Tag: New Jersey

Spoken Word/Poetry/Music Competition for International Whores Day 2023

May 5th, 2023 · · Art Comments Off on Spoken Word/Poetry/Music Competition for International Whores Day 2023 - Tags: ,

Entries due by 11.59 pm ET May 19, 2023

If you are a sex worker/person in the sex trade and have a connection to New Jersey (live here or work here, or come from here, or have good friends here, or similar), then contribute a poem to the International Whores Day podcast competition by May 19, 2023. New Jersey Red Umbrella Alliance (NJRUA) will select several of the pieces to read for our International Whores Day podcast (produced in collaboration with Moral High Ground Productions). Contributors maintain copyright of their art and will provide permission for it to be shared on our podcast. All selected entrants will receive compensation for their participation.

This year’s theme will be “Storming the Sanctuary” in celebration of the original action that inspired International Whores’ Day in 1975. It is also a call to action that our allies need now more than question how safe any of us are. We have to fight for and maintain our safe spaces. Our rights and all civil rights are under attack, Sex workers need collaborators and co-conspirators.

The competition will be judged by members of NJRUA. The NJRUA poetry podcast will be recorded/edited by PJ Starr and N’Jaila Rhee and released on soundcloud on June 1, 2023. 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. And our own podcast in 2022 and in 2016

Contribute your poem, words, lyrics, music, etc to newjerseyrua@gmail.com by May 19, 2023 by 11.59 pm Eastern to be in the running to win a t-shirt and/or have your poem read for inclusion on the podcast for which you will be compensated If you would like to record a reading of your own poem for consideration, we can receive the recording via email or any other file transfer service you would like to use. You may contribute anonymously (i.e. 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.

If poetry is not something that interests you, you can also send us original music for consideration for the podcast, lend your voice to reading a poem or donate to our cause. All is welcome

Good luck!

NJ: Strategy to Address Serial Abuser

June 29th, 2019 · · Campaigns No comments - Tags: ,

Please also see more information at www.njrua.org.

INITIAL PUBLIC Strategy Statement

NJRUA and BPPP will take the following steps to address the serial abuser usually referred to as “Joey” in New Jersey. At all times we center the safety and healing of victims of his abuse and will proceed carefully to ensure that we do no harm. We are organizations led and guided by people of color, trans people, and immigrants and center our work on addressing racism and privilege.

At our June 22, 2019 strategy meeting we created the following work in progress strategy. Some strategy is confidential and not included here. We will update this weekly to address new circumstances. If you wish to be in solidarity with us then please send us an email to newjerseyrua@gmail.com and bestpracticespolicyproject@gmail.com  with who you are and what kind of support you can offer and we will add you as a supporter of this strategy if helpful to the campaign. We are two small sex worker led organizations (one of us is without any funding) and we have no staff. Keep that in mind in terms of our ability to get back to you.

Action Items:

-provide referral and support to community members who have been victimized by this abuser

-creating a profile of the abuser: senior editor on the profile page will be Janet Duran of NJRUA who will do the final editing of the profile

-alert webpage (in progress)

-pinned tweet on Twitter with his info and a warning

-street and campus outreach distribution of updated flier from our archives

-an alert to nation with his profile, MO and other information (via BPPP to every group working with people who might be affected by this abuser)

-liaison and MOUs with lawyers: we are currently in contact with two attorneys and should they wish to work with us officially we will create agreements with them so that sex worker and victim rights are central (pls update us with any lawyers who may be of interest)

-press release and reach out to media

-liaison with SVU in NJ (NJRUA already has a relationship with SVU)

-ensure inclusion of this case in UPR National Report to the United Nations

-direct action that would bring justice and an end to the actions of this abuser

Current Supporters of this strategy are: NJRUA (leadership in NJ), BPPP (leadership based in NJ), The Outlaw Project (supporters), the Black Sex Worker Collective (supporters), Desiree Alliance (supporters).


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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