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International
Day to
End Violence Against Sex Workers
In Memorium:
Every individual on this list had a story, a
family, a life that was
worth living. Today, let us honor their
memories, invoke their spirits
and resolve to keep working for a world where
we are free to live, work,
and love in dignity and in safety.
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Year |
Location |
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Victims of Serial Killer Gary Ridaway |
Victims of Serial Killer Robert "Willie" Pickton |
Unidentified Women
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Over the past year, the International sex
worker community has mourned the
loss of thousands of our comrades, with an
estimated 2,000 killed in the
United States alone. In the last twelve
months, serial killers have been
reported in places like Ipswich, Atlantic
City, Edmonton, Guatemala and
Russia, and many cases remain unsolved. A few
days ago in British
Columbia, Robert "Willie" Pickton was
sentenced to life in prison for the
deaths of six women - he has admitted to
killing forty-nine sex workers in
total before feeding them to his pigs. Gary
Ridgway, the Green River
killer of the 1980s, picked prostitutes as
victims "because they are easy
to pick up without being noticed. . . . I
thought I could kill as many of
them as I wanted without being caught."
We are
seen as nameless, faceless,
storyless, useless, and utterly without
rights. In Philadelphia, the
serial rape and assault at gunpoint of sex
worker Dominique Grindraw was
written off by Judge Deni as "theft of
services," amounting to
state-sponsorship of violence against sex
workers.
But we will not be silenced, nor will we
accept what amounts to genocide
against our kind - SEX WORKERS' RIGHTS ARE
HUMAN RIGHTS!
By participating
in one of today's events, you are helping the
world to see that our
struggle is not in vain, and that the sex
workers killed in 2007 may be
gone, but they are not forgotten. We will not
rest until the streets,
cities, and countrysides are safe for
everyone, everywhere, every worker.
The names on this list represent but a tiny
fraction of those who were
lost to violence against sex workers in recent
years. The assault, abuse,
rape and murder regularly perpetrated against
our kind goes under-reported
and under-addressed because laws, police
officers, pimps and johns do not
respect our basic rights as humans and as
workers. But we know that our
lives are not disposable, nor are they worth
less than any other person's.
Every individual on this list had a story, a
family, a life that was
worth living. Today, let us honor their
memories, invoke their spirits
and resolve to keep working for a world where
we are free to live, work,
and love in dignity and in safety.thank you goes to "Mad Dash" from
SWANK (Sex Worker Action New
York) for researching and generously
sending us the
printable .pdf file of all names. We
have also converted the list to html format |
designed by
II TM |
Sex Workers Outreach Project
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