Women's Network for Unity

Who do you work with?

We work with female, male and/or trans gender sex workers, families, entertainment workers, non governmental organization partners, friends, police, local authorities, policy makers, government sectors , nationally and internationally networks in order to mobilize sex worker’s movement to advocate from their rights and decent work.

How are sex workers involved in your organisation?

WNU mobilise community voices through strong community through outreach, training, forums and exchange, WNU support and engage with women sex workers and entertainment worker to become informed and organized. The 2 drop in centers have been built for the safe place of women to come, share and learn from each other and join the funny activities which adopted for relaxing place for women SWs and Entertainment workers after their exhausted work.

Which of NSWP priority areas does your organisation work on?
Oppose the criminalisation and other legal oppression of sex work and support its recognition as work
Critique the trafficking paradigm that conflates representations of sex work, migration, and mobility
Advocate for universal access to health services, including primary health care, HIV and sexual and reproductive health services
Speak out about violence against sex workers, including violence from police, institutions, clients, and intimate partners, while challenging the myth that sex work is inherently gender-based violence
Oppose human rights abuses, including coercive programming, mandatory testing, raids and forced rehabilitation
Challenge stigma and discrimination against sex workers, their families and partners, and others involved in sex work
Advocate for the economic empowerment and social inclusion of sex workers as sex workers
What are the two main challenges that the sex workers you work with face

Laws and policies deprived sex worker’s rights to work and to livelihood. WNU has been advocating for reviewing and changing the 2008 Law on the Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation (LSHTSE), prohibiting most of the activities associate with sex work, including soliciting in public and procurement for sexual service purposes The consequences of the law and policy have evidenced that condoms remain a huge challenge that police continue to use as evidence to crackdown sex work in massage parlours and imprison the owners. There has been a number of dialogues and a policy guideline issued by the Ministry of Interior not recommended to taking condoms as evidence to crackdown that lead to the arrest of sex workers but this implication remain unsolved.

Describe other areas of your work

WNU is the legal service, training on legal and human rights related to sex workers, so that their rights are equally defended and protected before the law. Also we are providing the informal education for children of sex workers and enroll them into public primary schools. With this opportunity, they are more inclusive in the community and we remove them from illiteracy. They could also build their selft-esteem from this education program.

Country
Cambodge