I am a mother, I am a grandmother, and I am a sex worker. – Cris Sardina
A mother whose Irish-born child has a severe form of sickle cell disease…was so “desperate” she resorted to prostitution for a time to fund his medication…If deported to her native Nigeria, the mother fears her son, now aged eight, will be seriously adversely affected due to the quality of treatment available in Nigeria and her inability to pay for it, including blood transfusions…The boy was born two months after his mother came to Ireland in 2009. After a deportation order was made in 2011, she evaded it and later took three legal challenges. The mother and child were accommodated by the State from 2014 and provided with a medical card under which the child’s treatment is funded…
The argument for deportation advanced by counsel for the Irish government basically amounts to, “So what?”
As usual, studies prove what we’ve been saying all along:
A large new study out of the U.K. formalizes what sex workers have been saying…for years: The internet has revolutionized erotic industries for the better, making sex work safer, less isolating, and less open to exploitation…Most—59 percent—started somewhere between ages 18 and 29, with about 20 percent starting after age 30. Only 5 percent said they started between the ages of 13 and 17…Eighty-six percent agreed that they had good relationships with their customers, with only 11 percent saying they felt disrespected by their clients; 82 percent reported that they’re either satisfied or very satisfied with their working conditions…new challenges [are] mostly related to the erosion of the boundaries between online personas and real identities. More than half worried that family or friends might find out what they do through the internet…Another strain on British sex workers, predictably, came from policies criminalizing certain aspects of prostitution…
Yet another attempt to rob businesses using “sex trafficking” hysteria as a weapon:
A [soi-disant] sex trafficking victim from Houston is taking Backpage.com and several well-known truck stops and hotel chains to court, claiming they profited from her suffering. The alleged victim, identified only as “Jane Doe #1,” is suing the classifieds website as well as Hyatt Hotels, Love’s Travel Stops and Pilot Travel Centers, among others…”Jane Doe #1″…[claims] the businesses…were aware, the lawsuit claims, of what was really happening…
Prohibitionists think women are so stupid they can’t remember “911”:
…Before the Super Bowl, [“rescue” profiteers] will distribute “Freedom Stickers,” and encourage Minnesotans to place them in public restrooms. The stickers, which are printed in English and Spanish, contain the number for the National Human Trafficking Hotline and encourage women who are in an unsafe situation to call or text the number for assistance. Nita Belles, the executive director of In Our Backyard…said she realized that one of the only times a woman is alone is when she’s in a bathroom stall. Belles began placing “shoe cards” in restroom stalls–small cards with a hotline number, which could be hidden in a shoe. The Freedom Sticker is a similar concept, but since…[Belles masturbates to the fantasy of women being] stripped [sic] searched, the sticker cannot be removed from the restroom. Instead, Belles says a woman [so stupid she can’t remember the numbers “911”] can store the number in her phone or text it privately from the restroom stall. After someone calls the hotline, they can be connected to [cops] or other [prohibitionists]…
Slowly but surely, feminists are coming over to our side:
…at the Women’s March Power to the Polls event in Las Vegas…Cris Sardina, head of Desiree Alliance…was the only one of 30-plus onstage speakers to focus on the rights of…sex workers…But even as a lone voice in the day’s lineup, she symbolized a powerful shift — as did the noticeable presence of many sex-worker rights activists, who turned out more forcefully than they did for last year’s main Women’s March event. That was due, said many, to a more targeted welcome effort on the part of event organizers. They aimed to right a perceived wrong from last year, as publicized by Janet Mock, over briefly watering down and then removing a sentence embracing sex workers from the Women’s March mission statement, before reinstating it under pressure…
What other job’s perks include “get away with serial rape of minors”?
Twenty sexual assault charges against [Maine cop]…Kenneth L. Hatch III will be dismissed as part of a plea agreement that calls for Hatch to plead guilty to providing a place for minors to consume alcohol…In November, jurors in Kennebec County found Hatch…not guilty of two counts of sexual abuse of a minor…but…hung on the other 20 charges of sexual crimes involving three teenagers…Superior Court Justice William R. Stokes declared a mistrial on the remaining charges, which included sexually abusing three women when they were younger than 16, and one when she was 6…
The Big Horn County [Montana] Attorney has announced a “crackdown policy” on expectant mothers who…use drugs and alcohol during their pregnancies…Jay Harris…said his office will begin issuing restraining orders against pregnant women found to be using alcohol or drugs, aside from prescriptions. If they violate the restraining order…his office will “prosecute on a contempt basis and seek incarceration in order to incapacitate the drug or alcohol-addicted expecting mother.” The policy of stepping up civil prosecutions against pregnant addicts was spurred by…a 2014 case in Ravalli County, in which a woman was charged with criminal child endangerment for allegedly putting her unborn child at risk by using illegal drugs. The case was thrown out by a district court judge, and Harris said his office had been advised against pursuing the same legal strategy…
The real result of “sex trafficking” laws:
The cops of [Houston], Texas, routinely bust adult women and men in prostitution stings while assuring us it has to be done in order to find and save teens selling sex. So what happens when they find girls doing just that? Why, they arrest them too—and charge one with a felony. It’s yet another example of the disparity between what authorities say their priorities are and where their priorities evidently lie. Police arrested the two teenagers [in a sting] on January 18…The younger girl faces a misdemeanor prostitution charge. The older girl, age 17, is charged with promoting the prostitution of a minor…Police allege that she “coached” the younger teen on how to sell sex…the older girl is still underage herself—a former “child sex trafficking victim,” in the county officials’ usual parlance. She has mostly gotten out of prostitution and is now taking college classes and working a retail job. Nonetheless, Harris County has chosen to treat her as a predator…
First They Came for the Hookers… (#808)
This was the last club I danced in before moving on to escorting:
State authorities have ordered the emergency suspension of the liquor permit at Rick’s Cabaret…in the wake of four other suspensions at strip clubs…A new organization that represents French Quarter dancers, the Bourbon Alliance of Responsible Entertainers, issued a statement…Lyn Archer…said that women had been “emotionally degraded” during raids…and are now “facing the loss of their jobs”…
