Media Advisory the National Organization for Women:

HOUSTON, TEXAS – Immigrant families are being inhumanely locked away in horrific and immoral detention facilities in Texas and around the nation and women and girls are suffering the most. Those fleeing to the U.S. are often seeking refuge from sexual violence, assault and poverty and they deserve a fair and humane immigration process. If they are to be held in these prisons, at a minimum, we have an obligation to give them access to vital human needs such as reproductive health care, feminine hygiene products and mental health care, among other provisions. They must also be free from physical and sexual abuse, strip searches by guards, invasive personal and intimate questioning and tracking of their periods by U.S. government officials. 

The National Organization for Women (NOW), in collaboration with our coalition partners listed below, are hosting an “Unlock the Future” campaign rally in Houston. We are also issuing a Bill of Rights that will be delivered to top level government officials and launching an #UnlockTheFuture social media campaign. 

Rally details include: 

Who: Joining NOW President Toni Van Pelt and Vice President Christian F. Nunes will be: 

• U.S. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, Representative for the 18th District of Texas 
• U.S. Congressman Al Green, Representative for the 9th District of Texas 
• Ruby Powers, Immigration lawyer and human rights activist 
• Tia Oso, International Activist and Strategist for BLD PWR Initiative
• Amy Hinojosa, President and CEO, MANA, A National Latina Organization
• Frances “Poppy” Northcutt, Texas NOW president; first female engineer to work in NASA’s Mission Control 
• Andrea Fernandez, NOW-Austin chair; and
• Additional speakers to be announced.

What: “Unlock the Future” Rally to demand humane treatment for the women and girls held in immoral immigration prisons. 

Where: Hobby Family Pavilion at The Water Works – Buffalo Bayou Park 

105 Sabine St. 

Houston, TX 77007 

(Cross streets to Amphitheatre and lawn – Memorial and Sabine Parking lot across from the lawn – City Lot H) 

Facebook Livestream: https://www.facebook.com/NationalNOW/ 

When: Sunday, Nov. 17th, 2019; 1:00pm Central.  

More information: Visit our website, read our Bill of Rights or visit our Facebook Event Page.  

Media Contact: For more information, contact press@now.org  

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Unlock the Future Co-Sponsors: 

National Partners

African Communities Public Health Coalition

Association of World Citizens

Black Women’s Blueprint

BLD PWR

CASA

Catholics for Choice

Dolores Huerta Foundation

Families Belong Together

Feminist Majority Political Action Committee

First Church UCC

Go With The Flow

Immigrant Families Together

Justice for Migrant Women

Legal Momentum

MamásConPoder

MANA

MomsRising

PERIOD. The Menstrual Movement

Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES)

Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice

Sister Song

The Global Women’s Institute

The Peace Alliance

UltraViolet

UNITE HERE!

Local and State Partners

California Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo (AD-51)

Border Angels

California NOW

Field Team 6

Heart of LA Democratic Club

Hollywood NOW

LEAN IN San Diego

NOW San Gabriel Valley

Planned Parenthood Generation Action at UC San Diego

Riverside County NOW

San Diego Area NOW

California Senator Pro Temp Toni Atkins

Stonewall Democratic Club

The Strategic Insights Group

Women’s March California

Women’s March San Diego

Houston Youth Alliance (HYA)

Houston Area NOW

Texas NOW

Arizona Federation of Democratic Women (AFDW)

Arizona NOW

AZ Celebrates the 19th Amendment.

Central Phoenix • Inez Casiano NOW

Handmaids’ Resistance Phoenix

National Council of Jewish Women (NCJWAZ)

Women’s March Phoenix

Direct Support for Immigrants

S K Burt Law

The Outrage

Central New York NOW

Charlottesville NOW

Nevada NOW

Southwest Idaho NOW

Utah NOW

For a full list of Unlock the Future Partners, please see our Bill of Rights.  

Contact

Kimberly Hayes, Press Secretary, press@now.org, 202-570-4745

Statement from NOW President Toni Van Pelt:

Washington, D.C. – The Council of the District of Columbia-Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety- is considering a bill that would decriminalize those who buy and profit from the purchase of sex acts in the District.  If passed into law, this bill will provide blanket approval for the exploitative and violent activities of those who control and profit from prostituted persons. 

NOW has long supported removing criminal penalties that are applied to sexually exploited persons and expunging their criminal records.  They are the ones who are victimized and violated. It is the buyers of sexual acts: pimps, traffickers, hotel and motel proprietors and brothel owners who must be charged with crimes and put out of business.  

This bill, the misnamed “Community Safety and Health Amendment Act,” would entice and embolden a criminal industry and bring it into the family of social acceptance, while collecting substantial amounts in taxes.  But prostitution is a system of sexual exploitation, not “sex work.” 

Many prostituted persons, especially young women of color, and transwomen, are coerced into the sex trade due to difficult economic circumstances, homelessness, physical or sexual abuse, emotional trauma, coercion and abduction.  No one chooses it as a profession over other career paths. 

If this bill passes, Washington, D.C. would become the sex tourism capital of the world. We need protections and support for the people who are being prostituted—not subsidies for new industries based on the exploitation of women.   

NOW supports legislation that would decriminalize people who are prostituted and provide programs that would help them to successfully exit the trade and access counseling, health care, housing, training and employment. This approach is known as The Equality/Nordic Model, successfully adopted by Sweden, Iceland, Ireland, Northern Ireland and France.  

But the bill before the Council is based on inequality, profits and patriarchy. That is why the National Organization for Women is testifying against it today.     

Under this legislation, D.C. would see the overnight growth of a multi-billion–dollar sex tourist industry, complete with celebrity-branded chains of brothels and organized crime. This must not happen. Instead, we must decriminalize prostituted people and enforce prohibitions against the exploitative purchasers of sexual acts.  

Contact

Kimberly Hayes, Press Secretary, press@now.org, 202-570-4745

Statement from NOW President Toni Van Pelt, NOW Board Member Arizona Senator Victoria Steele, Seneca/Mingo/German ancestry, and Cheryl Wapes’a-Mayes Assiniboine/Sioux/Métis:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — NOW is proud to continue to support the growing national movement to observe Indigenous Peoples’ Day on Oct. 14 rather than Columbus Day.  It is wrong to honor a figure who colonized, enslaved and massacred thousands of Indigenous People in the Americas.  Instead, we must lift up the experiences of Native American women in the United States, who are still being mistreated, abused and ignored by the patriarchy and the power structure.

According to government statistics, Native American and Alaskan Native women are more than 2.5 times more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted than other women in the U.S.  The Amnesty International report Maze of Injustice includes statements from Indigenous women who say they didn’t know anyone in their community who has not experienced sexual violence. And survivors in at least 86 per cent of reported cases identified the perpetrators as non-Native men.

These devastating statistics have historical precedent. The colonization and Westernization of the Americas took a devastating toll on Indigenous peoples, who were raped by settlers and soldiers, including during the Long Walk and the Trail of Tears. These attacks were not random acts of individual violence—they were weapons of conquest and oppression that were planned to serve a terrible purpose.  That history is no basis for a holiday.

Today, we observe Indigenous People’s Day to remember the dark side of America’s origin story and to rededicate ourselves to addressing our ongoing obligation to heal these wounds and to work with tribal nations to promote the health and safety of Indigenous People.

Contact

Kimberly Hayes, Press Secretary, press@now.org, 202-570-4745