SWOP-Chicago members and allies gather for an action against police violence on December 16, 2011.
“International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers” Vigil- Saturday, December 17
International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers:
Come join us for a community forum, film screening and candlelight vigil
Hosted by: Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP) Chicago
When: Saturday, December 17, 2011 at 7-8:30 PM
Where: Jane Addams Hull House Museum at 800 S. Halsted Street in Chicago
Who: Current & former sex workers, allies, friends, families, and communities. This event is free and open to the public.
Join SWOP-Chicago in observing the 8th annual International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.
Chicago– On Saturday, December 17th, sex workers and their allies will gather at vigils around the world to commemorate the annual Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, honoring sex workers who have died at the hands of violent crimes, and declaring an end to all violence against sex workers.
The Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers was inaugurated in 2003 after the conviction of Gary Ridgway (the “Green River Killer”), a serial killer responsible for the murder of at least 48 prostitutes in Washington State. One statement in his confession determined the need for a very public memorial that raises issues of violence against sex workers: “I picked prostitutes because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught.”
Unfortunately, violence committed against sex workers is often perpetrated by those individuals whom we believe protect us from harm: police officers and other law enforcement agents. The additional propensity for law enforcement agents to blame sex workers for their “high-risk lifestyles” contributes to a dangerous stereotype that fuels additional violence and brutalities. It is time to recognize that violence committed against sex workers is often ignored by those whose job it is to serve and protect, and that this must end. At this year’s event, SWOP-Chicago will host a discussion with sex workers and other marginalized groups about their experiences with violence and harassment at the hands of law enforcement.
Events this year include:
Community forum: sex workers will share their experiences of police violence
Screening of “When We Walk the Streets” and other sex worker made film screenings
Memorialization and candlelight vigil to honor sex workers who have died at the hands of violence
Light snacks and beverages will be provided.
For more information contact the Sex Workers Outreach Project Chicago
Telephone: 312-252-3880
Email: sexworkchicago@gmail.com
For Other Events Outside Chicago: www.swopusa.org/dec17
SWOP-Chicago: Call for Speakers/Accounts of Police Violence for December 17th Event
In honor of International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, SWOP Chicago is holding a panel discussion and vigil at the Jane Addams Hull House Museum on December 17th. SWOP is calling for current or former sex workers to share their experiences of police violence at the event. This call is also extended to those who have experienced police brutality as a result of their gender identity/presentation. Statements can be given in-person at the event or submitted anonymously by e-mail and read aloud by a SWOP member. Speakers will have approximately ten (10) minutes to share their stories during the discussion portion of the evening. The event begins at 7:00 pm and will end at approximately 8:30 pm.
Through this event, we aim to raise awareness of the pervasive nature of institutional violence and to honor the voices of those who have experienced such brutality. If you are interested in contributing, please contact sexworkchicago@gmail.com or call our hotline at (312) 252-3880 as soon as possible to discuss further details. Thank you!
In Solidarity,
SWOP-Chicago
Chicago Sex Worker Film Festival- Film Schedule
Chicago Sex Worker Film Fest
Thursday, Friday, Saturday, August 11-13, 2011
7pm-11pm
Location- Everleigh Social Club
939 W. Randolph, Chicago, IL
For more info, call SWOP at (312) 252-3880
Raffle prize giveaways each night!
BYOB, light snacks available
Full Film Schedule (times subject to change)
Thursday, August 11
In Conjunction with Sex+++ Film Festival
Free Admission
7:00pm
“Sittin’ On A Million” (Penny Lane, 2008)- THE SOMETIMES TRUE STORY OF MAME FAYE, who ran a world famous house of prostitution in Troy, New York for almost forty years (c. 1906 to 1941). Despite being snubbed by official historians, everyone past the age of retirement has a story – funny, sordid, unbelievable – about Troy’s most famous madam. (26 min.)
“Canal Street Madam” (Cameron Yates, 2010) – Until an FBI bust upended her life, Jeanette Maier was a successful New Orleans madam. Her discreet clientele included a number of powerful, high-ranking politicians. The ensuing very public trial – both in the courtroom and in the media – focused salaciously on the fact that Jeanette’s brothel was a family affair – Jeanette ran the business with her mother and she employed her own daughter as an escort. Jeanette and her family ended up infamous, their futures blighted by felony convictions, yet their well-connected clients escaped exposure. Now, the Canal Street Madam sets out to reinvent herself, to reclaim her public persona, and to protect her family as she fights back against a system that silences the powerless and protects the elite.
Friday, August 12
$10 Donation at Door to benefit SWOP-Chicago
7:00pm
“Working Girl Blues”- (Damien Luxe, 2009) -Kitchen worker at a convent… Vintage retail bitch… Secretary at an ivy league university… SEX WORKER! A jane of all trades evaluates her curriculum vitae in this soulful short. (4 min.)
