Sex workers are staging an opera that confronts how you view them

In a dressing room littered with towering high heels and black cutout underwear, an actor is getting ready for the evening's performance, but there's a big difference between this show and productions in London's West End  — the actor also happens to be a sex worker.




Night after night, a group of sex workers and their friends gather on stage in a fringe theatre in north London, baring their bodies and souls before an audience. Money is changing hands, but this time, people are paying to hear sex workers' stories told through the medium of opera.

The Sex Workers' Opera isn't designed to make the audience feel sorry for sex workers, but rather to challenge people's perceptions of those who do sex work and acknowledge that while some sex workers are coerced, others have made a choice. '

The position of the apostrophe in the opera's title is key, according to directors Siobhan Knox and Alex Etchart; it's "an opera that belongs to sex workers." Who is and isn't a sex worker in the production is something Knox and Etchart have worked hard to safeguard to ensure people can be involved without compromising their safety.

Mashable spoke with one of the actors — a sex worker who asked not to be publicly identified. "For me, the primary value in the play is in telling sex workers' stories, which the general public, and even the sex worker community, are going to be unaware of," says the actor.

The stories told during the performance don't necessarily belong to the cast you see on stage. As part of the production's creative process, Knox and Etchart did a callout asking for people to send in their experiences of sex work; be they good, bad or mundane. They amassed 63 stories from sex workers in 17 different countries; something which proved essential in ensuring the production doesn't focus on just one representation of sex work, or sex workers.

The creators of Sex Workers' Opera describe it as a social project, the members of which are "part of a marginalised community," comprising people who identify as female, male, genderqueer and trans; people of diverse sexualities; differently abled people; migrants; and people of many different nationalities.

Read more here.

Militants threaten ‘bloody’ attacks on oil firms, military

The Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) on Tuesday threatened to begin bloody attacks against oil companies, their personnel and the Nigerian military, The Nation reports. The militant group in a statement signed by its Spokesperson, ‘Brig.Gen’ Murdock Agbinibo, also taunted the wanted ex-militant leader, Government Ekpumpolo aka Tompolo over the military siege in his Gbaramatu community in Delta State.




Murdock claimed that instead of going after the avengers, the military was looking for soft targets through its siege in Gbaramatu. He added that the group intelligence revealed that Capt. Okunbor Idahosa, Brigadier Commander, Benin, Maj. Farouk Yahaya and the Officer Commanding, Army Gunboat, JTF, Major M.B. Yahaya in collaboration with Ayiri Emami, were behind the travails in Gbaramatu.

Murdock said: “It is not our business what goes on in Gbaramatu Kingdom but our concern is the innocent children, women and aged people whom the Nigerian military has chased away from their homes and now taking refuge in the forest. We warned you before hand that the Nigerian Government can never be trusted.

“The questions are – why the innocent people of Gbaramatu? Why the innocent pregnant women? Why making the innocent people of Gbaramatu suffer? This act of the Nigerian Army to us is the greatest act of cowardice. This fight we believe is against the avengers and not the innocent villagers of Gbaramatu Kingdom.

“Where is the international community and the United Nations when all these unspeakable injustice, is served the people of Gbaramatu Kingdom by the very unprofessional Nigerian Military? Are they not aware of the raping of young girls, looting and destruction of properties by the Nigeria military in Gbaranmatu kingdom?

“As for you Tompolo, what do you have to say about the horrible treatment meted on your people by Nigerian Military?  We respect the love you have for your people the Niger Delta. What is really happening to you when the likes of Mr. Ayiri, Capt. Hosa and Co are unleashing this kind of atrocities on your people? Has the wealth you acquire made you soft that you don’t know what to do anymore?”

IPOB members will be arraigned for murder – Arase

Inspector General of Police: Solomon Arase

The Inspector-General of Police, Solomon Arase, has directed that members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) who were arrested in connection with the killing of three policemen on Monday be charged for murder. He also ordered the Assistant Inspectors General of Police (AIG) and the Commissioners of Police in the affected areas to immediately disarm members of the group, The Nation reports.




Arase while condemning the killing by IPOB members also directed that any member found in possession of firearm be arrested and brought to justice. The Force Spokesperson, Olabisi Kolawole, stated these in a statement issued in Abuja on Tuesday.

The statement said: “IGP Arase also directed the arrest of any member of the group found in possession of firearm and bring him or her to deserved justice, while all IPOB activists arrested in connection with the killing of the policemen should be charged to court for murder.”