JVP Joins Pimps' Lobby Sign On Letter

In mid-March 2021, Red Canary Song, an astroturf front group for pimps and sex-traffickers published a sign-on letter (original) advocating the decriminalization of sex-work.  Their letter was written in response to the March 16th, 2021 murder of eight Asian women who each worked at massage parlors in and around Atlanta.  The letter criticizes carceral punishment and policing as having "never kept sex workers or massage workers or immigrants safe"; and demands that "(t)he legal profession of massage work should be respected and protected by US society".  The letter attracted as co-signers hundreds of organizations, many of them explicitly associated with the Sex Workers Organizing Project, known as a company union front for the sex trafficking industry (see particularly Julie Bindel's book on the subject).  Sex-work is a term used by the pimps’ lobby and its advocates to refer to the range of those engaged in prostitution, including the mostly women and children exploited by the industry but also the managers usually understood as the pimps who traffick in the bodies of the exploited. 

Three local branches of Jewish Voices for Peace, including JVP-Atlanta (but also JVP-NYC and JVP-New Haven), joined the letter as co-signers.  And on March 18th, JVP-Atlanta published their participation with the effort on their facebook feed.

I challenged this endorsement of the Red Canary Song letter by JVP-Atlanta on their facebook channel, citing an article published on March 25th, 2021 and co-authored by Alice Lee and Suzanne Jay who each work with the Vancouver BC based Asian Women for Equality along with Dr. Melissa Farley with Prostitution Research and Education.  I asked:

"  . . . do you stand for peace in Palestine and the exploitation of Asian women in Atlanta under a system which you would have decriminalize those who exploit them?  Do you advocate self-determination for Palestinians and pimps, but not for the women (the latter) victimize?  Or do you believe the propaganda that women want to be exploited in prostitution?"

Initially, Connie Sosnoff, a JVP-Atlanta leader, defended their action to align with the pimps’ lobby, stating that: “We stand by our decision to endorse the Red Canary Song statement . . . ”, proceeding to repeat the talking points propagated by so-called Sex-Worker advocates. 

Others joined the conversation (thank you Paula Densnow and M Edina Hedges) and I posted to the thread, additional resources vital to understanding the narrative advanced by the pimp's lobby from the perspective of those who had survived its exploitative practices.  Included among those were links to Nordic Model Now, to an open letter sent to Georgia Governor Nathan Deal (pdf, local copy) by the officers of the Georgia Green Party, to a peer-reviewed study with often replicated findings entitled, Prostitution & Trafficking in Nine Countries: An Update on Violence and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder conducted by PRE (cited above) and to Survivors of Prostitution Abuse Calling for Enlightenment (SPACE International).

JVP-Atlanta, rather than defend their position further in the face of the testimony of those who have survived the abuse they give cover for, simply deleted the entire thread altogether.  This action served to deny their supporters and the public access to this challenge to their poorly considered policy initiative, outside the scope of JVP's core mission, and in contradiction to their own vision statement which advocates that "all people . . . live in freedom, justice, equality, and dignity (through their work to) dismantle the institutions and structures that sustain injustice".  

Another justice-seeking organization captured by the lobby for pimps, pornographers and traffickers. 

We still have much work to do.