December 17th: International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers

Thank you to everyone participating in IDTEVASW. You are needed now more than ever!" Dr. Annie Sprinkle, Post Porn Eco Sexual Modernist

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on November 25, 2018November 25, 2018 By mgd777

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Goddard College adviser K. Lissard wrote, Melanie was always a pleasure to work with. She's articulate, intelligent, highly creative, and has a strong sense of justice and the individual's right to personal freedom. Her work moves between the transgressive & the transformative, always including compassion & heart." http://wikidelphia.org/wiki/Melanie_Dante

Melanie (Goodman) Dante is a published writer of commentary, creative nonfiction and poetry. For over fifteen years she has contributed to research, writing and discussion on the sex industry, with dedicated experience related to social justice and anti-violence efforts. Based in metro Philadelphia, in 2016 Ms. Dante launched Pennsylvania Survivors Workers Community Clearinghouse, https://sexualpolitixxx.blog/, an advocacy clearinghouse for legal, legislative and support-oriented discussions related to sex trafficking and sex work. The blog focuses on action alerts, legislative updates, and other critical material aiding to safety. Considered to be a voice adding essential human experience to metrics, Ms. Dante engages in educational and community conversations, along with actively maintaining independent observation and collective affiliation on issues pertaining to sex work and “street-based economics.”
A co-organizer of the Philadelphia vigil for December 17th, recognizing International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers (IDTEVASW), since 2016 she maintains that informational website and blog available to view at: https://dec17philly.com, and assists with national and international memorial efforts at: www.december17.org. She also maintained - until FOSTA/SESTA - behind the scenes online fundraising and advocacy for HIPS, a nonprofit dedicated to navigating sex workers to services in Washington, D.C.; and she maintains active referrals through Project Prosper of Florida, and SWOP Behind Bars. Ms. Dante’s Crowdrise efforts have included facilitation for sending sex workers to women's labor summer school programs, along with assisting in paying down student loans.

Experiencing homelessness as a teen and young adult, Ms. Dante worked as a migrant sex worker for over a decade before becoming a regionally focused independent worker. With thirty plus years of industry exposure, she is federally defined as sex trafficking survivor and identifies as an active consensual adult worker, educator, and ally. In this capacity, she maintains the blog, Instagram and peer supportive mentorship for www.swopbehindbars.org a nonprofit dedicated to issues surrounding incarceration and societal re/entry for sex workers.

Entering college as an adult, and completing in succession both undergrad and graduate studies, she easily understood the connections between domestic violence, homelessness, survival sex, sex work, sex trafficking, and the tolls such takes on mind, body and spirit. Passionately utilizing her love of reading and detailed writing she focused the final products of her B.A. and M.A. degree work to trafficking and women’s health.

Since 2013 Ms. Dante has testified on behalf of sex workers for the Alaska Senate Judiciary Committee, privately on legal cases conflating sex work and sex trafficking, for the California Public Safety Committee, New Hampshire Public Safety Committee, and has contributed to Amnesty International and PEPFAR reports.
When not involved in sex work v sex trafficking discussion, she enjoys nature, fitness, cinema, literature, and art-related pastimes, and is greatly enjoyed as a published poet, writer of commentary, and creative non-fiction short stories. She has had photography and collage art in group and solo exhibition and was always known for collecting vintage Americana crafts and fashion. Her advocacy revisiting acute sex work v sex trafficking issues the last five-plus years began full time and almost entirely volunteer evolving into case management. When not working she loves being outdoors on a trail or helping out in a community garden.

Posted InKeeping Lives Lost In Mind