The Red Umbrella Project is calling for an amnesty for Long Island sex workers until the killer is found so that sex workers can step forward and provide information about the case without fear of arrest.
SEX WORKER GROUPS RESPOND TO LONG ISLAND MURDERS (New York)
Sex Workers Action New York (SWANK) and Sex Workers Outreach Project NYC (SWOP-NYC) are dismayed that four more bodies were discovered on Long Island earlier this week. Police believe that a serial killer is responsible for murdering at least eight people found on a remote Suffolk County beach since December. Reports indicate the murder victims were in the sex trade. As sex workers and allies, SWANK and SWOP-NYC mourn the lives of these individuals and extend our sympathies to their families and communities.
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New York City advocates respond to April 2011 press coverage of the discovery of the bodies of four more women murdered on Long Island. Read BPPP’s media analysis and the SWANK/SWOP-NYC press release.
Press coverage of violence against sex workers and people in the sex trade is often sensationalized and insensitive. In April 2011, the New York Times (NYT) chose to present the murders of women on Long Island differently. The article “Prostitutes’ Disappearances Were Noticed Only When the First Bodies Were Found” takes the time to illustrate the details of the missing women’s lives, humanizing them and critiquing the idea that they were “disposable.” Twenty four year old Shannan Gilbert was last seen in a community a few miles from where four bodies were found and is still missing. “Ms Gilbert was a prostitute, but much more,” wrote Manny Fernandez of the New York Times who added that “she was an aspiring actress, and the oldest of Mari Gilbert’s three daughters.”
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