Worcester sex workers demand apology, reparations after DOJ police report

Following the Department of Justice’s explosive report that members of the Worcester Police Department (WPD) engaged in illegal sex acts with vulnerable women, particularly sex workers, a collective of sex worker advocates in Worcester is demanding the City Manager Eric D. Batista provide an apology and reparations for these women. Project Priceless, an organization dedicated to helping women escape sex work, filed two petitions focused on the women in the WPD report to be heard by the Worcester City Council at their Dec. 17 meeting. “The bottom line is that these women are surviving male violence from strangers, boyfriends, pimps on the daily,” said Sathi Patel, the coordinator for Project Priceless. “And the mere fact that it’s cops, people appointed to protect and serve, is just the icing on the cake in these women’s lives.” The first petition asks the council to request Batista issue a public acknowledgment, condemnation and apology for the sexual abuse of the prostituted women by the officers as detailed in the Department of Justice’s report, according to the city council’s agenda. The second petition asks the city council to request Batista allocate financial reparations and mental health support to the women harmed by the abuses...