Where are we? EMERJ in the media--week of August 13, 2010

By Lisa Russ

Through ACRJ’s work with EMERJ, we have the great fortune of working with an inspirational crew of organizations working on a wide range of issues. That means in any one week, we might be talking about access to birth control for Latinas, the importance of great sex ed, or the campaign that Rebecca Project for Human Rights is leading to get Craigslist to remove their adult services ads. And this was a fabulous week for us and our partners, because all of these issues had great news coverage.

National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health and California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, both EMERJ Strategy Team members, along with our close ally COLOR (Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights) organized Latina Week for Reproductive Justice. RH Reality Check, Huffington Post, and many other sites ran amazing pieces—see Latina Institute's FB Page for a great wrap up! ColorLines wrote a really nice piece about the week. Huge congratulations to all involved.

The Rebecca Project for Human Rights has done high profile work on sex trafficking, with favorable coverage in the New York Times, CNN, ABC, CBS and more. This CNN piece was powerful. Following the media pressure, Craigslist finally offered a response. The campaign continues.

Lastly, the piece first posted here about Guns and Genitals got lots of play in the blogosphere—the comments on Alternet were really educational. Seems our allies REALLY liked the metaphor, and the main question we asked: if the Right supports explicit education about guns, and believes that knowledge keeps kids safer, why are they so worried about good sex ed? Not surprisingly, some people on the Right were really irked by the metaphor, and used the comments section to jump up and down and insist on all the important differences between them.

I spent last weekend watching the comments come in, and thinking, why is the Right so afraid of sex?

And here’s what’s coming: the Center for Young Women’s Development, another EMERJ Strategy Team member, is part of the Women’s Policy Institute and is working with a wonderful group of organizations to pass a bill—AB1900—that would prevent incarcerated women from being held in shackles at any time in their pregnancy.

Yup, seems like a no-brainer that you wouldn’t lock a pregnant woman’s feet together, or attach a shackle to her stomach, but this happens every day here in California. The bill has bi-partisan support, and is poised to pass out of the senate within the next two weeks. In an effort to ensure the Governor’s signature, we are working with CYWD and their partners to write a series of op-eds and blog posts in support of the bill. Keep your eyes open for more!