December 17th, the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, began in 2003 as a memorial to honor the victims of the Green River Killer in Seattle, Washington. Dr. Annie Sprinkle, along with the Sex Workers Outreach Project USA (SWOP), initiated the observance to provide a space for mourning, reflection, and advocacy.

The Green River Killer, Gary Ridgway, was convicted of murdering at least 49 women, many of whom were sex workers. His case highlighted the vulnerabilities sex workers face and the systemic indifference often shown toward their safety. The memorial sparked a broader movement to bring attention to the violence and discrimination endured by sex workers and to advocate for their rights and protections worldwide.

Since its inception, December 17th has grown into a global day of action, uniting sex workers and allies to honor those lost to violence, challenge stigma, and demand systemic change to ensure safety and equality.

REGISTER HERE

As we prepare for this year’s December 17th memorial, we invite you to help us honor and remember the lives of sex workers lost in 2024. If you know of a sex worker who has passed away this year, whether due to violence, systemic neglect, or other circumstances, please share their name with us so we can include them in our ceremony. By remembering their names and stories, we acknowledge their humanity and stand in solidarity with those working to end violence and stigma against sex workers. Submissions can be sent here and you’re welcome to share as much or as little detail as you feel comfortable. Let’s ensure that no one is forgotten.

Over the past months, Fairbanks and Anchorage clients of sex workers have reported extortion attempts by two bad actors pretending to be Fairbanks and Anchorage Police Department Detectives. The impersonators appear to call from a spoofed number associated with the police departments, but when one client called FPD to verify they were told that FPD had no detectives by those names and that the callers were impersonating police. 

The Community United for Safety and Protection (CUSP) is concerned that these recent crimes targeting clients of sex workers are a result of hostile rhetoric about clients during the 2023 legislative session, which created an environment where our clients are prime targets. In 2016 SB91 gave immunity from prostitution charges for sex workers and sex trafficking survivors reporting heinous crimes, but there is no such protections for clients reporting crimes like extortion or sex trafficking. Extortion and impersonating police officers are both felonies under Alaska state law. 

The extortion attempts seem to be associated with fake escort ads. Because the criminalization of prostitution has forced sex work into the underground, it is important for clients and sex workers to vet each other for safety and to avoid bad actors. 

The Community United for Safety and Protection is a group of current and former sex workers and sex trafficking survivors working towards safety and protection for everyone in Alaska’s sex industries.

People In Alaska’s Sex Trade: Their Lived Experiences and Policy Recommendations

Policy For People In Alaska’s Sex Trade: 2021

Expanding Protections (The Bad Apple Bill)

Sex trafficking charges, 2013 to present

SCIU: 2015 funding

SCIU: 2015 purpose and status

On January 24th the Department of Public Safety announced that it’s Special Crimes Investigative Unit (SCIU) had posed as sex workers and conducted prostitution stings on 22 men (https://dailydispatch.dps.alaska.gov/Home/DisplayIncident?incidentNumber=AK21146350).

The SCIU has recently been reinstated after a hiatus. Previously the SCIU operated between 2014 and at least 2017, with the it’s “main purpose to locate and rescue juvenile victims that [sic] are being forced to work as prostitutes in the commercial sexual exploitation of children.” During its years of operation, the SCIU, which consisted of one Sergeant, two Investigators, and a Technician, did not find anyone to charge with sex trafficking of a minor. They refused to take reports from sex workers (https://www.vice.com/en/article/kwpkqm/alaska-declares-open-season-on-sex-workers-922) and when a woman tried to report that she was being sex trafficked, they followed up with her months later by conducting a prostitution sting, during which the Investigator can be heard moaning and saying, “Oh baby I’ve never had that before! Can you feel my heartbeat?”

Colonel Bryan Barlow is quoted representing that arresting clients of sex workers will address sex trafficking, and the complaints make similar claims with no documentation.

In fact, clients of sex workers are our first responders in the war on sex trafficking, and often the only people that genuine sex trafficking victims have unsupervised contact with. The 2019 arrest of Alex Asino for sex trafficking of a minor was due to a report made, in part, by a sex work client he had confided in. Mr. Asino was, at the time, the only person to be charged in Alaska with sex trafficking an actual, non-ficticious minor in the commercial sex industry in a decade.

The arrests and public shaming of clients by naming them before they’ve even been charged alienates those who are most likely to encounter sex trafficking victims from police. Without access to equal protection, sex workers and our clients are left to attempt to help victims on our own, with no training or resources. This is in direct opposition to public safety.

“I’ve had customers call me for help after helping a woman get away from a trafficker,” said Terra Burns, “and it’s just a travesty that neither the customer nor the victim felt safe to call the police.” Senate Bill 91, which established immunity for sex workers and sex trafficking survivors reporting heinous crimes, did not include immunity for clients.

