#letussurvive

Thanks so much for your continued support! 

Making Signs for our protest on June 2 for more info go to IWD18.org Sex Worker Rights are Human Rights

Regrann from @swopchicago - #Repost @micahbazant ・・・ New art for #InternationalWhoresDay this Saturday 6/2! Created with @thejessicaraven & Nona Connor. DM me (@micahbazant) if you want a copy of this image for your action! . . In April, the federal govt passed #SESTA (Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act)— a law that *claims* to protect survivors of sex trafficking. But SESTA doesn't protect anyone. Its endangering youth AND adult sex workers, forcing folks back out onto the streets where people are being killed and brutalized by police, clients, and yes, traffickers. Learn more at SurvivorsAgainstSESTA.org! . . Jessica Raven is a survivor & a mama and the Executive Director of @safespacesdc. She said: "Survival sex was my alternative to sexual assault on the street and in foster care. I was a queer brown girl in the sex trade at ages 15, 16, 17 and the anti-trafficking movement does not speak for me. I want HOUSING & RESOURCES for youth. Not handcuffs." We ALL deserve safety and support. . . Nona is a poet, badass trans organizer & former survival sex worker. "For those who want to see sex workers climb up by their bootstraps to find alternatives, Nona's done that and she’s built those opportunities for other people as well. Nona was stabbed 48 times in 2014, and she crawled bloody back to safety and rebuilt her life. This attack didn’t happen while she was engaging in sex work; it happened while refusing to have sex with a man who asked. For those who say that the sex trade is inherently dangerous, I can say the same about any work (or nonwork) activity that involves men. 90% of female restaurant workers experience sexual harassment on the job and no one is calling for the elimination of the restaurant industry as a solution; we’re calling for safety. For those who *don’t* want to work in the sex trade, we need to build alternatives and provide life-saving resources. For those who do, we need to make the industry safer." . . #letussurvive #survivorsagainstsesta #survivorsagainstfosta #sexworkiswork #sexwork #sexworkerrights #IWD - #regrann

One of our organizers spoke with Kate for this piece, "Many of us...have [now] taken up this work against EARN IT. We see this newly proposed bill as a part of the dangerous legacy of SESTA/FOSTA, the PATRIOT Act and other insidious state surveillance efforts; bent on censorship and punishment."

Here's to mutual aid, here's to a world without police/prisons, here's to decriminalized survival! #ISWRD

We're gathering on Tuesday night at 35th Street & Madison Avenue in Manhattan to counter misinformation and bust myths about the campaign for decriminalization. Join us for a circle and hear directly from speakers with lived experience trading sex, and then participate in a canvass to talk to community members in the area about why we need decrim now! Supplies will be provided for canvassing and art.

Join Moms United and Northside Transformative Law Center for a dinner, panel and facilitated discussion, in a fully accessible location, about the ways in which moms, overwhelmingly poor moms and disproportionately moms of color are criminalized out of abusive/coercive circumstances. This includes legal theories of "failure to protect", as well as accountability laws in which a person in charged for the actions of others, often their abusers. More broadly, this is about the ways in which poverty, abuse and trauma are addressed within punishment systems rather than with supportive resources--and will continue as such until we begin to dismantle those systems and commit to fully resourced communities, whole person healthcare. The panel will feature Alexandra Chambers of the Free Shantonio Hunter Campaign, Monica Cosby of Moms United, Tanya Gassenheimer of Shriver Center on Poverty Law. We'll be joined by loved ones of moms who are pre-trial and post-conviction, punished for the actions of abusers, grieving separation from children and facing the possibility of decades in prison. Invited guests also include domestic violence advocates, members of the public defender's office, the state's attorney's office and the probation and parole board and YOU. Co-sponsored by Chicago Books to Women in Prison, Chicago Community Bond Fund, Circles & Ciphers, Justice for Alisha Walker/Support Ho(s)e, Love & Protect, The Women's Justice Institute - WJI, Westside Justice Center. Fully accessible, free street parking, all ages welcome plus optional childcare. Dinner catered by @Spirit & Soul Catering 

Send support funds to Cyntoia that go directly to her books: jpay.com #00410593 (currently TDOC is blocking funding, but keep checking Jpay!)