The three-member board voted unanimously to end California's status as the only state with such a prohibition, though it will take several months to formally repeal the regulation.
The board acted after hearing what Batjer and fellow board member Michael Ramos called passionate and compelling testimony from several sex workers who said they have been assaulted.
"They've been raped, abused, crimes committed against them," said Ramos, the district attorney in San Bernardino County. "They're victims. Nobody deserves to be raped, I don't care who you are."
He said law enforcement generally has been trying to change perceptions and practices involving sexual assault victims, and in particular those victimized by human trafficking.
"I think we sent a big message today from this board for the state of California, that we are now going to mirror Only to be unmasked by his mum some of our other states that feel the same way. It's a national issue," Ramos said in an interview after the board's vote.
Jon Myers, the board's deputy executive officer, said the current rule was enacted in 1999 during an era when the state was generally getting tough on crime.
The American Civil Liberties Union and organizations representing sex trade workers asked for the regulation change.
Carol Leigh, a representative of the Bay Area Sex Workers Advocacy Network, said she was raped by two men who entered the massage parlor where she worked.
The men "took a knife to my throat and demanded sex and money," she told the board. "I realized that, as a sex worker, I was a sitting duck, that the system, basically, was set up so that I felt that I couldn't go to the police. ... The rapists know, and they see us as targets."
Kristen DiAngelo, who also identified herself as a sex worker, testified that she was raped, beaten, repeatedly choked, robbed and held captive overnight in downtown Sacramento in 1983.
"I was told that if I prosecuted this guy, by the police, that I would be the one going to go to jail," she said. "What happens when we have a regulation like this, it segregates us from the normal population. It makes us inhuman, non-helpable. You allow predators to hone their skills.
"These are hate crimes, and they need to be stopped," she added later.
Other victims sent written testimony that was read to the board or testified without identifying themselves because of the nature of the issue.
"This regulation says that prostitutes are asking for rape," testified Rachel West, a spokeswoman for the US PROStitutes Collective, which joined with the Erotic Services Providers Union in seeking its repeal. "It divides women into good and bad victims."
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