“A Day In Her Life” (Voices of Women Media, 2010) – Multimedia workshop for sex workers in Amsterdam’s Red Light District. It consists of 6 short videos – self portraits from different women who work in the windows of the Red Light. A compilation of short movies made by sex workers in the Netherlands through the Voices project. “Our goal is to use media to create a more humanised and multi-faceted picture of the sex industry. We want to show this industry as a complex fabric, composed both of women workers who are entitled to demand their rights as workers and women who have been forced into the industry. Many people looking in from the outside have quite a polarised view. Women are either victims, or they are making choices. But as in any other area of life, there are many grey zones. (18:00 min.)
“Frida’s Informal Economy” (Matthew Jackalinksi, 2010)
A day in the life of Frida and Milo, who accept offerings of stories and food in trade for sex, and work out of vans parked next to the local ice cream cart drug dealer in a deserted strip mall in Tucson. (9 min.)
“Transitioning Through Sex Work” (Bethany Childs/ Jay Very, 2011) – This Film Short documents an individual’s attempt to maintain a career in the sex work industry while undergoing Hormone Replacement Therapy. (4 min)
8:00pm
“Cinema of Desire” (Peter Mantello, 2009) – Cinema Of Desire is an upbeat, quirky portrait of Tak, a transgendered sex worker who services her clients daily in an old run down cinema in Bangkok’s working class neighborhood. The film is an intimate, poignant and often times funny glimpse at the ordinary life of an astonishingly extra-ordinary person. The cinema becomes a site where the erotic fantasies of the screen start to blur with the physical ecstasy in the viewing seat. (40 min.)
“Red Lips: Cages For Black Girls” ( Kyisha Williams, 2010) black.queer.sexy.slut.cherry.red.locked up.locked down.black.whore.red lips.justice.Red Lips. This movie begins to explore black/racialized/criminalized/queer/trans/identity and its relationship with the prison industrial complex. It articulates links between interpersonal and systemic violence while celebrating the ways in which we survive and celebrate ourselves. (16 Min.)
9:00pm
“Titty Fuck Me” (Sion Shankel, 2009) – Bold, beautiful drag queen Trauma Flintstone knows exactly what she wants from her man, and tells us all… in song! (5:33 min.)
“Mutantes: Porn Punk Feminism” (Virginie Despentes, 2010) – Made up of about twenty interviews filmed in the United States, Paris and Barcelona, and documents from the archives about the political action of sex workers, queer activists and performances of another kind, ‘Mutantes: Punk Porn Feminism’ is a documentary by writer-director Virginie Despentes (‘Rape Me’, ‘King Kong Theory’), which gives the floor to pro-sex activists and follows the evolution of the movement from the 80s to the present. Features Annie Sprinkle, Scarlot Harlot, Lydia Lunch, Madison young, Lyneee Breedlove, Carol Queen, and many more. (91 min.)
Saturday August, 13
$10 Donation At Door to Benefit SWOP-Chicago
7:00pm
“Duluth” (Nicole Brending, 2010) – A a stripper struggles to finish her shift after finding out that her grandfather died. (9 min.)
“Disability As It Relates To Sex Workers” (William Takahashi, 2010) SWOP-USA co-founder Stacey Swimme discusses disability as it relates to sex work. She talks about how sex workers can have an important positive role in the lives of disabled people, by helping them explore and learn about sexuality as well as interacting intimately with other people. She draws on her own experiences and talks about several other groups world-wide that are also involved in this work (5 min.)
“Every Ho I Know Says So: A Resource for Lovers, Partners and Sweeties of Sex Workers” (Lusty Day/Beef Jerky, 2010) Being in an intimate relationship with a sex worker does not make a person miraculously immune to the internalized stigma society lays on sex workers, or on their life partners. This short is a radical teaching response by sex workers to the total lack of accessible resources for people looking for advice on how to be a good date or lover or partner to a sex worker. In love with a pro? WATCH THIS VIDEO !! (9:24 min.)
“In Our Own Image: The Story of Spread Magazine” (J. Kirby/ Lisa Davis, 2008) – Documentary about Spread magazine, the first magazine made by and for sex workers, which launched in 2005. (19 min)
8:00pm
“Rights Not Rescue” (Open Society Foundation, 2010)- Sex workers are subjected to widespread human rights abuses, including police violence and unequal access to health care, in Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa. Despite enormous challenges, they are organizing to protect their rights and demand an end to violence and discrimination. Rights Not Rescue, a report published by the Open Society Institute, is based on a series of interviews and focus groups with sex workers and advocates throughout the three countries. In this animated short film, sex workers who participated in the research tell their personal stories and collectively call for hope and change. (9 min)
“Torn” (PJ Starr, 2011) – Times are hard in Sexxxy’s town, the cops harassing, the stroll not paying and a new law is being drafted that will ruin things for everyone. With a little help from her friends she finds stability and success on boom-boom-room.com until an unexpected betrayal challenges her comfortable new existence. A political education puts her in the driver’s seat but she cannot help but be torn by the decision she has to make. (56 min.)
