SAN FRANCISCO—The Erotic Service Providers Legal Education and Research Project (ESPLERP) has called upon sex workers, their families, friends and allies, and in fact all of the world's citizens to observe Thursday, Dec. 17, as the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers (IDEVASW), an annual global event that aims to call attention to the violence faced by sex workers because of their criminalized status.
San Francisco Bay Area sex worker groups will be coming together virtually on Dec. 17 to call for the remembrance of sex worker victims, and to call for the decriminalization of sex work and the repeal of California’s prostitution statute, Statute 647(b) of the California Penal Code, which violates sex workers' constitutional privacy rights. To join the virtual gathering End Violence Against Sex Workers: Decriminalization, Justice & Compensation, RSVP at this link.
“California passed SB 233 in 2019. That allows us to report when we’re victims of or witnesses to violent crime. But the criminalization of prostitution continues to enable violent predators to target our community,” said Maxine Doogan, President of the Erotic Service Providers Legal Education and Research Project. “There are an estimated 120,000 sex workers working in the state of California. It’s time to decriminalize our occupation to help guard us against violence and abuse, improve our access to justice, and allow us to access public benefits during a world-wide pandemic.”
The International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers began in 2003 when serial killer Gary Ridgway (better known as "the Green River Killer") admitted killing more than 70 women in Washington State in the '80s and '90s. When he was finally arrested, he told police he had picked prostitutes as victims because they were “the easiest targets” and that “no one would miss them.”
More recently, Samuel Little confessed to killing 93 women over four decades in 19 states. He had been arrested dozens of times over that period and linked to at least eight sexual assaults, attempted murders or killings, but he repeatedly slipped through the cracks of the justice system because the police placed very little value on the lives of his victims: sex workers, people with addictions and others on the margins of society, many of them women of color. For example, Los Angeles police reports classified his victims as "NHI—No Humans Involved."
The Erotic Service Providers Legal, Education and Research Project (ESPLERP) is a diverse community-based coalition advancing sexual privacy rights through litigation, education, and research.
