Aims and objectives
Capita’s 5th National Prostitution Conference brings together expert speakers from forward thinking organisations working together to address the complex range of issues surrounding prostitution in the UK.
It is an important time for local authorities, the police, health and outreach services and charities involved in the prostitution agenda. The new laws set out in the 2009 Policing and Crime Bill will radically impact upon multi-agency approaches to enforcement, engagement and support.
During this crucial period of change it is imperative stakeholders come together to share their views, identify successful strategies and share proven good practice. Only then will an effective and unified partnership approach be found to overcome key challenges.
This timely event will address core issues, including:
•Ways to transform the latest policy into effective practice within the framework of the new laws
•How to provide care, support and exits out of prostitution for sexually exploited children, young people and trafficked women
•Identifying local trends in prostitution so as to develop multi-agency responses to actively target related crime
•Approaches to ensuring ‘on’ and ‘off’ street sex workers receive sexual health and drug related support services
Take the opportunity to voice your opinion on the current legal and strategic picture and network with the wide range of stakeholders involved in tackling the central concerns resulting from prostitution in the UK.
Benefits of attending
•Gain an update on ACPO strategies for tackling prostitution and drug use
•Consider how the new laws set out in the Policing and Crime Bill 2009 will impact on prostitution
•Explore ways to enable children and young people to exit and recover from sexual exploitation and prostitution
•Hear from the Metropolitan Police on how the police, local authorities, PCTs and outreach services can target prostitution through effective partnership working
•Discover methods for providing a wide range of sexual health and drug support services to ‘on’ and ‘off’ street sex workers
•Take away strategy for providing accommodation, support and routes out for trafficked sex workers
•Learn successful practice for meeting the support needs of former sex workers in prisons
Speakers include:
Chair: Dr Belinda Brooks-Gordon
Reader in Psychology and Social Policy, School of Psychology
Birkbeck College, University of London
Dr Tim Brain
Chief Constable
Gloucestershire Police and
ACPO Lead on Prostitution and Vice
Sian Kilcommons
Vice Chair
UKNSWP
Michelle Farley
Service Manager
SHOC Haringey
Jon Birch
Inspector, CO14 Clubs and Vice Unit
Metropolitan Police Service
Gunilla Ekberg
Policy and Legislative Advisor on Prostitution and Trafficking
Eaves
Julia Lowndes
Lead Policy Officer for Prostitution and
Sue Webb
Partnership Analyst
Safer Birmingham Partnership
More details can be found
here.
Wednesday 4 November 2009
NATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON SEX WORKER RIGHTS IN AUSTRALIA
Wed 18 November 2009
Old Parliament House, Canberra
Members Dining Room 3
1.45pm - 4.30pm
FAILED SYSTEMS OF LEGISLATION
The Swedish Model and Zoning / Red Light Districts
Rachel Wotton
Criminalisation of HIV
Kane Mathews
Street Based Sex Work and Criminalisation
Christian Vega
Trafficking and Visa Reform in Australia
Elena Jeffreys
MODELS OF SUCCESSFUL LAW REFORM
Decriminalisation in NSW & New Zealand, Anti-Discrimination
Saul Isbister
Funding for Sex Workers to Participate in Law Reform Advocacy & Advice
to Government
Janelle Fawkes
Decriminalisation Protections
Alina Thomas
RSVP NECESSARY
Further information can be found here.
Old Parliament House, Canberra
Members Dining Room 3
1.45pm - 4.30pm
FAILED SYSTEMS OF LEGISLATION
The Swedish Model and Zoning / Red Light Districts
Rachel Wotton
Criminalisation of HIV
Kane Mathews
Street Based Sex Work and Criminalisation
Christian Vega
Trafficking and Visa Reform in Australia
Elena Jeffreys
MODELS OF SUCCESSFUL LAW REFORM
Decriminalisation in NSW & New Zealand, Anti-Discrimination
Saul Isbister
Funding for Sex Workers to Participate in Law Reform Advocacy & Advice
to Government
Janelle Fawkes
Decriminalisation Protections
Alina Thomas
RSVP NECESSARY
Further information can be found here.
"Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics", Desiree Alliance conference, Las Vegas, 25-30 July 2010
The Desiree Alliance is pleased to announce their upcoming National Sex Worker Conference:
"Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics"
To be held in Las Vegas, Nevada, July 25th to 30th, 2010.
Further details can be found at the Desiree Alliance website.
"Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics"
To be held in Las Vegas, Nevada, July 25th to 30th, 2010.
Further details can be found at the Desiree Alliance website.
UKNSWP Policy Group: Next Meeting 4th Dec 2009
The next meeting of the UK Network of Sex Work Projects Policy Group is Friday 4th December 2009. The meeting will be hosted by Terence Higgins Trust Cymru, Cardiff. Canton House, 435-451 Cowbridge Road East, Canton Cardiff CF5 1JH
The Policy Group is open to all UKNSWP members. Further details can be found on the UKNSWP website.
The Policy Group is open to all UKNSWP members. Further details can be found on the UKNSWP website.
CALL FOR PAPERS: “Demystifying Sex Work and Sex Workers”
Special Issue for Wagadu, Journal of Transnational Women’s and Gender Studies
Edited by Susan Dewey, Ph.D.
University Studies, DePauw University
Sex workers throughout the world share a uniquely maligned mystique that simultaneously positions them as sexually desirable and socially repulsive. In order to better understand how these processes function cross-culturally, this special issue of Wagadu invites papers focusing upon the everyday lives of sex workers, broadly defined as those who exchange sexual services for something of value. While recent years have witnessed a dramatic outpouring of feminist scholarship on sex work (Bernstein 2007; Day 2007; Doezema 2001; Kempadoo 2005, Kuo 2002; Munro and Della Giusta 2008), much of this literature unintentionally reinforces the social stigmatization of sex workers by depicting them solely through their income-earning activities. This burgeoning research has convincingly demonstrated that sex work is embedded in a complex social matrix that often centres upon sex workers’ perceptions of their individual choices and responsibilities (AgustÃn 2007; Bott 2006; Dewey 2008; Weitzer 2009). A limited amount of academic work has presented sex workers as complete social beings by depicting the full picture of their daily lives and economic struggles with appropriate complexity (Barton 2002; Brennan 2004; Kelly 2008; Raphael 2004; Wesely 2003, 2002; Zheng 2009). Accordingly, this special issue will fill a significant gap in the literature by examining how individual biography intersects with structural position to condition certain categories of individuals to believe that their self-esteem, material worth and possibilities for life improvement are invested in their bodies and sexual labour. Such beliefs inevitably combine with sex workers’ knowledge of their marginal, conflicted social status to inform many of their decision-making strategies. Papers in this issue will thus illustrate the processes by which sex workers are able to see themselves as agents and entrepreneurs despite pervasive social messages to the contrary.
They particularly welcome papers focusing on the everyday life experiences of sex workers that address the following topics, although others are welcome for consideration:
•occupation-specific perceptions of risk, fair exchange and emotional labour, with particular regard to biological family and other members of social and financial support networks;
•life history analyses that explore both the long and short-term impacts of what sex workers often describe as a short-term survival strategy;
•perceptions of institutional processes that translate social stigma into public policy, particularly by placing unmarried, low income mothers at a serious disadvantage in the post-welfare reform era;
•critical analyses of the relationships between the feminization of poverty, homelessness, substance abuse and sex work, including assumptions made about such connections by policymakers and popular culture
•relationships with and perceptions of social service providers, including special issues for migrant and/or undocumented sex workers;
•personal narratives describing sex workers’ negotiation of biological family relationships and other social networks, including others’ awareness of sex work as a source of income and support;
•experiences in previous non-sex work employment and perceptions of sustainable options for other forms of non-sex work, with particular regard to sex workers’ long term aspirations;
•the complex intersections of social stigma with individual agency as sex workers seek to define themselves on terms outside the narrow purview of their labour;
•individual sex workers’ experiences with law enforcement officials, with particular attention to perceptions of the impact of anti-trafficking initiatives on sex workers’ everyday lives.
Please send abstracts (300 words max.) by January 15, 2010 and, if accepted for publication, complete essays by April 15, 2010. All submissions should be submitted electronically to wagadu.org
For other inquiries, please email Dr. Dewey at susandewey@depauw.edu
Edited by Susan Dewey, Ph.D.
