The Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Center is a GAATW member in the United States. In November 2022, Borislav Gerasimov from the GAATW Secretariat conducted this interview with Mariah Grant, Research and Advocacy Director, to learn more about the organisation’s history, current programmes, challenges and priorities.

Borislav Gerasimov: Hi Mariah, thanks for taking the time for this interview. Can you begin by telling us when the Sex Workers Project was founded and why?

Mariah Grant: We were founded in December 2001 and in this past year, we’ve been celebrating our twentieth anniversary. SWP was started originally in New York City as part of the Urban Justice Center (UJC), which is a non-profit law firm. It has several projects and SWP is one of them. We’re quite autonomous in UJC and function as our own group.

During COVID, we expanded as a national organisation and now we have staff in Washington, DC, New Orleans, Louisiana, and New York City. Our legal service team provides immigration services to people with experience in the sex trade, which includes people who’ve done sex work by choice or circumstance, and people who have experienced trafficking in the sex trade. We have unique expertise, working with people through the immigration system in the US which has very discriminatory laws for people who have done sex work. Our team is very adept at manoeuvring these laws. Then, we have a team that works on public communications, they work with a consultant from the Red Canary Song, a collective of Asian and migrant sex workers, to develop our communications and education work, including a film series related to experiences within the sex trade, changing perceptions, and destigmatising sex work.

I oversee our research and policy advocacy work. Since I’m based in Washington DC, I focus a lot on federal policy advocacy. While we engage with international advocacy mechanisms, we also work on domestic policy and issues affecting sex workers within the US. I work on policy mostly related to issues addressed at the federal level. These are not directly related to the criminalisation of sex work but about trafficking laws that impact people in the sex trades. There are also federal laws on financial services and banking, on digital spaces and the internet, all of which affect sex workers. We also have a legal fellow in New York, who works on state-level and local policy in these areas. We partner with other groups here in DC and in New Orleans to address policy advocacy issues there. And if there’s policy advocacy work happening in other states, we’re always happy to lend support to local groups by sending letters or drafting language that they can use in their campaigns there, or whatever else they ask us to do.

And then, as I mentioned, I also oversee our research work. At the moment, that includes a project with the Global Health Justice Partnership at Yale University where we are working on research related to non-prosecution policies with district attorneys. These are the prosecuting attorneys at the county level who are in charge of deciding whether or not to go forward with prosecution charges for anyone arrested by the police, and so they hold a lot of power. We are working on a toolkit for sex workers and advocates to influence these district attorneys to not prosecute for sex work-related charges. We are also working on research related to police violence against sex workers, which is a huge issue in the US. That’s a toolkit to outline the different advocacy mechanisms that someone could take to seek accountability from law enforcement who commit acts of violence against sex workers.

Molly Cohen, SWP Senior Supervising Attorney, with LGBTQ+ rights advocates from Turkey at the United Nations in New York City as part of the US State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program in October 2022.

BG: Happy twentieth anniversary! What are some of the challenges that people involved in sex work in the US face and how does SWP address these challenges?

MG: Most sex work in the US is criminalised at the state level. Your rights and what you can do as a sex worker vary by state and sector but in general in every state, except in some rural areas in Nevada, sex work is criminalised. This legal environment makes life very challenging for people who do full-service sex work. The police have a lot of power to harass and interfere in the lives of sex workers. They're a major source of harm for sex workers, and can be quite violent – they carry guns and are known for shooting people in the course of their duties. They do this in a highly discriminatory manner, specifically targeting Black people but also migrants, trans people… Black trans women are especially targeted for arrests for sex work. There are laws against loitering for the purposes of prostitution in many parts of the country, which police tend to use to harass and arrest people they profile as sex workers. These loitering laws are frequently used to target trans women of colour. And in New York, “loitering for the purpose of prostitution” was used to disproportionately arrest Black trans women. We had a campaign a few years ago to repeal that law, which was dubbed “the walking while trans ban”. Trans women were targeted for basically being out in public even if there was no indication that they were doing sex work. The police were profiling them. So we and other groups campaigned against it and the law was repealed in New York. In California, a coalition of sex worker organisations and the American Civil Liberties Union helped repeal a similar law. So that is one big issue that sex workers face – dealing with law enforcement.