The SCIU’s 2014 personnel budget was $578,239. Alaska’s public resources are so limited that one must wonder which budget is being cut to fund police arresting people who are attempting to engage in consensual, private, adult sexual activities.

The Community United for Safety and Protection is a group of current and former sex workers, sex trafficking survivors, and our allies, advocating for safety and protection for everyone in Alaska’s sex industries.

Today, Troy Lyle Smith was once again released from jail and is free to again prey on vulnerable Alaskans. Mr. Smith is known to our community to be a violent, sadistic pimp who has targeted minors. We believe him to be a serious and ongoing danger to vulnerable Alaskan women and young people.

CUSP has never done a community safety alert like this before. In this case we believe it to be warranted because of the danger to minors and the justice system’s repeated failure to hold Mr. Smith accountable and protect our community. Our primary concern is for the safety of his victims and potential victims, and we are also concerned for the integrity of any potential criminal investigation(s). For those reasons, we will not be answering questions or providing any additional information.

CUSP is a group of current and former Alaskan sex workers, sex trafficking survivors, and allies working towards safety and protection for everyone in Alaska’s sex trades.

Here are some pictures of Troy Lyle Smith:

How to apply for Unemployment Insurance for self employed Alaskans who lost their income due to the pandemic:

1. These instructions were current at the end of April. There may be changes in the coming weeks.

2. You’re going to create or log into your myAlaska (my.alaska.gov) and file a regular uninsurance claim. You will eventually get a denial, ignore this.

3. Every week you *must* update your income from the week before in the regular unemployment system.

4. After you apply for regular uninsurance, go into the Unemployment part of your myAlaska and click File for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance. You can not do this until you do the regular application.

5. You will need some sort of proof of income. If you don’t get 1099s, you can use your schedule C income from your 2019 taxes. If you haven’t done your 2019 taxes yet you can still do them for free online through h&r block.

6. When the application is complete, email your proof of income. Try to include your unemployment ID number, which starts with part of your social security number. The email addresses are: dol.pua@alaska.gov and dol.uis@alaska.gov.

Here are some helpful screenshots:

House Bill 52, the House companion bill to Senate Bill 35, closes the “loophole” that allowed strangling someone unconscious and ejaculating on them not sexual assault, eliminates marriage as a defense against sexual assault charges, and generally brings Alaska’s sexual crimes statutes a little bit out of the dark ages. There’s one thing that belongs in HB52/SB35 that hasn’t yet been added: making it illegal for police to have sexual contact or sexual penetration during an investigation. The Anchorage Police Department has actively defended this practice, saying that prostitution stings are the primary way they identify sex trafficking victims. In the rape capital of the US, it is unacceptable for police to use fraudulent means to gain consent for sexual activities with people they believe to be (underage?) sex trafficking victims.

At 1:30 on Friday, March 15th
call 1-844-586-9085

You will be asked for your name and city and then placed in the que to testify.

When it’s your turn:

1. Introduce yourself with your name, city, and say that you’re calling to ask legislators to amend HB 52 to make it 3rd and 4th degree sexual assault for police to sexually contact or penetrate a people during active criminal investigation.

2. Explain why.

3. Thank them for their hard work on this bill.

4. Close your testimony by repeating that you’re asking them to amend HB 52 to make it 3rd and 4th degree sexual assault for police to sexually contact or penetrate people during active criminal investigations.

For example: “Hi, my name is Susie Smith and I’m calling from Kenai to ask you to amend HB 52 to make it 3rd and 4th degree sexual assault for police to sexually contact or penetrate people during active criminal investigations. This behavior is completely unacceptable in our ongoing sexual assault epidemic. It damages the integrity of the badge and makes sexual assault and sex trafficking victims less likely to look to police for help and justice. We are relying on you to draw this clear line in the sand and clarify that this is criminal behavior and it’s unacceptable. Thank you for all of your hard work on this bill and to address Alaska’s sexual assault epidemic. Please amend HB 52 to make it sexual assault for police to sexually contact or penetrate people during active criminal investigations.”

House Bill 52: http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/31?Root=hb++52

Everything about police sexual contact and penetration during criminal investigations: https://sextraffickingalaska.com/press-kit-for-hb-112sb-73

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 11, 2019

Laws we’ve helped change, laws we want changed:

PolicyForPeopleInAlaskasSexTrade2019

Chief Bryce Johnson testified before the Senate State Affairs committee that he would fire and decertify police officers who had sexual contact during an investigation. When we emailed him copies of the charging documents two posts down, he did not respond and the officers were not fired or decertified.

The short version:

The longer version: