A coalition of New York City based organizations released a report in mid-April 2012 highlighting the devastating impact of the use of condoms as evidence on a wide range of communities of people involved in sex work and who trade sex, as well as people profiled by the police as prostitutes. The Huffington Post commented that “advocates for sex workers want New York to become the first state to ban police officers from confiscating condoms as evidence in prostitution cases, saying it has a chilling effect on disease protection.” The advocates report release and press conference in Albany NY received much press attention nationally-including coverage in Business Week and the Washington Post, as well as internationally.
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On March 29th, 2012 a judge ruled that continuing to require people convicted for solicitation of prostitution under the “Crimes Against Nature Statute” to register as sex offenders violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. This decision follows the abolishment of the Crimes Against Nature Statute (CANS) and frees approximately 500 people previously convicted under the statute from this discriminatory and disparate punishment. More information is available at Women With A Vision’s website and the Center for Constitutional Rights case page. Special thanks to Streetwise and Safe for bringing this information to our attention.
Sex workers and their allies have released an open letter (March 22, 2012) to the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW-NYC) to raise awareness about the impact of dehumanizing statements made by organizations such as NOW-NYC weighing in on the debate over the murder of a number of people on Long Island. As activists from SWOP-NYC and SWANK prepared the open letter, they received news of another body being found on Gilgo Beach. Read more in Media Analysis.
A proposal in Washington, D.C. to make “prostitution free zones” permanent has been criticized by human rights activists, health advocates, and even the police and prosecutors. BPPP has helped to coordinate and support the local efforts to stop the law — read more in Media Analysis.