Katherine Koster has departed from the NSWP Secretariat after over three years in the role of Policy Officer.
Katherine joined NSWP in April 2017. During her time with NSWP, Katherine worked on a wide range of advocacy tools; case studies on technical support and international guidelines; meeting reports; and helped with drafting responses to external documents.
UNAIDS and NSWP have created an infographic to illustrate that sex workers have the same rights as everyone else and their rights must be respected.
View the infographic below or visit the UNAIDS website to download a printable version.
A new database, devised by feminists from around the world, has been developed to track COVID-19 responses and uplift the collective action of feminists globally.
Created by organisations and activists, working across global movements centered on human rights, sustainable development, and economic and social justice, their website outlines key principles for a just and resilient recovery from the ongoing global pandemic.
The key principles are:
The COVID-19 pandemic is a crisis unlike any other. The virus, which has spread across the world in just a few months, has affected the lives of millions of people and has profoundly changed the ways we live and work. For sex workers, this is a bad situation that has been made worse with restricted access to emergency funds and essential healthcare and an increase in raids, surveillance, and stigma.
Last week, the Uganda Key Populations Consortium (UKPC) and other civil society organisations released a statement strongly denouncing raids, arrests, extortion, and violent attacks targeting sex workers, barmaids and other vulnerable communities by police, Local Defense Units (LDUs), and Resident District Commissioners (RDCs) during the response to the spread of COVID-19.
The United States this week announced that they had passed 1.2 million recorded COVID-19 cases, and nearly 70,000 deaths. Despite these somber milestones, the country has been divided between those eager to get back to ‘business as usual’ and those who wish the lockdown to remain in effect. Left out of this debate are the sex workers who have had no choice but to continue working due to their exclusion from any government relief package.
Today Human Rights Watch reported on the International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe's (ICRSWE) statement calling for emergency support to sex workers amid the COVID-19 crisis.