9:00pm
“The Family At 1312” (Greg Scott, 2009)- This film chronicles a matriarchal family system comprised of dispossessed, marginalized, drug addicted people who struggle daily to achieve balance between their individualistic pursuits and the need to rely on each other for survival. Owing to the pressures of ostracism and police suppression, the members of this outlaw community have been forced to elucidate their own normative systems, their own standards, their own guidelines and mechanisms for creating and maintaining social control and order. We meet Cat, the self-designated ruler or chief of the family, and Laura, a sex worker heroin addict who struggles in her attempt to follow the rules. Mediating the conflict is heroin-and-crack-addicted Jamie, a formerly illiterate suburban housewife whose fellow drug addicted sex workers taught her to read. Mike Mike, a west-side street gang veteran, marshals the power of The Mob to strengthen Cats position in the community, and its he who leads us through the continual battles of the family life. On the one hand, they seek each other out for help, love, and support; on the other hand, “the family eats its own, regularly,” as each family member continually works to figure out how to hustle the family, to exploit the family for their own gain. This is a portrait of an American family. (15 min. excerpt)
“Collateral Damage: Sex Workers and the Anti-trafficking Campaigns” (Carol Leigh, 2011, trailer)- This trailer offers a historical review of a century of anti-trafficking
campaigns, demonstrating the way the historic “White Slavery” moral panic
and current anti-trafficking campaigns have been largely responsible for
prostitution prohibitionism, racial and gender discrimination, and xenophobic
immigration legislation. Written and directed by Carol Leigh; narrated by
Cosi Fabian. (15 min. excerpt)
9:30pm
“The Happy Hooker: Portrait of A Sexual Revolutionary” (Robert Dunlap, 2008)- Documentary about one of the world’s most important sexual icons. The film reveals the woman behind the legend who became the most famous madam of all time. Interviews with Larry King and
commentary from America’s foremost sexologists explore Xaviera’s rise and fall as
a madam, her deportation from the United States and her political significance to
the Feminist Movement and Sexual Revolution of the 1970′s. (57 min.)
Visit SWOP-Chicago at EXXXOTICA Chicago Convention: July 8-10
Vistit SWOP-Chicago at the Exxxotica Convention, this July 8-10 at the Donald Stephens Center in Rosemont, IL. Stop by our booth and come get one our *BRAND NEW* SWOP-Chicago t-shirts or buttons. Additionally, SWOP-Chicago will be presenting a seminar on Sunday, July 10 at 2pm on “Adult Industry vs. Sex industry: Similar Interests, Separate Battles” Please join us for this important discussion!
Call For Submissions: Sex Worker Film Festival
We are currently looking for submissions for a planned sex worker film festival this August in Chicago. Specifically looking for documentaries and narratives made by or about sex workers. Feature length or short films welcome. Deadline- July 1, 2011
If you have a film you would like to submit, please contact the festival coordinator- serpent@swop-chicago.org
Human Trafficking: Strategies and Solutions This Thursday, April 14 At Jane Addams Hull House Museum
Human Trafficking: Strategies and Solutions
DATE & TIME
April 14, 6:30-8:30pm
WHERE
The Jane Addams Hull-House Museum
800 S. Halsted, Chicago, IL
COST
FREE!
EVENT INFO
Human trafficking, for sex, for other forms of labor, or any purpose of involuntary servitude, is an exploitative practice that is prevalent in countries all around the globe, including the United States.
Activists and scholars fervently debate the definition of trafficking, moral distinctions that are often made between labor and sex work, various understandings of victimhood, and questions about the intent and success rate of “rescue operations.” In addition, there are complexities of migration to consider and debates about the relationship between forced labor and the global economy.
Join us for an evening of discussion and education. Scholars and activists working to end trafficking will discuss their strategies and positions. Hull-House history and Jane Addams’ relationship with the movement to end “white slavery” will be highlighted.
Confirmed panelists represent the following organizations:
Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation
Chicago Taskforce on Violence Against Girls and Young Women
The International Organization for Adolescents
National Immigrant Justice Center at the Heartland Alliance
Sex Workers Outreach Project Chicago
Fast, convenient STD Testing!
