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Sex work and violence

On 30 January, a mesmerizing report was launched at the Asia-Pacific Intergovernmental Meeting on HIV in Bangkok: The Right(s) Evidence—Sex Work, Violence And HIV In Asia: A Multi-Country Qualitative Study . It is a ground-breaking piece of work for several reasons. It involved an unusual collaboration among governments, sex-worker organizations, communities, UN agencies, and regional agencies in Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal and Sri Lanka. It is full of fascinating insights into the lives of women, men and transgender people in the sex industry. It finds compelling evidence of widespread violence. It provides thoughtful, evidence-based analysis on causes and possible solutions. It points to a culture of impunity among the police, doctors, and other powerful players that in turn increases the threats of violence, trauma, disease and despair among sex workers, and by extension their families, communities, and customers. It’s full of first-person accounts.

The ultimate juicy news story, and you’ve never heard of it.

Meena Saraswathi Seshu, secretary general of activist organization Sampada Gramin Mahila Sanstha (Sangram), one of the co-authors of the report, talked with me after I had read the report. I know Seshu. She is articulate, and smart. She knows both the media and the landscape of sex work, having organized sex workers for decades. She fully expected the report to create a splash, but instead, she told me, it was greeted with “absolute and total silence”.

“It was launched in Bangkok—nobody wrote about it. It was launched in Myanmar—nobody wrote about it. The UN distributes it—nobody writes about it. Media came to all the events. People from TV, people from newspapers—they interviewed people like the study’s interviewers, who were all sex workers themselves. And then nobody wrote about it.”
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  • This is what they do - try and "silence" it away. I haven't been able to really "prove" this until this whole "8 Minute" issue - but now I do have proof that this is deliberate. I spoke to five reporters who told me they had been threatened in some way or another into not only not revealing they knew the truth behind the show being a fake - but also into not writing about our program which actually does the work they're pretending to do. There are parasites that work their way into a host animal but first sucking off food and life force from it to grow. Then they become almost like a clone - so that other animals think it's an entirely different animal. Eventually they absorb themselves until they have entirely taken over the host animal - having sucked the life right out of it. This is what they've been doing since 2007 when federal recognition happened. They created and bombarded us with these images of what "they" want people to think "trafficking" is - which is another word for prostitution. They are bombarding the air waves with documentary after documentary, and reality shows now - all to convince outsiders that trafficking is prostitution so that they can't possibly support it nor even view it was a woman's right to do with her body as she wishes. Which is what the war is about - control over a womans' body. They are now "dis-inviting" me to events I even created. They even duplicated meetings using our name to try and convince people that we were a part of them. But the "silence" is deliberate. It's so they can control what people are thinking and talking about when it comes to this subject. I've watched each so called "documentary" they are producing now about the subject where we are clearly excluded - and it's all lies. They are only picking people who are conveying what they want them to say - which also is about police control. Every group connected with Polaris is police controlled. However, any sex worker knows the police are the ones who are raping and exploiting us. Why would we go to them for help when it's them we need help from? That's the message I was speaking for over 20 years - and then once people were listening - they yanked me right off the air. Now they're making it appear it's only minority lone males they deem as pimps that we're in danger from - no most of them are trying to protect us from the real enemies - the police, the politicians, the government agencies, etc. Which is why we had to create our own network to help us - http://www.sexworkersanonymous.com Where now I'm having to not only protect victims from the traffickers - but now from these so called "rescue" groups that are wolves in sheep's clothing.

    • I spoke to those 5 reporters and they said you were lying..I then talked to another 4 reporters who told me you're a nutjob..then i talked with Olie North who told me he wanted you dead, not because
      he thought you knew anything but because he along with others were worried you may have children one day...He was convinced you could only have retarded kids...Called you a burden on the tax payers

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