University Studies, DePauw University
Sex workers throughout the world share a uniquely maligned mystique that simultaneously positions them as sexually desirable and socially repulsive. In order to better understand how these processes function cross-culturally, this special issue of Wagadu invites papers focusing upon the everyday lives of sex workers, broadly defined as those who exchange sexual services for something of value. While recent years have witnessed a dramatic outpouring of feminist scholarship on sex work (Bernstein 2007; Day 2007; Doezema 2001; Kempadoo 2005, Kuo 2002; Munro and Della Giusta 2008), much of this literature unintentionally reinforces the social stigmatization of sex workers by depicting them solely through their income-earning activities. This burgeoning research has convincingly demonstrated that sex work is embedded in a complex social matrix that often centres upon sex workers’ perceptions of their individual choices and responsibilities (AgustÃn 2007; Bott 2006; Dewey 2008; Weitzer 2009). A limited amount of academic work has presented sex workers as complete social beings by depicting the full picture of their daily lives and economic struggles with appropriate complexity (Barton 2002; Brennan 2004; Kelly 2008; Raphael 2004; Wesely 2003, 2002; Zheng 2009). Accordingly, this special issue will fill a significant gap in the literature by examining how individual biography intersects with structural position to condition certain categories of individuals to believe that their self-esteem, material worth and possibilities for life improvement are invested in their bodies and sexual labour. Such beliefs inevitably combine with sex workers’ knowledge of their marginal, conflicted social status to inform many of their decision-making strategies. Papers in this issue will thus illustrate the processes by which sex workers are able to see themselves as agents and entrepreneurs despite pervasive social messages to the contrary.
They particularly welcome papers focusing on the everyday life experiences of sex workers that address the following topics, although others are welcome for consideration:
•occupation-specific perceptions of risk, fair exchange and emotional labour, with particular regard to biological family and other members of social and financial support networks;
•life history analyses that explore both the long and short-term impacts of what sex workers often describe as a short-term survival strategy;
•perceptions of institutional processes that translate social stigma into public policy, particularly by placing unmarried, low income mothers at a serious disadvantage in the post-welfare reform era;
•critical analyses of the relationships between the feminization of poverty, homelessness, substance abuse and sex work, including assumptions made about such connections by policymakers and popular culture
•relationships with and perceptions of social service providers, including special issues for migrant and/or undocumented sex workers;
•personal narratives describing sex workers’ negotiation of biological family relationships and other social networks, including others’ awareness of sex work as a source of income and support;
•experiences in previous non-sex work employment and perceptions of sustainable options for other forms of non-sex work, with particular regard to sex workers’ long term aspirations;
•the complex intersections of social stigma with individual agency as sex workers seek to define themselves on terms outside the narrow purview of their labour;
•individual sex workers’ experiences with law enforcement officials, with particular attention to perceptions of the impact of anti-trafficking initiatives on sex workers’ everyday lives.
Please send abstracts (300 words max.) by January 15, 2010 and, if accepted for publication, complete essays by April 15, 2010. All submissions should be submitted electronically to wagadu.org
For other inquiries, please email Dr. Dewey at susandewey@depauw.edu
‘Rights not Rescue’ Mama Cash meeting in Amsterdam, November 10
Recent laws and policies put in place to protect sex workers have in fact resulted in widespread abuses of their rights. Programmes aimed at sex workers often attempt to 'rescue' them, without addressing their human rights. Despite enormous challenges, sex workers are calling for legal reform and programmes to end violence and discrimination. They advocate for safer working conditions and access to health care. They want rights not rescue. On November 10 Mama Cash will give the floor to sex workers and activists from around the world for a discussion about sex work and human rights.
The panel discussion features Ruth Morgan Thomas (Scottish Prostitutes Education Project), Pye Jakobsson (Rose Alliance, Sweden), Marianne Jonker (Soa Aids Netherlands) and Macklean Kyomya (WONETHA, Uganda).
Moderator: Marjan Sax.
Mama Cash is organising the event in cooperation with the International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe (ICRSE) and the Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP).
Date: Tuesday, November 10 2009
Location: De Balie, Amsterdam Grote Zaal
Time: 20.00 - 21.30
Language: English
Further information: http://www.mamacash.org
The panel discussion features Ruth Morgan Thomas (Scottish Prostitutes Education Project), Pye Jakobsson (Rose Alliance, Sweden), Marianne Jonker (Soa Aids Netherlands) and Macklean Kyomya (WONETHA, Uganda).
Moderator: Marjan Sax.
Mama Cash is organising the event in cooperation with the International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe (ICRSE) and the Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP).
Date: Tuesday, November 10 2009
Location: De Balie, Amsterdam Grote Zaal
Time: 20.00 - 21.30
Language: English
Further information: http://www.mamacash.org
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