Tag: UPR

We want our voices heard!

September 30th, 2024 · · Campaigns No comments - Tags:

We are calling on folks to join us in letting the world know about our rights and resistance in United States, and to help us hold the United States accountable for impacting sex workers and trans people worldwide. We will be collecting information from sex workers and organizations in the coming weeks. If you would like to participate in the process by being interviewed, filling out a survey, creating art or joining a working group please fill out this short form – https://form.jotform.com/rightsnotrescue/join-us

What is the UPR? The United Nations (UN) Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a session to hold member countries responsible for their human rights records. The United States is being reviewed in 2025 for the first time in five years. By 1 March 2025 we will write a report on the human rights abuses sex workers face and sex workers will then travel to Geneva, Switzerland to speak to member countries about the criminalization of our communities.

The US 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 US obligation to eliminate racial discrimination.

It is well known that the US violates these rights on a routine basis when it comes to sex workers, or people profiled by the police, social workers and service providers as sex workers. The UPR provides a space for the world to hear about how the US has violated human rights over the past four years. Due to the current policy approaches in the US, we plan to include in our report information about the experiences of migrants, trans folks, people in street economies and document the economic impacts of US policies worldwide, but having said that we want to hear from every one and about every issue.

Read about our past actions and Recommendation 86 at http://www.bestpracticespolicy.org/tag/upr/

If you know of anyone who would like to participate pls share this post and information using our fliers.

Key Facts About Human Rights Violations & Sex Work ~ For the 2020 UPR of the U.S.A.

September 23rd, 2019 · · Campaigns, Policy Updates No comments - Tags:

Our organizations are members of the US Human Rights Network (USHRN) and so have been offered the opportunity to include some of our key concerns in the network’s report. BPPP, NJRUA, BSWC, Desiree Alliance and the Outlaw Project created the summary to send to the USHRN this last week.

Throughout the U.S., criminalization and stigmatization of sex workers, and those profiled as such, prevents them from exercising their human rights. Violations include: violence perpetrated by law enforcement and ICE; cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment during incarceration; denial of due process and protection in the justice system; denial of rights to housing, healthcare, reproductive rights, education, income, employment and economic justice. People of color, transgender people, migrants, street based sex workers, homeless, youth, and people living with HIV/AIDS bear a high burden of these violations. U.S. policies undermine the health and rights of sex workers internationally by requiring that organizations seeking funding adopt a policy against sex work. Additionally. in 2018 the U.S. passed rights violating restrictions via the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) and Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA). This legislation limits the sharing of vital safety information for sex workers online and causes economic harm and social marginalization. The current U.S. administration is violating the rights of immigrants. The intersection of this with anti-prostitution policies has resulted in the death of migrant sex workers at the hands of state agents, the incarceration of migrant sex workers in rights violating detention centers, and deportation. The U.S. government has engaged in a sustained campaign to roll back the rights of transgender people. Transgender people are assumed to be sex workers by the authorities, leading to incarceration and immigration detention, where they are harmed, highly vulnerable to sexual assaults, and killed.

Photo by PJ Starr, September 20, 2019

Previous UN Body Recommendations: In prior UPR process, the U.S. accepted Recommendation 
86, requiring it to “[u]ndertake awareness‐raising campaigns
 for combating stereotypes and violence against [LGBT people] 
and ensure access to public services, paying attention to the
 special vulnerability of sex workers to violence and human rights abuses.” The U.S has pursued policies that directly contradict this commitment, putting sex workers at heightened risk of human rights abuses. In 2014, the UN Human Rights Committee challenged the U.S. Justice Department’s claim that arresting people for sex work is a humane or effective way to fight trafficking, and called on the U.S. to align its anti-trafficking initiatives with human rights norms, which reject criminalizing sex workers.

Key Recommendations for inclusion via USHRN: The United States of America should:

  • End the criminalization of sex workers lives by full decriminalization (anti-criminalization) of sex work and eliminate policies, such as “zero tolerance” of prostitution, “prostitution free zones,” and loitering measures, that undermine protection of and respect for human rights of sex workers. Sex workers should also be able to expunge any criminal records relating to these laws.
  • Vigorously investigate and put an end to policing practices targeting transgender people.
  • Repeal SESTA/FOSTA and eliminate other federal policies that conflate sex work and human trafficking and prevent sex workers from accessing services such as healthcare, HIV services and support.
  • Address the atrocities of current immigration and migration border policies in the United States. Migrant and immigrant sex workers are especially affected by these laws as they are under no protections of federal guidelines. 
  • Remove “participation in prostitution” as grounds for removal from the country, from the category of “crimes of moral turpitude” and as grounds for denying visas/legal status to individuals seeking to visit, reside in, or become citizens of the United States.

Report to the UN Human Rights Council Periodic Review UPR: We Want Our Voices Heard!

August 13th, 2019 · · Campaigns No comments - Tags:

The Black Sex Worker Collective (BSWC), the Outlaw Project, New Jersey Red Umbrella Alliance (NJRUA), Best Practices Policy Project (BPPP), and Desiree Alliance, are calling on sex workers rights advocates and allies to join us letting the world know about the abuses sex workers face in the United States. We are collecting information from sex workers and organizations and are happy to meet in person, talk on the phone, text, receive information by email and reports via our online survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/UPR2020 (deadline to fill out the survey is September 12, 2019).

What is the UPR? The United Nations (UN) Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a 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. By September 2019 we will write a report on the human rights abuses sex workers face and sex workers will then travel to Geneva, Switzerland to speak to member countries about the criminalization of our communities.

The US 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 US obligation to eliminate racial discrimination.