On the other hand, because of stigma and criminalisation – and these two things are connected and reinforce each other – we see that even people who work within completely legal and regulated sectors of the sex trades face a lot of discrimination and rights violations. Along with working on issues affecting workers in the criminalised sector we also focus on the regulated sectors, which would be working in strip clubs, porn, live camming, developing adult content, and so on. These are perfectly legal in the US but there is still stigma. There are people doing sex work part-time while working in a different field, like in teaching or emergency response, and there have been cases where people lost these jobs because they’re also doing online sex work. So, this kind of stigma causes huge harm and it is a big part of what we are trying to change with our advocacy and education.

BG: I know that in the US the police arrest sex workers, supposedly for their own good, including those who may be victims of trafficking. It is outrageous how they use it as a justification for arresting and detaining people.

MG: Yes, it happens a lot. It’s extremely harmful and has to stop. We see it especially, but not only, with Asian massage businesses where law enforcement raids them on suspicion of trafficking women. And what we hear from people who’ve been arrested in these raids – both people who have been trafficked and those who haven’t – is that it’s extremely traumatising, that the arrest creates a lot of fear because it can turn into an actual conviction, which can be devastating to a person’s life. We work a lot on this in New York and the people who work in these businesses are migrants from mostly East Asian countries with various immigration statuses. And an arrest can be devastating to their efforts to work through immigration relief. Our legal team has seen time and again how people are sent back even if they face persecution in their home countries. Law enforcement agencies say that if their power to arrest people is removed, they wouldn’t be able to investigate trafficking cases. But the legislation we advocate for, decriminalisation of sex work, would not change the laws related to trafficking; they would still be able to investigate cases of trafficking, they just wouldn’t be able to arrest people who are doing consensual adult sex work. There needs to be a lot more training of law enforcement agencies to change their behaviour when they engage in anti-trafficking work. A really disturbing trend is arresting children (under 18), which is a result of normalisation of carceral approaches within anti-trafficking interventions. A certain form of feminism which is vocal in anti-trafficking efforts has been very focused on arrests and a complete abolition of the sex trade. They’ve placed law enforcement as a central figure in that effort and they promote these raid operations and the inclusion of law enforcement in these arrests - all of which has been very damaging.

BG: Do they also engage in entrapment where they pretend to be clients in order to arrest sex workers?

MG: Yes, it varies from place to place but we definitely see it throughout the US. In New York, we hear a lot from our clients, especially from trans Latina women in Queens, that plain-clothes police officers pretend to be clients and harass sex workers.

From left to right, Mariah Grant, RJ Thompson-Rodriguez, SWP         Managing Director, Clement Lee, SWP Associate Director of                Immigration Legal Services, and Zola Z. Bruce, SWP Director of        Communications, presented at Columbia University in                        November 2022. Former SWP Intern, Lance Michael Nelson              organized the panel on sex work and human rights as part of            Columbia University’s Students for Human Rights group

BG: What are some successes of SWP that you’re proud of?

MG: We were instrumental in getting a law passed in New York, around a decade ago, that allowed people to seek record relief, i.e. to have their criminal record cleared, if they were arrested and convicted on sex work-related charges in the course of being trafficked. And last year, in coalition with several other organisations in New York State, we advocated for an update of this law, and it was passed, which allows for people to seek relief if they are convicted of any crime directly related to their trafficking. This is not only related to sex work charges but most crimes that they might have been forced to commit while they were trafficked.

During the last two legislative sessions in New York, we’ve had a full decriminalisation bill introduced – the Stop Violence in the Sex Trades Act. So there’s a potential for New York State to become the first state to decriminalise sex work.

At the federal level, we worked with other groups, specifically Reframe Health and Justice, to introduce a bill in Congress that would study the impact of two laws, SESTA (Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act) and FOSTA (Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act). It would look at what happens when an entire group of people are kicked off of online sites and would require the Department of Health and Human Services to study the health and safety and wellbeing impact of SESTA/FOSTA on people engaged in sex work and on people experiencing trafficking. It would also require the Department of Justice to submit a report on the impact of SESTA/FOSTA on trafficking investigations and prosecutions. This session of Congress is almost over but we’ll work to reintroduce this bill in the next one, maybe in March 2023 for International Sex Workers Rights Day.

