HIPS Executive Director Cyndee Clay interview in Mother Jones

As MoJo reporter Mac McClelland pointed out earlier this week, murdered prostitutes don’t often make the news these days. When they do, their deaths may be dismissed as more occupational hazard than crime. Here, for example, is how St. Francis County sheriff Bobby May explained the fatal shooting of trans prostitute 25-year-old Marcal Camero Tye: “You know, prostitutes, these types of folks—it’s a risk. Whenever you’re soliciting, things of this nature happen sometimes.” Translation: If Tye hadn’t been trans and/or a prostitute, the murder would have most likely never happened. But why is it so easy to deny a prostitute’s right to safety? Read More….

D.C. commemorates day to ‘end violence against sex workers’

By Amanda Hess

Between the years of 1982 and 2001, Washington state resident Gary Ridgway murdered dozens upon dozens of sex workers without detection. When Ridgway, known as the “The Green River Killer,” was ultimately convicted of 48 of the killings, he said that he chose sex workers as victims because “I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught.” Read more…

A Night On The Streets With HIPS:
Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive

by: Kristin Fisher

WASHINGTON, DC (WUSA) — It’s 11 p.m. on a Friday night and three volunteers are standing in an Adams Morgan storage room filled with 10,000 condoms.

“So we’ve got the hotline phone, the GPS, all the condoms?” asks HIPS volunteer, Julie Ost.

“We’ve got Magnums, Tuxedos, Trojans, and we’ve got lube,” says Mike Hardin, another HIPS volunteer.

It’s not your average checklist, but for these volunteers, it’s just another night at HIPS.

“HIPS stands for Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive, and we do holistic health education, empowerment and crisis services for people who are involved in both the formal sex industry and also people who do more informal sex trading,” said HIPS’ executive director, Cyndee Clay. Read More…