The International Prostitutes Collective, of which the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) and the US PROStitutes Collective (US PROS) are a part, is a network of women, Black and white, of different nationalities and backgrounds, working at various levels of the sex industry. We campaign for the abolition of the prostitution laws and for legal, civil and economic rights for sex workers, including the right to protection from violence, to health care and to form or join trades unions.

On 8 March 2002, International Women’s Day, we will be part of the Third Global Women’s Strike. Last year, women -- including prostitute women -- in over 64 countries took time off from waged and unwaged work in the first ever global strike, demanding a millennium which values all women’s work and all women’s lives. In 2000, masked sex workers marched through Soho, London’s best known red light area, in protest against local government attempts to evict them from their homes, while village women in India demanded ‘wages for all work’, domestic workers in Peru demanded to be recognised as workers and the housewives trades union in Argentina calling for ‘pensions without contributions for workers without wages’. In 2001 Soho sex workers joined the Strike again protesting against trafficking being used as an excuse for deportations.

By bringing together women from all walks of life and making visible each sector we belong to, the Strike 2001 gives us an opportunity to refuse to be divided into ‘good' and ‘bad’ women – a great power for us all. Last year, the Strike was crucial to stopping the evictions in Soho as it made clear that far from being isolated, sex workers had national and international support. This year, the Strike will be crucial again to stopping the deportation of asylum seekers and immigrant sex workers who, on 15 February, were dragged from their flats in Soho – this was followed by immediate protest and public outcry. (see letter to The Guardian in the UK, signed by lawyers and other prominent people) Link to Gdn article and letters from LAW & ECP.

Sex workers are on the Strike co-ordinating committee. Unlike other international women’s events such as the World March for Women in October 2000, whose sixth demand called for the implementation of a UN Convention which attacks sex workers’ rights, the Strike makes visible every woman’s situation and contribution.

The US PROStitutes Collective have been pressing the city of San Francisco to count sex workers’ contribution to the city and recently won a resolution calling for violence against sex workers to be vigorously prosecuted and for the $7.6 million spent annually enforcing the prostitution laws, to be diverted into resources and services.

PAYMENT FOR CARING WORK - 
IN WAGES, PENSIONS, LAND AND OTHER RESOURCES.  
We are women like other women, we too do the work of caring for others. Over 70% of prostitute women are mothers mostly single mothers -- a crucial difference between the situation of women and men sex workers who usually do not have such caring responsibilities. Instead of being labelled unfit mothers, we want the caring work we do to be recognised and compensated. If it were, we would not have to go into prostitution to support ourselves and our families.

A single mother from Australia who participated in the Strike 2000 spoke for many of us:

"I seem to have spent all my life working very hard to attain very little. I worked from home doing outwork machining for 15 years . . . I gave up a second child to adoption because it was too hard to contemplate raising him in the grinding poverty I still endured . . . Finally in my early 30’s I became a prostitute . . . Long tiring hours and bosses so mean they make Dicken's Scrooge look a kindhearted fool . . . I went back to Uni 2 years ago . . . had to keep on working, suporting my son and myself be a full time student . . .Yup, I'll strike on March 8. I shall spend the day meditating and praying for gender justice. I won't go to Uni, I won't clean house or prepare a meal and I won't have sex with a man for love or money!"

Providing sexual services is an extension of the caring work women do for men from the cradle to the grave. Mostly men are the buyers and women the sellers -- they have more money than we do. Women have struggled to refuse demands for free services, including sex, and to escape from rape and other violence in the home and outside. By putting a price on sex work, prostitute women strengthen all women’s demand for the financial independence to choose the relationships we want.

PAY EQUITY FOR ALL, WOMEN AND MEN, IN THE GLOBAL MARKET
Sex work often earns more than other jobs, allowing some of us a higher standard of living than we would otherwise have. However low our wages may be, they're usually higher than those of cleaners, secretaries, factory workers, or rural workers. For most women, especially those of us in the South and in the poor inner-city areas of the North, the "choice" is often between destitution, domestic work or prostitution. Inequity from no pay, low pay or too much work, low women’s wages which are even lower for those of us who are Black, welfare "reform" and the extortionate prices we are forced to pay for the essentials of life such as water, heating, housing, etc., force millions of women into prostitution. We are then criminalised and stigmatised. Our children are also discriminated against - in many countries they are refused access to education because their mothers are prostitutes. Without literacy it is even more difficult for our children to earn a living wage.

PAID MATERNITY LEAVE, BREASTFEEDING BREAKS & OTHER BENEFITS.  STOP PENALIZING US FOR BEING WOMEN.
Women raise all the children of the world and care for its entire population yet are denied the most basic resources. Instead of being valued, we are penalised for our physiological life and care-giving work, discouraged and even prevented from breastfeeding. Those of us who work as prostitutes are also criminalised -- it is considered normal for a man to have sex with many women, for free or paying, but the women he goes with are despised "dirty whores" and denied access to healthcare because we are illegal sexworkers. If our physiological differences were valued rather than denigrated and our work as mothers recognised, the treatment of all women and all those we care for would be transformed.

ABOLITION OF THE THIRD WORLD DEBT WHICH FALLS HEAVIEST ON WOMEN AND GIRLS.
ACCESSIBLE CLEAN WATER, HEALTHCARE, HOUSING , TRANSPORT AND LITERACY.
NON-POLLUTING ENERGY & TECHNOLOGY WHICH SHORTENS THE HOURS WE WORK.
$800 billion is spent on military budgets worldwide. Yet $80 billion would provide the essential of life – water, basic health, nutrition, education and a minimum income. Globally, sex workers have provided the survival and welfare denied us by governments and the global market they defend. As our children, have been forced into prostitution to survive because our work at home and on the land, environment and other resources are stolen from us by structural adjustment programmes to repay the "debt", many women and children are forced into prostitution. We owe nothing. Whatever arrangements governments made about borrowing money, we had no part in them. We are the ones sho are owed for centuries of unwaged and low waged work and now globalisation. The Strike is a way of claiming back that wealth, and making visible prostitute women's contribution to the liberation movements for women’s and civil rights, against slavery and colonialisation, as well as the present movement against globalisation.

Men, particularly those in positions of authority, are often furious that we have some money of our own which allows us, to refuse relationships which are violent against us and our children.

FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT. CAPITAL TRAVELS FREELY, WHY NOT PEOPLE?
In the name of protecting victims, governments around the world, with the support of many so-called feminists, are introducing anti-trafficking legislation aimed at preventing people from crossing international borders and facilitating deportation. We know from experience that such legislation does not provide protection from violence and exploitation -- forcing women underground makes all women more vulnerable. Some of us are forced by poverty, violence, war, repression and/or ecological devastation, to leave our home countries and cross national borders. We are the women governments want to keep out. Having stolen the wealth of Third World countries, they want to prevent Third World people from getting some of it back. Those of us who are trapped in prostitution need what all women need to escape -- human, legal, civil and economic rights, including protection from police and courts, benefits, the right to stay and seek employment.

To an even bigger and better GLOBAL WOMEN’S STRIKE on 8 MARCH

We are entirely unfunded. All our work is done by unwaged volunteers. We rely on media and speaking engagement fees, sales of books and accessories, and donations to continue our work. Donations, whether large or small, are always welcome.

Power to ALL the sisters to STOP THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT!

Some women in our network have already said why they’re joining the GWS:

• Against danger - because violent clients know that if they rob me or rape me they are more likely to get away with it – I would have to come out as a prostitute to report them and if I got to court my job would be used against me. And on the street it’s 10 times as dangerous
• Against all the violence – I’ve been stabbed, raped, kidnapped, abused by police and neighbours and even some members of my family
• To make visible discrimination and abuse not only from police, politicians and the media but also from ‘feminists’ and even our own families
• Against racism in ‘straight’ jobs and everywhere which forces us into prostitution to support ourselves and our families
• Against racism in the sex industry which like every industry is also racist
• Against having to hide what I do from my ex-husband, children’s school, neighbours, friends and family
• Against women being labelled as unfit mothers and losing custody of our children
• For recognition of the work I do raising my partner’s daughter who needs my attention and love even when I come back exhausted from work
• For recognition of the work I do campaigning for justice
• Against not being able to get ‘straight’ jobs because of my criminal record and ill health
• Against being like a non-person, invisible because of my past history.

Send us your "Striking Statement" and we’ll put it on the website: www.globalwomenstrike.net or Email: womenstrike8m@server101.com

Sex Workers

All Women Count