International Day of No Prostitution commemorated

Off Our Backs, Nov/Dec 2002

Global

Feminists in many places, including Australia, Russia, Nigeria, the Philippines, and the United States, commemorated the first International Day of No Prostitution on October 5.

In Melbourne, Australia, women held an International Day of No Prostitution conference in conjunction with events in other continents. About 50 women attended.Renate Klein of Spinifex Press began the meeting with introductory remarks about the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women Australia. Mary Sullivan spoke on legalized brothel prostitution in Victoria. Dee Hunt of the Centre for Philippine Concerns told about online sex tourism and socalled mail-order brides. Then, Jen Rice spoke about the pornography industry, including telling about a Houston, Texas, woman who had a labiaplasty operation filmed as pornography; then her labia were sold at auction. There were workshops on pornography, activism, and supporting women on leaving prostitution. Sheila Jeffreys then spoke on envisioning a world beyond prostitution.

In the United States, in Phoenix, Arizona, about 40 people, mostly women, gathered at 28th Street and Van Buren on October 5 at 7 p.m. After short presentations by Janyse Askely, held at DIGNITY House (a living facility for those seeking to get out of prostitution), a woman from the house, and Dianne Post, an attorney who spoke on the international and national law on trafficking and prostitution, the group marched three miles on what is known as "the strip" in Phoenix.

In Berkeley, California, on October 4, there was a speakout on prostitution at U.C. Berkeley's Boalt Hall. About 50 people attended and heard former teenage prostitute Jill Leighton give testimony about how she was lured into prostitution after being kicked out by her family at age fourteen. Participants included Shelter Against Violent Environments, Escape: The Prostitution Prevention Project, Standing Against Global Exploitation, and the Gabriela Project, an organization fighting against the international trafficking of Filipina women.

-info from Coalition Against Trafficking in Women