It is well known that the US violates these rights on a routine basis when it comes to sex workers, or people profiled by the police, social workers and service providers as sex workers. The UPR provides a space for the world to hear about how the US has violated human rights over the past four years. Due to the current policy approaches in the US, we plan to include in our report information about the experiences of migrants, trans folks, people in street economies and document the economic impacts of US policies worldwide, but having said that we want to hear from every one and about every issue

Fill out the survey or email us to set up a time to speak:  bestpracticespolicyproject@gmail.com, blackSWCollective@protonmail.com, newjerseyrua@gmail.com, director@desireealliance.org, theoutlawprojectinc@gmail.com
We will be collecting information until September 12, 2019.

Why is the UPR important? In2010, BPPP and Desiree Alliance submitted the first shadow report to the U.N. Human Rights Council outlining human rights violations, e.g., police abuse and targeting, institutionalized discrimination, lack of legal protection, and violence ignored by the local governments.  As a result of the report and advocates speaking out in Geneva before the U.N. Human Rights Council, the US adopted Recommendation 86, which states that the US agrees to:  

Undertake awareness-raising campaigns for combating stereotypes and violence against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and trans people, and ensure access to public services paying attention to the special vulnerability of sex workers to violence and human rights abuses.

This was the first time the U.S. agreed to address sex workers’ rights violations directly at the U.N. However, we have seen very little change since the adoption of the recommendation.  Sex workers continue to experience violence, stigma, discrimination, and targeting, especially at the hands of the police and the criminal justice systems. We want to hold the U.S. Government responsible for not fulfilling its obligations in accordance with Recommendation 86.  We want to further highlight issues that continue to go unreported. 

DOJ Report on Baltimore Police Shows Harms of Criminalization of Commercial Sex

August 11th, 2016 · · Media Analysis, Press Release, Uncategorized No comments - Tags: , , , , , ,

Contact:

Jacqueline Robarge, Power Inside | jrobarge at powerinside.org (410) 889-8333
Darby Hickey, Best Practices Policy Project | darbyhickey at gmail.com (202) 250-4869
Katherine M Koster, SWOP-USA | katherine at swopusa.org (877) 776-2004

DOJ Report on Baltimore Police Shows Harms of Criminalization of Commercial Sex

Statement from Power Inside, Best Practices Policy Project, and Sex Worker Outreach Project-National (SWOP-USA)

The August 10th U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigative findings on the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) reveals police abuse and misconduct that sex workers have documented for years. According to the DOJ findings, BPD officers “fail to meaningfully investigate reports of sexual assault, particularly for assaults involving women with additional vulnerabilities, such as those who are involved in the sex trade.” In addition to ignoring sexual assault reports, the DOJ reports, officers themselves targeted, raped, and sexually assaulted sex workers, noting that such conduct “is not only criminal, it is an abuse of power.”

The DOJ details the BPD’s sweeping racial bias and unconstitutional practices that include racial profiling, degrading strip searches, excessive force, abusive language, and erroneous arrests. According to the report, African American sex workers and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people are particularly impacted by biased policing and are repeatedly targeted for stops without cause. The DOJ noted that, “BPD’s application of city ordinances banning loitering, trespassing, and failing to obey an officer’s order violates the Fourteenth Amendment.” Once stopped, sex workers of color or those perceived as sex workers are treated with a magnified level of disrespect and abuse.

Unfortunately, this mistreatment is not unique to Baltimore. In 2014 at the United Nations review of the U.S. human rights record, sex worker groups presented documentation of widespread human rights abuses in the U.S. against sex workers and those profiled as engaging in commercial sex, including documentation from Baltimore. The documentation presented in 2014 was a follow-up to a 2010 U.S. human rights record review in 2010, when the U.S. Government agreed to address discrimination against sex workers

Despite this longstanding documentation of police abuse of individuals engaged in the sex trade, particularly African American cisgender and transgender women, the U.S. government has taken no steps to address these pervasive human rights violations. Just as the DOJ documented in Baltimore, throughout the country police officers assault and rape sex workers, ignore sexual assault claims brought by people involved in sex work and deliberately fail to investigate these abuses. Police officers also profile people, particularly transgender and cisgender women, as sex workers, stopping and arresting them on scant evidence. This profiling comes as part of the broader racial and gender profiling of African Americans and other people of color documented extensively by DOJ across the country.

These human rights violations are a direct result of criminalization of marginalized communities in general and the criminalization of sex work more specifically. To address them, states and municipalities should work against criminalization in general and towards the decriminalization of drug use and sex work. The federal government should issue guidance on racial and gender profiling, make state and local funding contingent on an end to such practices, and promote policies and practices which stop human rights abuses against people of color, transgender people, sex workers and those profiled as involved in commercial sex.

The crafting of the Baltimore’s DOJ consent decree, and those in other DOJ investigations, must meaningfully include sex workers, LGBT people, and marginalized survivors of violence that have been most impacted by neglectful and unconstitutional practices. Real reform must include robust reforms that are specific to marginalized communities.

Read the U.S. Department of Justice report:

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3009376/BPD-Findings-Report-FINAL.pdf

Listen to women in Baltimore describe interactions with the police:
https://soundcloud.com/powerinside/nobody_deserves
https://soundcloud.com/powerinside/favor
https://soundcloud.com/powerinside/culture­of­violence

Read reports submitted to the United Nations regarding human rights abuses of sex
workers by police:
2010 report to the Universal Periodic Review

2014 report to the Universal Periodic Review

For more recent documentation of police misconduct against sex workers, see:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ecyJz8t1f2aVVNLORhbDophNUDrxcEjo4
wbGFvCyLVM/edit?usp=sharing