Today there is a hearing in DC about the possibility of...

Today there is a hearing in DC about the possibility of implementation of a city-wide Prostitution Free Zone. Follow @amyloudermilk and @djbent for live tweets.

The film above was produced by my friend PJ Starr, in collaboration with sex workers in DC.

Here's some more background info:

From DCist post in December:

Under current D.C. law, prostitution is illegal. Simple enough, right? Well, no.

Prostitution still happens, so, in 2006, the D.C. Council gave the Metropolitan Police Department the power to designate "prostitution-free zones," areas in which any two people gathering for allegedly engaging in prostitution-related activities can be asked to disperse and, if they don't, face arrest. The zones can be designated for up to 240 hours, or 10 days. The most recent zone was designated for an area near 59th Street and Eastern Avenue NE from October 27-31; another zone was famously declared during President Obama's inauguration.

Now the one member of the Council is seeking to extend that policy: on Tuesday, Councilmember Yvette Alexander (D-Ward 7) introduced legislation which would allow police to add a new category of prostitution free zone: permanent. Alexander told DCist that the change has come in response to what she called an "epidemic" of prostitution in her ward, primarily along Eastern Avenue and Minnesota Avenue.

From a post on RH Reality Check in January 2010:

Prostitution Free Zone laws, like most punitive approaches to commercial sex work, do further damage by disproportionately affecting the health and safety of the District's most vulnerable sex workers - those who work on the street. Sex workers are already marginalized and discriminated against by both the larger community and the police due to their race, ethnicity, and/or gender. The District of Columbia currently has an HIV AND AIDS rate of epidemic proportions, affecting people of color and sexual minorities at shockingly disproportionate rates. The Prostitution Free Zones law increases the difficulty of survival and decreases the safety of street based sex workers by pushing sex workers into darker and more isolated areas where they feel unsafe and more vulnerable to harassment, assault, and robbery.