Resources

The All India Network of Sex Workers (AINSW), CREA, the Centre for Advocacy and Research, India and Lawyers Collective, and 43 sex worker-led organisations have jointly submitted this response to the UN Women consultation on sex work. They conducted three regional consultations with sex worker groups to come to consensus on principles which must be included in any policy on sex work. The participants of the consultations are calling on UN Women to ensure that the development of any policy be made through meaningful and inclusive consultation with sex workers. 

Midnight Blue has published their report Cases of Arrested Transgender Sex Workers which documents the human rights abuses faced by transgender sex workers in detention. Up until June 2016, Midnight Blue has monitoried the cases of 40 transgender sex workers who were arrested in Hong Kong. Many transgender sex workers in Hong Kong are migrant sex workers, and after their detention is complete they are often deported. Midnight Blue is demanding the criminal justice system review the human rights abuses against transgender sex workers in detention in Hong Kong.

Asia Catalyst has published their report The Condom Quandary: A Study of the Impact of Law Enforcement Practices on Effective HIV Prevention among Male, Female, and Transgender Sex Workers in China. Asia Catalyst conducted 74 in-depth interviews with male, female, and transgender sex workers, 18 interviews with key informants, and 517 responses to a survey questionnaire. The research was conducted in three major Chinese cities. The report found that using condoms as evidence of sex work violates the human rights of sex workers.

Asia Catalyst has published their report First Do No Harm: Discrimination in Health Care Settings against People Living with HIV in Cambodia, China, Myanmar, and Viet Nam. This research is based on 202 interviews conducted by 8 community organisations including NSWP member Aye Myanmar Association (AMA). It documents the discriminatory practices faced by people living with HIV in health care settings, and also provides examples of what rights-based health care looks like. 

The following is a letter was written by NSWP member EMPOWER Foundation Thailand to the Prime Minister of Thailand following the human rights abuses faced by sex workers during an anti-trafficking operation that resulted in the raid of Nataree Massage in Bangjoj by the Department of Provincial Administration. A total of 121 sex workers were apprehended in the raid.

Amnesty International has published their research entitled Outlawed and Abused: Criminalizing Sex Work in Papua New Guinea Summary to accompany their Policy on State Obligations to Respect, Protect, and Fulfil the Human Rights of Sex Workers. While there are no laws directly criminalising sex work in Papua New Guinea, there are laws surrounding sex work that put sex workers at risk of police violence, violence from the community, and violence from clients.

Amnesty International has published their research entitled Outlawed and Abused: Criminalizing Sex Work in Papua New Guinea to accompany their Policy on State Obligations to Respect, Protect, and Fulfil the Human Rights of Sex Workers. While there are no laws directly criminalising sex work in Papua New Guinea, there are laws surrounding sex work that put sex workers at risk of police violence, violence from the community, and violence from clients.

Amnesty International has published their research entitled Harmfully Isolated: Criminalizing Sex Work in Hong Kong to accompany their Policy on State Obligations to Respect, Protect, and Fulfil the Human Rights of Sex Workers. Sex work itself is not illegal in Hong Kong, but many activities surrounding sex work are included solicitation, owning or being found in a brothel, and living off the earnings of a sex worker. Amnesty International found that police violate the human rights of sex workers by abusing them, and using their power against them.

Amnesty International has published their research entitled Harmfully Isolated: Criminalizing Sex Work in Hong Kong to accompany their Policy on State Obligations to Respect, Protect, and Fulfil the Human Rights of Sex Workers. Sex work itself is not illegal in Hong Kong, but many activities surrounding sex work are included solicitation, owning or being found in a brothel, and living off the earnings of a sex worker. Amnesty International found that police violate the human rights of sex workers by abusing them, and using their power against them.

Amnesty International has published their research entitled "What I'm Doing is not a Crime": The Human Cost of Criminalizing Sex Work in the city of Buenos Aires Executive Summary, Argentina to accompany their Policy on State Obligations to Respect, Protect, and Fulfil the Human Rights of Sex Workers. Although sex work is not a crime in Argentina, sex workers, clients, and third parties are penalised through communication laws and anti-trafficking laws.

Amnesty International has published their research entitled "What I'm Doing is not a Crime": The Human Cost of Criminalizing Sex Work in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina to accompany their Policy on State Obligations to Respect, Protect, and Fulfil the Human Rights of Sex Workers. Although sex work is not a crime in Argentina, sex workers, clients, and third parties are penalised through communication laws and anti-trafficking laws.

In Australia, certain sexual acts performed in pornography are deemed offensive and degrading in criminal law. Zahra Stardust demonstrates how performer-producers are resisting government classification and criminal laws by engaging in sex workers' rights activism through creating performer-centered spaces and pioneering best practices labour standards. This article was published as a part of Research for Sex Work 15: Resistance and Resilience.

The EMPOWER Foundation Thailand report Moving Toward Decent Sex Work and its summary explores the protections offered to Thai sex workers under civil law and the application of other labour mechanisms to sex work. It provides an overview of the Thai sex industry and argues that to develop a reform process, people must hear how exploitation is defined and experienced by Thai sex workers. Decent Sex Work provides recommendations which are appropriate to prevent and address exploitation in sex work.

In New Zealand, the Prostitution Reform Act was passed in 2003. Its purpose is to decriminalise prostitution. Following the Act, the Department of Labour, in cooperation with the New Zealand Prostitues Collective (NZPC), developed the Occupational Health & Safety guidelines for the sex industry. This article looks at the development and effects of the New Zealand approach. It was written by members of the NZPC and was published as part of Research for Sex Work 14: Sex Work is Work.

This research investigates sex workers’ opinions on support services in Berlin, Germany. In Berlin, support services for sex workers range from financial, health and legal support to psychosocial counselling and support with issues of migration, etc. Most are carried out by social workers at NGOs targeted at sex workers. While some of these NGOs advocate for sex worker rights, many aim to ‘rescue’ sex workers and to abolish sex work. The researcher concludes there is a discrepancy between support services demand and supply. This article was published in Research for Sex Work 14: Sex Work is Work.

This is a summary of the findings of the Economic Empowerment: Does Rehabilitation Have a Role? briefing paper and the Overcoming Practices that Limit Sex Worker Agency in the Asia Pacific Region briefing paper. In this summary, NSWP reflects on the impact of economic empowerment programmes for sex workers.

This is a summary of the Asia and the Pacific regional report on economic and social empowerment and the Africa regional report on economic empowerment programmes for sex workers. In this summary, NSWP reflects on best practices for the economic empowerment of sex workers, focusing on elements of successful economic empowerment programmes and describing lessons learnt from programmes that fail.

The Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) stands by Human Rights Defender Alejandra Gil and Amnesty International’s decision to adopt a policy to protect the human rights of sex workers, including the full decriminalisation of sex work.

This Policy Brief is a short summary of evidence for action drawn from: The Right(s) Evidence: Sex Work, Violence and HIV in Asia - A Multi-Country Study and recent key studies and guidance including The Lancet Special Series on Sex work and HIV and the WHO Consolidated Guidance for K

This four-page illustrated brochure explains how the Samvedana Plus programme - in partnership with a community-based organisation of sex workers - is intervening with the women who face abuse, their intimate partners and the wider society to: