Open Letter from Zee

November 21st, 2021 · · Articles No comments - Tags:

BPPP is happy to support Zee in their process of seeking this money for work done. This open letter (that can also be accessed here) adds to the trove of documentation about the situation inside the US Human Rights Network available here and here. It is time for the perpetrators to leave the network.

On October 20, 2021, the US Human Rights Network was paused indefinitely. Its employees and I, an independent contractor, were terminated without cause or notice to the organization’s many stakeholders. I learned of the decision from my colleagues the afternoon of October 20 when we were suddenly unable to log into our work accounts. I have yet to be contacted personally by the persons who made the decision to terminate all contracts,  shutting down the work of the USHRN Coordinating Center indefinitely.

Eric Tars, Molefi Askari, and Noel Didia refuse to settle my outstanding compensation. My contract requires a 30 day notice period prior to termination, a condition that no effort was made to honor. I have written several times to the cohort that has seized responsibility for the network from the hands of members by occupying the board. I have sent an invoice outlining the outstanding balance and I have not so much as received an acknowledgement of receipt. Almost a month later, there has been no indication as to if, or when, I will be paid.  

This blatant disregard for communication is, on the face, incompetence on the part of the occupying cohort. It is important to note that these are not hapless amateur saboteurs. Their disregard of the staff’s wellbeing is a deliberate attempt to perpetrate harm. This cohort’s actions are a microcosm of white supremacy in community organizing. The cohort’s disconnect with members’ wishes shows commitment to a hierarchical and necessarily ineffective mode of governance.  In this hierarchy, these three acting as the board have seized control without a mandate from members, disregarding those who are directly engaging with and within our human rights movements.  There is no organizing space that isn’t vulnerable to these white supremacist tactics. Eric, Molefi, and Noel have proven themselves perfectly compliant tools of the dynamic they claim to oppose as nominal human rights defenders; the dynamic that leads to a young, directly impacted worker, through no fault of their own, being deemed dispensable and their stability inconsequential. It has been disheartening but I am not deterred.

I will not go into the hardship that the cohort’s actions have caused. I am unconvinced that there is a moral thread to pull at here that will change their course. I write here because when the powers that be refuse to levy justice, I have always found recourse in my community. I consider the community a sacred space where truth and integrity are held as worthy goals. Eric, Molefi and Noel have withheld $2,200 USD of earned income with no explanation. This is not the action of human rights champions and it is important that this cohort be curtailed in the harm they are actively causing to the former staff at the US Human Rights Network.

Zee Xaymaca

URGENT ANNOUNCEMENT and Open Letter: UN Special Rapporteur, (but no USHRN)

November 5th, 2021 · · News Archive, Press Release No comments - Tags:

Date: Fri, Nov 5, 2021

Dear All,

*Please share this media alert and brief background info widely*

Background (and Open Letter) The resumption of visits by the UN Special Rapporteurs is excellent news. The Biden-Harris administration is keeping their word in this regard. The quality of such visits is up to civil society, in large part (that’s us). It is unfortunate therefore, that the US Human Rights Network’s 3 person board shut down — then revised the description to ‘paused’– operations just two weeks ago. No emergency member meeting, no warning or transparency. Just canceled. Along with 3 staff members whose email access was frozen mid-Zoom meetings and ongoing work, as a means of notifying them. Clearly, we are not all equal in dignity and rights, to these decision-makers. I look at the long list of our USHRN founders, members, prior staff, FIHRE Fellows, and many years of esteemed Human Rights Movement Builder Awardees, and am truly astounded at the lack of integrity or human rights principles behind the actions of these 3 and any enablers. 


Curiously, this sudden, ‘urgent’ need to cease operations occurred on the eve of the historic “In the Spirit of Mandela” International Tribunal and shortly before such an important US visit by The UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues — visits for which the Network historically was a major partner, facilitating access by directly impacted grassroots voices to ensure balanced reporting. The trio’s surprise decision to close our expansive 18 year old Network which does not actually belong to them, also ignored and aborted extensive preparation in progress by coordinating center staff, members, partners and donors, for key upcoming human rights actions domestically (December’s annual Human Rights Report, US Domestic Summit, Int’l Human Rights Day) and internationally (ICERD, ICCPR, and CAT Treaty reviews of the US are upcoming).


Given this intentional disruption in the communications, networking, and organizing of hundreds/thousands of grassroots members, please assist in sharing this information with your lists and networks. It is vitally important. I pray the Special Rapporteur gets to hear from the people at the grassroots. Very sorry the US Human Rights Network cannot assist. 


In unity,
Dr. Vickie Casanova-Willis, PhD

Open Letter

November 3rd, 2021 · · News Archive, Press Release No comments - Tags:

We write as a collective of sex worker rights organizations who organize in coalition as human rights advocates in our own standing, as member organizations of the US Human Rights Network (USHRN) and as members of the Sex Worker Rights Working Group.

Members of our Coalition have worked in partnership with the USHRN since 2010 during the first United Nations Universal Periodic Review of the United States. We have joined with the network on actions and the network has joined us. 

