Monica Jones is an Arizona based human rights defender who was wrongfully arrested by a rights violating police operation known as Project ROSE. Monica has always fought for the rights of her community, pressuring for gender neutral bathrooms at Phoenix College and vocally opposing SB 1062–a bill that would allow businesses to discriminate against any group including LGBT people for any religious reason–at the Phoenix Capitol building. Yesterday, Monica went to court for her trial supported by organizations in Phoenix, across the United States, in many other countries and by activists at the United Nations. This is her first interview since her trial was unexpectedly postponed. In this exclusive interview by Penelope Saunders for A Kiss for Gabriela, Monica shares about her ongoing campaign and what was learned in room 706 at Phoenix Municipal Court yesterday. BPPP hosted the interview for A Kiss for Gabriela due to a technical issue with their website that is now fixed and the complete interview can be viewed there.
Tag: SWOP PHX
Trans Activist Monica Jones’ Trial Postponed due to Constitutional Challenge of ‘Manifestation of Intent to Prostitute’ Statute
Contact: Margie Diddams, Sex Worker Outreach Project, 480-553-3777, swop.phx@gmail.com
PHOENIX, AZ— Dozens of supporters packed the courtroom this morning in support of ASU student and anti-SB1062 activist Monica Jones. Ms. Jones is facing unjust charges of “manifestation of intent to prostitute,” a vague and discriminatory law that criminalizes activities like waving at cars, talking to passerbys, and inquiring if someone is a police officer. Ms. Jones’ lawyer filed a motion to challenge this statute on constitutional grounds, resulting in the trial being postponed until April 11th. Ms. Jones states, “We will be back with twice as many people.”
In Arizona and across the country, trans women of color like Ms. Jones are routinely profiled and swept up in the criminal justice system on prostitution-related charges, due to a phenomenon many call “Walking While Trans.” An unjust lack of community and legal support leads most people to take please against their best interest. That’s why Ms. Jones decided she was going to fight the charges, so that no more trans women, sex workers, or people profiled as sex workers will have to face these injustices.
Sex Workers’ Outreach Project (SWOP) of Phoenix is continuing to build momentum for Monica Jones’ case with the support of the ACLU motion against the ‘manifestation’ statute. If the statute is overturned, it will be a victory not only for Ms. Jones, but for trans women, sex workers, and people profiled as sex workers throughout Arizona and the nation.
Ms. Jones states, “It’s time that we end the stigma and the criminalization of sex work, the profiling of trans women of color, and the racist policing system that harms so many of us.”
Nationally and internationally, over 1,000 individuals and numerous organizations have publicly declared support for Ms. Jones; organized solidarity protests around the country and participated in a campaign to demand that Phoenix city prosecutor Aaron Carreon-Ainsa drop the charges against Ms. Jones. Advocates from SWOP Phoenix are currently in Geneva, Switzerland at the UN sharing Ms. Jones’s story as emblematic of how police in the U.S. routinely violate human rights.
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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.
As part of their work to raise the issue of abusive and discriminatory policing practices in the U.S., advocates BPPP and SWOP-PHX sought to speak before the UN Human Rights Committee during the Committee’s review of U.S. compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Here is video of SWOP-PHX member giving her testimony–the text is below.
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I’m Jaclyn Moskal Dairman with (SWOP)–the Sex Worker Outreach Project in Phoenix Arizona. I am here to speak about criminalization of sex workers, including under ostensible anti trafficking initiatives that primarily target people in poverty and disproportionately affect people of color. These are the people SWOP reaches out to. As a single mother, college student, and someone who grew up in poverty and homelessness I know what criminalization does to people in poverty. Criminalization is disastrous, particularly in states like Arizona, which has mandatory minimums and felony sentences for sex work. In 2009, a woman with a psychiatric disability sentenced to 27 months for prostitution, was killed by Arizona Department of Corrections when they left her in a cage in the desert with no water.
Recently, Monica Jones, a human rights defender with SWOP, was profiled and wrongfully arrested by Phoenix police because she is a transgender woman of color. She was arrested as part of an initiative called “Project ROSE,” and charged under a vague, overbroad anti-prostitution statute. While dubbed an “anti-trafficking initiative” Project ROSE actually targets people police believe are sex workers. To be clear: Project ROSE violates arrestee’s due process rights. Arrestees are denied council, even when they request a lawyer, and are made to cooperate in a police interview to potentially receive diversion, with no lawyer present. The interview is used to file charges against them if they don’t meet the diversion requirements, which most don’t, because they are too difficult for people in poverty to meet.
Monica Jones goes to trial this Friday. Since pleading not guilty, police have stopped her without cause, harassed and verbally abused her four times. If found guilty, as a trans woman, she will be housed in the men’s jail where she will face violence. Please call on the US to ensure that sex workers and people profiled as such are afforded their constitutional rights when arrested under ostensible “anti-trafficking” initiatives, and call on the government to monitor anti-trafficking funds to ensure they are not being used to violate civil rights. Thank you.
As Monica Jones prepares to go to trial, her story is being told not only at the UN but by media throughout the U.S.: