It has been five years since the German government enacted the prostitution protection act. Lawmakers say it protects vulnerable people; many sex workers say it is discriminatory, stigmatizing and has increased risks.
Mar. 15, 2021
Rebecca Marotta was supposed to start work at a day care just as coronavirus stay-at-home orders began in Massachusetts last March. Instead, the 27-year-old single mom gave up her job to be with her two children, who had started remote learning at home.
Marotta said she spent months living on Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and working for Instacart, but it wasn’t enough to make ends meet. Worried she would have to go back to living in a homeless shelter, she cut costs however she could. By December, she had $30 in her checking account, she said, and cried knowing she wouldn’t be able to afford many Christmas presents for her kids.
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“On the issue of finding a safe place for sex workers, I’m a huge advocate. I always have been,” Vice President–elect Kamala Harris said in a February 2019 interview with
The Root. But if you ask sex workers, they’ll give you a different story.
“I’m thrilled that we have a black woman vice president. I wish it was anyone else but Kamala Harris,” said Alex Andrews, cofounder of Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP) Behind Bars and former board member of SWOP USA. Andrews and other objected to the “torture” Harris put sex workers through when she was district attorney of San Francisco and attorney general of California. “She helped the Oakland Police Department