Resources

The article examines how language helps the construction of fictive kinships networks (family-like structures among marginalized populations) amongst Southwestern U.S. street-level sex workers. These networks establish ties and obligations - as well as power structures - between members of the community.

This article offers a historical account and critical assessment of the prostitution-reform debates’ considerable influence on anti-trafficking law and policy development over the last decade. The article exposes the difficulties of translating anti-prostitution ideology, borne out of closely held moral and ethical beliefs, into effective governance strategies.

The Challenge of Change is a collaborative report of the Standing Committe on Justice and Human Rights and the Subcommittee on Solicitation Laws in Canada.

This is the judgement of the Ontario Court of Appeal staying the ruling (pursuant to appeal) of Justice Susan Himel in the case Bedford v Canada, where the following sections of the Code were struck down: the common bawdy-house provisions, the living on the avails of adult prostitution offence, and the communication for the purpose of prostitution offence.

This report is the beginning of an important social dialogue about the role that the law will play in governing the sex industry in Canada. Pivot has argued that criminal law reform is the first step towards a shift from the status quo, where sex workers are subject to extreme levels of violence and social marginalisation, to a society where sex workers are empowered to create safe and dignified working conditions. Criminal law reform will be most effectively carried out if all levels of government consider the findings of this research and contemplate how areas of law that fall within their jurisdiction will play a role in creating a safe and legitimate sex industry.

This report about the human rights of sex workers in the United States was submitted under the following process. Human Rights Council resolution 12/27 "The promotion and protection of human rights in the context of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)", requested the Secretary General to prepare "an analytical study based on comments from Governments, United Nations organs, programmes and specialised agencies, particularly the Joint United Nations Programmes on HIV/AIDS and its co-sponsor agencies, in cooperation with relevant bodies of the United Nations system, including the Office of the High Commissioner and international and non-governmental organisation, on the steps taken to promote and implement programmes to address HIV/AIDS-related human rights".