SWP engages in policy advocacy at the local, state, federal and international level aimed at securing systemic change grounded in the experiences and concerns of our constituencies. In addition to our experience working with hundreds of sex workers and trafficking clients over the past seven years, we draw on the results of three comprehensive human rights documentation projects conducted by SWP in conjunction with respected scholars in the field to provide decision-makers with unique and critical information and practical recommendations for addressing issues relating to trafficking and sex work.

SWP 2009 LEGISLATIVE AGENDA

A number of bills that could change sex workers' lives for better or worse are now before the New York State Legislature. We invite you to join us in reducing the harms to sex workers and people who have been trafficked into sex work by raising awareness of these bills and encouraging legislators to take action to increase opportunities and agency and decrease violence and abuse for people working in the sex trades.

Call or write your state legislators today and ask them to support
SWP’s 2009 legislative agenda!

URGENT ACTION

Assembly bill A3856, which would stop police and prosecutors from using possession of condoms as evidence that people engaged – or intended to engage – in prostitution is now on the floor of the assembly. Currently, police and courts can use the fact that a person has or is carrying condoms to prove that they are engaging in criminal activity. Sex workers report that they are more likely to be arrested if they carry condoms, and sex work venues are more likely to be raided if there are condoms on the premises. Police officers regularly confiscate condoms from people they allege are engaged in prostitution to use as evidence against them at trial. As a result people are hesitant to carry condoms to protect themselves and others, for fear that it will lead to arrest or be held against them in court. Sound public health policy would encourage condom use by eliminating the fear that carrying a condom will be used against you by police or in a court of law.

• Send your legislator an e-mail message urging them to vote for A3856!
  Go to: http://ga1.org/campaign/condoms
  or http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/383/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27463.
• Check out 8 things you can do to help pass this legislation!

GREAT NEWS! On June 16th, 2009 the New York State Assembly passed A7670, which allows for victims of trafficking into sex work to move to vacate prostitution convictions incurred as a result of coerced involvement in the industry.
Read SWP’s press release here

STOP RHODE ISLAND FROM EXPANDING CRIMINALIZATION OF PROSTITUTION IN THE NAME OF STOPPING HUMAN TRAFFICKING!

The Rhode Island legislature is currently considering a bill, H-5044A, which would recriminalize indoor prostitution. The measure passed the Assembly and was the subject of a hearing before the Rhode Island Senate Judiciary Committee on June 18th, 2009. The main justification being offered for passage of the bill is that it is absolutely necessary to prevent and address trafficking into prostitution. SWP's experience has been that arrests for prostitution related offenses are more likely to hurt rather than help victims of trafficking, and rarely lead to identification and assistance of victims.

URGENT ACTION

Please call or e-mail the members of the RI Senate Judiciary Committee today listed below to let them know that this is not the way to help victims of trafficking! They are under tremendous pressure to pass this legislation, and need to hear from people across the country!
Read SWP’s memorandum in opposition to the bill
Read SWP’s press release
Read SWP’s submission to the Senate Judiciary Committee

TALKING POINTS

Five reasons the proposed legislation will hurt, not help victims of trafficking:

• In our experience, where prostitution is criminalized, trafficking victims are repeatedly arrested in anti-prostitution/vice raids without ever being identified as trafficked. Such arrests are deeply traumatizing to trafficking victims, thereby decreasing, rather than increasing, the likelihood that they will come forward and cooperate with law enforcement in pursuit of their traffickers.
• Arrests are not an effective way of supporting victims of trafficking to escape their abusers. We don't arrest survivors of domestic violence to force them to leave their abusers or participate in their prosecutions. We shouldn't do it to trafficking survivors. Questioning by law enforcement officers immediately following arrest on prostitution related charges is not the most effective way of identifying survivors of trafficking into sex work – providing nonjudgmental services where a trafficking victim can building a relationship of trust with a social service provider is a far more successful way of identifying and assisting survivors of trafficking in leaving coercive situations.
• Arrests for prostitution often leave trafficking victims more vulnerable to trafficking (due to fines and legal fees) and to retaliation and abuse by their traffickers.
• Criminalization of prostitution is not necessary to combating trafficking in persons! Labor trafficking can be and is investigated and prosecuted without criminalizing the underlying activity (picking tomatoes, domestic work, restaurant work). All trafficking into prostitution can be effectively prosecuted under federal and state trafficking legislation regardless of whether prostitution itself is criminalized or not! Existing state criminal laws against assault, extortion, coercion, indentured servitude, kidnapping, rape, and other forms of force, fraud or coercion are also sufficient to address trafficking situations.
• What trafficking victims really need is more nonjudgmental social services to help them escape coercive situations to safety – funds currently used to incarcerate people on prostitution related offenses should be diverted to providing such services. The Family Life Center of Rhode Island estimates that the state of Rhode Island spends $444,000 annually to incarcerate people on prostitution related offenses.