So these are some of the advocacy wins. Another recent success is the launch of our documentary series. It’s overseen by Zola, our Communications Director. They worked really hard on this amazing film series. The first one was launched last year and the second one just premiered at the Berlin Porn Film Festival. It’s a mini docuseries, each film is about twenty minutes long and looks at different issues that impact sex workers and tries to change perceptions on the sex trade, and the people who do sex work. The first film was called Sex(ual) Healing and looked at sex work as a healing profession – both for workers and for clients – and profiled several sex workers and clients who speak about their experiences. This second one is called Family Matters (see the trailer) and it looks at sex workers in their family unit – whether that’s their biological family or chosen family – at their relationship with parents, siblings, uncles, etc. and how doing sex work impacts their family lives. Because there’s a lot of discrimination against people who do sex work to support their family, stigma that can be detrimental to both sex workers and their families and children.

BG: I’ll be sure to check them out. You talked a lot about the immigration system in the US and how it’s affecting migrant sex workers and your work providing immigration relief services. Has this work become easier with the current administration?

MG: Yes, our legal team are incredible advocates working on immigration relief for our clients. It sounds like things have improved with the new administration. There were certain avenues for immigration relief that were closed off during the Trump administration. There are many discriminatory laws related to immigration that Biden administration hasn’t changed. But for example, T-visa (the visa available to victims of trafficking) applications are processed much faster now and in general, our clients’ cases are being moved at a more rapid pace, which is critical. At the same time, there are still so many harmful things in our immigration system. A very disturbing case happened with one of the clients of our lawyers. They got immigration relief that didn’t allow them to travel back to their home country and then return to the US safely and easily. But when they had a family member back home who was unwell, they made the difficult decision to return to their home country. When they tried to return to the US after that, they faced many barriers and eventually were forced to return to their home country. They were an outspoken trans rights advocate both in New York and in their home country. Recently, they were murdered in their home country. It really shook the community they were part of in New York and in their home country. Someone who had clearly demonstrated that there was a potential risk in their home country was still not given access to safe migration to the US.

BG: I’m so sorry to hear that. Borders kill! But let's move on to my last question: how do you learn from the people you support and incorporate their experiences in your programmes and your advocacy?

MG: Many members of our staff are current or former sex workers, and their experience is reflected in the work of the organisation. SWP thoughtfully and intentionally engages across our different disciplines and takes every opportunity to inform our policy advocacy and research with the lived experiences of our clients and the communities they are part of. I also work closely with our legal team to make sure that our clients’ experiences are reflected in our policy advocacy and our research priorities. I’ll give you some examples. At the moment, the Federal Department of Justice (DOJ) is investigating the New York Police Department and specifically their Special Victims Division (SVD). They’re under investigation for potential patterns of gender-biased policing. I had heard about this investigation and met with some of the investigators from the DoJ, and we’ve been working on a campaign to dismantle the Vice Unit who are in charge of investigating sex work and had previously investigated trafficking. Before and after my meeting with DoJ, I was in communication with our legal team to let them know about the investigation and to know if they’ve heard about any of our clients’ experiences with the SVD. We learnt about one client who had, and we discussed with them if they would be comfortable providing a statement to the investigation about their experience. That’s one way – I hear about something that’s happening and I talk to the legal to team to find out if any of our clients have experience related to it, so I can include that in my advocacy.

SWP Policy Advocacy, Research, and Legal staff meet with AIDS Center of Queens County (ACQC) staff and members of an ACQC support group, including some current and former SWP clients, in November 2021.

But I also check in regularly with our legal team to ask what issues our clients are facing or experiencing, so that I can connect that to my policy advocacy work. For example, we have been working on this campaign regarding NYPD Vice Unit, precisely because we’ve been hearing from the trans Latina community in Queens that this police unit is particularly violent and discriminatory.

We also make sure we compensate community members who participate in our policy advocacy or research project for their time and expertise.

BG: I don’t have any more questions. Is there anything you’d like to add?

MG: I just want to say for people who don’t know much about SWP that they can find more information on our website, our Facebook, Instagram page and Twitter, but they can also reach out directly to us. We are always looking for opportunities to broaden our scope. We are focussed on US policy but there’s plenty of opportunities to work together internationally because there are many issues in other countries that are relevant to the US context. For example, SESTA/FOSTA affects sex workers all over the world, or our work on financial discrimination since US financial services have such a wide reach and implications around the world. So I would like to welcome members of GAATW from other countries to reach out to us if they would like to do collaborative work.