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Day To End Violence Against Sex Workers

December 18, 2009

I’m late getting this up — the International Day To End Violence Against Sex Workers was the 17th. But I feel like I have to say something. I don’t have any personal story to share, and I don’t have any particularly good understanding of sex worker issues. Lots of people have said smarter things than I will manage. Here is just one.

All I have to say is this: sex workers are people, too. They’re a diverse bunch. There are people from every class and ethnic background, cissexual and transgendered, binary gendered and genderqueer, able-bodied and neurotypical or with disabilities, and on and on. Sex workers do lots of different kind of work, some of it legal and some of it not; some of it exposes them to more potentially harmful people and some less.

When they do what they do, though, some people hate sex workers for it. And some people harm or kill sex workers. People shouldn’t risk death and bodily injury to do their jobs, and there’s a whole government agency to keep people safe at work. But as a society I can’t see that we really try to keep sex workers safe at work; even those whose jobs are legal. But we should. Because they are people, too, and they shouldn’t have to worry any more than the rest of us that they won’t come home when they go out to earn a living.

2 Comments leave one →
  1. December 20, 2009 10:14 pm

    It’s true — there isn’t enough effort to keep sex workers safe. I think most people have a “Those sluts deserve whatever they get” attitude which is not only judgmental but also extremely sad. You can have sex for pleasure or love, but if you do it to make money, you’re worthless trash. Though I do not believe that at all, many do. Which makes it very insulting when people arrest and punish sex workers and then say they’re only doing it to protect them. Being branded as a literal whore is so damning in our society that a few of the sex workers I’ve come to know have claimed they are more fearful of arrest than abuse or death.

  2. January 4, 2010 12:17 pm

    People deserve the same protection no matter who they are, because a woman is prostitute she does not pay taxes? Why when they are on the streets people ignore them but when there is media attention everybody is their friend and trying to protect them…

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