Can Condoms Be Compelling? Examining the State Interest in Confiscating Condoms from Suspected Sex Workers

Confiscating condoms from suspected sex workers leaves them at risk for HIV/AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases, and unwanted pregnancy. Yet, police officers in New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles collect condoms from sex workers to use against them as evidence of prostitution. Sometimes, the condoms are taken solely for the purpose of harassment. These actions put sex workers at risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases because they may continue to engage in sex work without using protection. In the landmark case of Griswold v. Connecticut, the U.S. Supreme Court established a fundamental privacy right in the use and access of contraceptive devices. While this right has been examined in the context of married couples and individuals, it has not been applied to the confiscation of condoms, a contraceptive device, by police officers. This Note shows that by taking condoms from suspected sex workers, police officers and departments are actually violating sex workers’ constitutional right to privacy, and, therefore, the practice must be abandoned

Can Condoms Be Compelling? Examining the State Interest in Confiscating Condoms from Suspected Sex Workers

Confiscating condoms from suspected sex workers leaves them at risk for HIV/AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases, and unwanted pregnancy. Yet, police officers in New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles collect condoms from sex workers to use against them as evidence of prostitution. Sometimes, the condoms are taken solely for the purpose of harassment. These actions put sex workers at risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases because they may continue to engage in sex work without using protection. In the landmark case of Griswold v. Connecticut, the U.S. Supreme Court established a fundamental privacy right in the use and access of contraceptive devices. While this right has been examined in the context of married couples and individuals, it has not been applied to the confiscation of condoms, a contraceptive device, by police officers. This Note shows that by taking condoms from suspected sex workers, police officers and departments are actually violating sex workers’ constitutional right to privacy, and, therefore, the practice must be abandoned

Transgressive Policing: Police Abuse of LGBTQ Communities of Color in Jackson Heights, Queens

After hearing numerous complaints of police abuse and misconduct against LGBTQ people in Jackson Heights, Queens, Make the Road New York (with help from the Anti-Violence Project) surveyed over 300 Queens residents about their experiences with police in the neighborhood. The survey findings and individual testimonies reveal a disturbing and systemic pattern of police harassment, violence, and intimidation directed at LGBTQ community members. The discriminatory use of "stop and frisks" in the policing of communities of color has been well documented -- the 110th and 115th precincts that are responsible for policing Jackson Heights had 90%-93% rates of stop and frisk activity towards people of color in 2011. Our survey reveals, however, that within this community LGBTQ people of color are particularly targeted

Gendered Impacts of Jackpile Uranium Mining on Laguna Pueblo

Building on a human rights framework and culturally-based notions of gender and earth, this article examines the Jackpile uranium mining experiences at Laguna Pueblo with a specific view toward impacts on women at the Pueblo. Community members have raised concerns about the environment and human health for years but employing the language of human rights is only very recent. Thirty years after closure of the mine, we have begun to use a human rights lens to analyze what has happened in our community. As an Indigenous woman, attorney, researcher, and scholar from Laguna, I contend that strategies for the community moving forward can be enhanced with human rights considerations, beginning with self-determination. I assert that any such conversation is incomplete without further consideration of the impacts of mining on Indigenous women and the feminine that exists in the lives of Laguna people

Toward a Vision of Sexual and Economic Justice

This report is based on the Virginia C. Gildersleeve Lecture and colloquium at Barnard College, with keynote speakers Josephine Ho and Naomi Klein. The participants in the colloquium have all made significant contributions to our understandings of global justice as activists, artists, and scholars who have explored the meanings of economic justice and sexual justice and have worked to build links between these spheres. The aim of the workshop was to articulate connections between struggles for sexual justice and economic justice and to develop new visions of how different people and movements might come together in their efforts to create justice. This report provides a synthesis of the short thought papers the participants developed in preparation for the colloquium and their conversations during the worksho

