- “Sometimes the hardest thing to say is we got this wrong.” Mark Dobson, the councillor who first proposed a legal red light zone in Leeds, UK, has now said that it was a mistake. A prostituted woman named Laura tells The Times that “the authorities’ blind eye has expanded the market, increasing the number of workers and driving down prices: Laura charges £20 for oral sex, £40 to £50 for full sex, earning about £60 to £70 a night, £10 of which goes on food, and the rest on heroin and crack.”
- The Tennessee Supreme Court has ruled that Cyntoia Brown, who was trafficked into prostitution for sex as a minor, must serve at least 51 years in prison after being convicted of killing a 43-year-old sex buyer when she was 16. Brown maintains that she feared he was going to kill her.
- Canada’s extremely broad defamation laws put women who make accusations of sexual misconduct — and media outlets that report on them — at risk of being targeted with expensive civil lawsuits.
- Facing high rates of poverty, illiteracy, and routine family violence and coercion, Afghanistan continues to rank as the worst country in the world for women.