Sex worker rights organizations defend criminalized communities of many kinds. Part of our work includes providing our communities with valuable information about issues of concern. We do this work when others hesitate because we have to. Our safety and integrity depends on speaking up.

In this spirit we report the following news: Eric Tars attended an organizing meeting of USHRN members on October 31, 2021. During this meeting Eric Tars said that he would call law enforcement on human rights advocates and organizers. Eric Tars stated that he spoke on behalf of the board of directors of the USHRN in regards to the need to call law enforcement.

The USHRN is a people centered movement that is led by people of color. Our sex worker rights working group is co-chaired by a Black trans woman and an immigrant woman, and includes highly active Black led and BIPOC groups. 

Under no circumstances can we tolerate the presence of Eric Tars or like-minded members in any space of our organizing, including at the USHRN, because he will use the strategy of calling law enforcement on people of color when he deems it to be necessary. This is an anathema to sex worker rights leaders and in violation of everything that the US Human Rights Network stands for. 

Eric Tars term on the US Human Rights Network Board of directors expired more than one year ago. Yet he has been allowed to stay because we have remained silent. Our silence ends today. We do not recognize Eric Tars as a board member and we demand that he be removed from organizing spaces for the safety of all members of the USHRN impacted by policing. We demand that any other person who has associated themselves with the USHRN Board of Directors and who has called for the use of law enforcement on human rights advocates also be removed, if they have not already been removed. We do not recognize them as board members.

We offer the gift of peace and healing to any member of the USHRN who has been affected by talk of calling law enforcement. We are with you as the healing begins. But in order to heal, we must be safe. 

The BSWC 

BPPP

Desiree Alliance

The Outlaw Project

NJRUA

Generation Equality, hear sex workers’ voices

October 11th, 2021 · · Articles, Conferences, News Archive No comments - Tags:

Due to whorephobia and transphobia, parts of the United Nations system and some women’s organizations attempt to deny our advocacy in participatory spaces dedicated to the rights of women. US sex workers are documenting our participation in the 2021 Generation Equality Forums held Mexico and Paris.

In 1995 representatives of the fourth world women’s conference in Beijing created the Beijing Declaration stating that “women’s rights are human rights.” Sex workers globally have the least resources to attend UN meetings and to advocate within the admittedly hard won spaces for women’s rights globally. Barriers are deliberately thrown in our way. Yet, representatives of communities of sex workers were there in Beijing in 1995, demanding to be heard and challenging attempts to denounce sex work due to machinations by people with anti-sex worker and anti-trans agendas (1).  Since that time sex workers have fiercely defended our rights at many UN meetings following the Declaration. This includes advocacy in spaces that have been sites of anti-sex worker policy attempts, such as those organized by UN Women as well as around the Women’s Convention (the Convention to End Discrimination Against Women or CEDAW), preventing the codification of harmful language about sex work in the world of human rights.

The Generation Equality Forums were held virtually due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the groups listed below in our coalition attended. The Forum kicked off in Mexico City from 29 to 31 March and ended in Paris from 30 June to 2 July 2021. According to the Forum’s own publicity it was a “global gathering for gender equality, convened by UN Women and co-chaired by France and Mexico, to chart the way forward and to accelerate the implementation pace of the gender equality commitments made in Beijing in 1995.” The Forum said it would enable “feminist agenda setting and the launch of Action Coalitions that have concrete measurable targets and funding for gender equality for the upcoming five years.” 

Access was limited. Many of our groups applied to attend the Mexico City Forum but never received registration permission. However, Desiree Alliance, a national sex worker rights organization, attended the forum sessions in both Mexico City and Paris. Desiree Alliance noted that Mexico City was problematic in that no mention of marginalized populations such as sex workers was upheld the message of Gender Equality’s “mission of inclusion.” 

We experienced the same deliberate silence in France. Translations were nonexistent for some sessions, there was no access to respond in community forums and discussions, and navigation around the conference sites was difficult. We understand that complications arise with virtual formats. However, the organizers of the Gender Equality Forum clearly have the financial power to create a global event. Accessibility was a problematic limitation for those who were trying to be fully engaged with the conference. Sex workers who committed to be a part of this forum became invisible with no means to interact due to these malfunctions.  

To counter, we made ourselves very visible on social media using the official hashtag #generationequality and #generationequalityforum 

We would like to thank the Urgent Action Fund for supporting our UN work and for providing valuable information about participation in the Generation Equality Forum. We would like to also thank Desiree Alliance for these policy statements on the Convention to End Discrimination Against Women(CEDAW), statements that were released 2019 and in response by coalition in 2020.

Attending

BPPP

Desiree Alliance

The BSWC

NJRUA

The Outlaw Project

FOOTNOTES:

(1) for example, the advocacy of  Sue Metzenrath and others. Scarlet Alliance https://scarletalliance.org.au/who/history/ recalls that the organization had to advocate at the highest levels for the right of sex workers to enter China at all.