(CBN) – The Washington, DC City Council will consider legislation to fully decriminalize the sex trade in the District of Columbia. A public hearing on the proposed bill is scheduled for Oct. 17. The Community Safety and Health Amendment Act of 2019 was introduced by DC council member David Grosso, an independent, on June 4. The bill, if passed, would decriminalize sex work in the nation’s capital. According to ABC News, the measure would remove all criminal penalties for commercial sexual exchanges, such as prostitution, for those 18 years and older.
A letter signed by more than 200 people, many of them former sex workers, sent an opposition letter to the city council on Oct. 2, publicly criticizing the proposed law. Such a law would open the door for sex trafficking, brothels, pimping, and violence against women, the letter’s author Rev. Dr. Marian Hatcher pointed out. “We, the undersigned survivors of the sex trade, have collectively experienced hundreds of years of abuse, violence, objectification, and dehumanization in the sex trade. We know first-hand that prostitution is not a victimless crime and that most individuals involved in the sex trade are not there voluntarily and have experienced long term harm as a result of being bought and sold. READ MORE