OBSERVATIONS ON THE INTERVENTION OF NATO IN KOSOVO

On the date of June 12th 1998, the North-Atlantic Council, gathered on the level of theministers of defense, required the evaluation of the possible additional measures which NATOcould take under the conditions of aggravation of the crisis from Kosovo. Consequently, onthe date of October 13th 1998, pursuant to the aggravation of the situation, the North-AtlanticCouncil authorized orders of activation for the air attacks. This measure is meant to supportthe diplomatic efforts in order to determine the regime of Miloşevici to withdraw the forcesfrom Kosovo, to cooperate for the end of violence and to facilitate the return of refugees totheir homes. However, in the last moment, pursuant to other diplomatic initiatives of theofficials of NATO and United States, the president Miloşevici accepted to collaborate, and theair attacks were cancelle

Learning lessons from the Ringaskiddy incineration story

The inclusion of incineration in waste management policies has proven very contentious in the Republic of Ireland. Even though the Cork Region Waste Management Strategy (1995-2020) acknowledged the role of incineration it came as no surprise that a planning application in May 2001 by Indaver Ireland for two incinerators in Cork Harbour was met with fierce local opposition. This paper tells the story which unfolded from May 2001 to May 2007 and examines the roles played by public bodies such as Cork County Council, An Bord Pleanála, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Health and Safety Authority. The Indaver case reveals flaws in the planning process and highlights the need for a more coordinated approach which fosters trust, credibility and legitimacy

The Grassroots Gatherings Networking a “movement of movements”

The worldwide “movement of movements”, which has brought together individual movements fighting neo-liberal capitalism and the “New World Order” since the late 1990s, is a strange kind of animal. Some might say it is less of a single species and more of a symbiotic relationship between several species, or even a mini-ecosystem making its way through the cracks of the world the powerful created. Metaphors aside, the “movement of movements” consists of several very different kinds of things. It includes a multitude of local campaigns, sometimes organised into large-scale movements around specific issues (opposition to “war on terror”, fighting resource extraction companies, workplace organising, struggles over women’s rights over their own bodies, movements of peasants and small farmers, intellectual property campaigns, opposition to racism… the list goes on and on). It includes the high-profile summit protests where the ritual meetings of our rulers are disrupted by direct action, delegitimated by mass demonstrations, critiqued in counter-summits and forced to hide in remote rural areas, dictatorships where protests are banned, behind massive walls or shielded by armies and surface-to-air missiles. And it includes the long, slow process of creating continuity between summit protests, networking between different movements and campaigns, building trust or at least cooperation between different political (and anti-political) traditions: learning to have confidence in ourselves across a whole society or a whole world. The Grassroots Gatherings, which have been running in Ireland for the last five years, fit in here: a space to meet each other and learn to work together; a place to dance, learn juggling, fall in love and practice for street fighting; a place to work on the issues that divide us and identify what we have in common; a very temporary autonomous zone where the phrase “another world is under construction” is more than just a neat slogan

The Grassroots Gatherings Networking a “movement of movements”

The worldwide “movement of movements”, which has brought together individual movements fighting neo-liberal capitalism and the “New World Order” since the late 1990s, is a strange kind of animal. Some might say it is less of a single species and more of a symbiotic relationship between several species, or even a mini-ecosystem making its way through the cracks of the world the powerful created. Metaphors aside, the “movement of movements” consists of several very different kinds of things. It includes a multitude of local campaigns, sometimes organised into large-scale movements around specific issues (opposition to “war on terror”, fighting resource extraction companies, workplace organising, struggles over women’s rights over their own bodies, movements of peasants and small farmers, intellectual property campaigns, opposition to racism… the list goes on and on). It includes the high-profile summit protests where the ritual meetings of our rulers are disrupted by direct action, delegitimated by mass demonstrations, critiqued in counter-summits and forced to hide in remote rural areas, dictatorships where protests are banned, behind massive walls or shielded by armies and surface-to-air missiles. And it includes the long, slow process of creating continuity between summit protests, networking between different movements and campaigns, building trust or at least cooperation between different political (and anti-political) traditions: learning to have confidence in ourselves across a whole society or a whole world. The Grassroots Gatherings, which have been running in Ireland for the last five years, fit in here: a space to meet each other and learn to work together; a place to dance, learn juggling, fall in love and practice for street fighting; a place to work on the issues that divide us and identify what we have in common; a very temporary autonomous zone where the phrase “another world is under construction” is more than just a neat slogan