Gary Ridgway, better known as the Green River Killer, is convicted of killing 48 women (though he claims the true number is closer to 90). Almost without exception Ridgway targeted prostitutes, believing he was helping law enforcement/society. Fortunately Ridgway was caught and incarcerated. On the fifth anniversary of his conviction, sex workers and their allies, led by the folks at Sex Workers Outreach Project, took to cities across the world demanding that their rights be respected by government.

The fact is that regardless of what people think about sex workers they are not going away anytime soon. And laws that ban their activities (as is the case in most of the U.S.) only places those engaged in sex work in the underground economy, which means it’s difficult if not impossible for them to have the same protections under the law as other workers have (and pay taxes, etc.), which makes them much more likely to be victimized.

Think about it this way: If a man assaults a colleague at an office job, chances are that he’ll be held accountable - fired, sued, maybe even do some jail time. But if that same man assaults a sex worker after work (or, as Ridgway did, kill sex workers), it’s  much less likely under the current system that the sex worker can have their grievances remedied. The injuries are the same. The only difference is that the government has deemed one profession “legal” and the other “illegal”

Those present at the rally relied heavily on the idea of self-ownership. That, so long as the actions they engage in are consensual, they should not be illegal and should be stigma-free (at least for those enforcing the law). Makes sense.

Bureaucrash was on the scene at the DC rally and we put together this short video: My Ass Is My Own!, which you can watch below or over at Bureaucrash Social.

For more, check out the Who Owns You? overview on Bureaucrash Social.

Update: This video was posted on the blog, BoundNotGagged.com.