-sex work initiatives.

The real criminals are the cops: Superbowl hype questioned

January 28th, 2014 · · Media Analysis, News Archive One comment - Tags: , ,

Since the most recent national sex worker rights conference in July 2013, New Jersey advocates for the rights of sex workers have been meeting to begin documenting the human rights abuses faced by sex workers in the Garden State. Representatives of this newly forming network developed this post with Best Practices Policy Project to deconstruct and question the current “sex trafficking panic” over the upcoming “Superbowl” (the annual championship game of the American National Football League). Critiques of Superbowl media coverage have also emerged on the other side of the Hudson River in NYC from anti-trafficking advocates who are also troubled by the presentation of the issues.

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MSNBC Launches New Offensive Program “Slave Hunter”

December 9th, 2013 · · Media Analysis, News Archive No comments - Tags: , ,

Reaching new lows in taste and sensationalism, MSNBC is launching a program called “Slave Hunter: Freeing Victims of Trafficking.” Aside from the terrible choice of title–reminiscent of slave patrols, the origins of much of modern law enforcement in the US–the program trafficks (pun intended) in the very exploitation it alleges to decry. Several groups have sent an open letter calling on MSNBC to cancel the show or provide “counter programming.”

Deb Finan

Vice President, Production & Programming MSNBC

December 9, 2013

Dear Ms. Finan,

Below signatories are advocates for survivors of human trafficking and sex workers. We are writing to request a meeting about your troubling series, “Slave Hunter: Freeing Victims of Human Trafficking,” and to insist on counter programming that accurately reflects the reality of sex work and trafficked people in America. While we respect your efforts to tackle a difficult and necessary subject, the tactics of Mr. Cohen and “Abolish Slavery” mislead the public and threaten the rights and safety of sex workers and survivors of human trafficking.

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