Stop Prosecutions of People Arrested for Prostitution
Do you want to help prevent people from being prosecuted
after being arrested for prostitution?
New Moon is proud to sponsor the following educational opportunity, which is open to advocates, allies, and the general public:
Registration is now open for the webinar, “Exercising Discretion: Navigating the Possibilities and Impacts of Non-Prosecution Policies in the Context of Sex Work Criminalization”. This webinar will educate on the role of the district attorney (DA) within the law enforcement system, and how to advocate for changes to local DA policy to prevent the prosecution of people engaged in sex work. Educators will host two live webinar sessions in August; the registration links are below. The webinar will be recorded and made available online.
Background: In winter 2023, Yale’s Global Health Justice Partnership and the Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Center published “Exercising Discretion: A Handbook for Advocates and District Attorneys Navigating the Possibilities and Impacts of Non-Prosecution Policies in the Context of Sex Work Criminalization” (referred to as the DA handbook) along with an accompanying Community Guide. The DA Handbook seeks to support sex worker rights advocates, prosecutors, policy makers and other stakeholders in understanding, influencing, tracking, and assessing the operation and impact of non-prosecution policies that include charges related to sex work, as adopted by District Attorneys (DAs) in the United States.
During this 90-minute presentation, two of the DA Handbook authors, Francesca Maviglia and Mariah Grant, will overview how to use the handbook, provide a primer on prosecutorial discretion, and explain what a model non-prosecution policy looks like. They will then discuss an opportunity for sex workers’ rights advocates to apply to participate in a 3-month long cohort to learn more on successfully implementing the DA Handbook in their local context.
Click here to register for Thursday August 3 at 6 pm ET
Click here to register for Monday August 21 at 2 pm ET
Attention current/former sex workers: A small cohort will be created after these webinars to dive deeper into the DA Handbook and support advocates in advancing progressive prosecutorial policies in their regions. Cohort members will receive $400 for their participation. The cohort will run from October to December of 2023. If you’re interested in applying for this opportunity, please fill out this application.
The training and cohort are made possible thanks to funding from the New Moon Network.
Speaker Bios:
Mariah Grant (she/her) is a human rights and migration expert with a focus on sex workers’ rights, freedom of movement, and labor exploitation. For over a decade, she has worked throughout North America, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, and Asia Pacific, in a variety of capacities including case management with migrant children and families, training and technical assistance for governmental and intergovernmental agencies, human rights research and documentation, and policy advocacy. She is currently a freelance consultant working on projects related to sex work decriminalization, sex work in humanitarian crises and conflict zones, and human trafficking prevention and service provision for survivors. Prior to consulting, she was the Director of Research and Advocacy with the Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Center where she oversaw research on the harms of sex work criminalization, including police violence, as well as local, state, and federal policy advocacy to decriminalize and destigmatize sex work. She has consulted and worked with the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, International Organizational for Migration, US Department of State, US Department of Labor, ICF International, Woodhull Freedom Foundation, Mahidol University’s Institute of Human Rights and Peace Studies, Decriminalize Sex Work, Freedom Network USA, Protection International, Morrison Child and Family Service, Minority Rights Group International, and the Global Network of Sex Work Projects.
Francesca Maviglia (she/her) is a public health professional with a focus on political and legal determinants on health, particularly as it pertains to harm reduction and sex workers’ rights and health. She is currently a consultant on a project to challenge carceral feminist approaches to domestic violence in Palestine/Israel and develop labor-based approaches to violence prevention among Palestinian women citizens of Israel. Priorly, she has been involved in research, advocacy, and project management for several projects related to the health and rights of sex workers; drug policy and harm reduction; and housing justice, as a Postgraduate Research Associate at the Yale School of Medicine and as a Fellow with the Global Health Justice Partnership, an initiative based at the Yale Law School and Yale School of Public Health that conducts policy research and advocacy on issues at the intersection of law, health, and human rights. From Fall 2021 to Spring 2023, she was additionally a research and policy consultant with the Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Center, where she contributed to projects related on the criminalization of the sex trades in New York City; sex worker-led accountability practices to respond to police violence against sex workers; and prosecutorial policy regarding the non-prosecution of sex work-related charges.
