Resources

NSWP collects resources about sex work and makes them available on our website. You can search NSWP’s online resource library via themes, resource types, language, region and year. The resource types include NSWP publications, member publications, international guidelines, research papers and other publications.

NSWP publications include a range of resources:

  • Briefing Papers and Community Guides examine issues affecting sex workers globally and provide recommendations for policy and practices. They are developed through sex worker-led policy analysis and an in-depth consultation process with NSWP members.
  • Policy Briefs and Community Guides examine issues affecting sex workers globally and provide recommendations for policy and practices. They are developed through sex worker-led policy analysis and e-consultation with NSWP members.
  • Global and Regional Reports document the lived experiences of sex workers on particular issues and make recommendations for future policy and good practices.
  • Research for Sex Work is a peer-reviewed journal, which explores a different theme in each issue.
  • The Sex Work Digest provides a quarterly round up of news stories, events and other information relating to sex work issues.
  • Smart Guides provide basic information on key issues that affect sex workers globally.
  • Case Studies reflect on the results and lessons learnt of activities and policies affecting the lives of sex workers.
  • Statements provide responses from NSWP and our members to emerging global issues that undermine sex workers’ human rights.
  • NSWP documents include organisational documents such as NSWP Strategic Plans and Monitoring and Evaluation Framework and NSWP Consensus Statement.

NSWP publications that are available in Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish are featured on the language-specific sections of this website.

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The African Sex Workers Alliance (ASWA), with support from the Key Populations Representation Evidence and Advocacy for Change in Health Programme (KP REACH), has published a study on violence against sex workers in Africa. Among the issues cited by sex workers as exacerbating violence against them are criminalisation and stigma, which impact access to health services and other amenities.

Theme: Violence

As part of its programme 'Rights not Rescue: Sex Work, Migration, Exploitation and Trafficking', ICRSE has published 'Trafficking 101: a community resource for sex workers' rights activists'.

Human Rights Watch and the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) have released a new report recommending the decriminalisation of sex work in South Africa, in order to protect the safety and wellbeing of women, and respond to the HIV pandemic.

This shadow report was submitted by Congolese sex worker-led organisations UMANDE and ACODHU-TS during the 73rd CEDAW Session, which took place June-July 2019.

Sex workers in Mozambique experience high levels and multiple forms of violence. Despite constant dialogue with the Government, the police act as protectors of sex workers, but they can also be perpetrators of violence. The relationship between sex workers and health unit professionals can also be problematic. This shadow report, submitted by sex worker-led Mozambican organisation Tiyane Vavasate Association during the 73rd CEDAW Session, which took place June-July 2019, highlights these issues.

Sisonke-Botswana and Botswana Network on Ethics, Law and HIV and AIDS (BONELA) submitted this shadow report during the 72nd CEDAW Session, which took place February-March 2019. The report elaborates on the situation of cisgender and transgender women who are sex workers in Botswana. The report focuses the criminalisation of sex work; violence, abuse, and failure to act on reports of violence by police; stigma and discrimination faced by sex workers in accessing health services, and lack of free antiretrovirals for migrants.

In February 2016, following pressure from fundamental feminist and abolitionist organisations, the Serbian government criminalised the purchase of sexual services through amendments to the Public Law and Order Act. Sex workers were ignored during discussion that preceded the adoption of the law. Selling sex remains criminalised. Criminalisation of the purchase of sexual services in Serbia has increased sex workers’ vulnerability to violence and marginalisation and reduced their access to services. Police continue to perpetrate violence against, extort money from, and ignore reports of violence against sex workers. Fundamental feminist and abolitionist discourse has increased the exclusion of sex workers from the women’s and LGBT organisations in the country.

STOPAIDS has published a new position paper supporting the decriminalisation of sex work, designed to support STOPAIDS members to advocate for decriminalisation within their own advocacy and programmes, and support the global sex worker rights movement.

The Global Fund continues to prepare for the 6th Replenishment meeting that will be hosted by the French Government in Lyon on the 10th October 2019.

Theme: Health

This case study focuses on the NSWP’s Global Fund capacity development programme for regional and national sex worker-led organisations, and assesses its impact. The programme supports a range of capacity building activities in 27 countries, and this case study focuses on the impact of these interventions in 2018. Specifically, the case study highlights the ability of regional networks and community experts to provide technical support relating to the Global Fund, and the capacity within sex worker-led organisations to engage with the Global Fund.

Download this resource: Global Fund Case Study - NSWP, 2019
Theme: Health

The Annual Report highlights the activities and achievements of NSWP in 2018. These activities include capacity building, providing technical support to regional networks and the development of advocacy tools that bring the human rights of sex workers into focus. It also highlights partnership working with the women's rights movement, key populations networks and UN agencies. 

Download this resource: Annual Report 2018, NSWP

This Briefing Note outlines the problems with the conflation of the term 'sexual exploitation' with sex work, and how this exacerbates harms to sex workers. 

To mark International Sex Workers' Day on 2nd June, SWAN published a new briefing paper on Sex Work Legal Frameworks in Central-Eastern Europe and Central Asia (CEECA).

This special issue of the Anti-Trafficking Review highlights some of the current achievements of, and challenges faced by, the global sex workers' rights movement. Contributors examine the ways in which organising and collectivisation have enabled sex workers to speak up for themselves and tell their own stories, claim their human, social, and labour rights, resist stigma and punitive laws and policies, and provide mutual and peer-based support.

Amnesty International has released a new report highlighting the routine use of rape, violence and torture by police to punish women sex workers in the Dominican Republic. The report - ‘If they can have her, why can’t we?’ - uses testimony from 46 Dominican cisgender and transgender women sex workers, and reports them suffering various forms of violence at the hands of police.

In the first Quarter of 2019 the Global Fund activities were dominated by preparations for the 6th Replenishment meeting, to be hosted by the French government in October 2019. The Global Fund will try and raise US$14 billion, which is 15% or US$1.8 billion more than was raised during the 5th replenishment period.

Theme: Health

This Briefing Note outlines the key areas within social protection systems that must be addressed in order to meet the needs of sex workers.

This resource is a Community Guide to the Policy Brief: The Impact of Anti-trafficking Legislation and Initiatives on Sex Workers. It provides an overview of the full Policy Brief, and provides key recommendations for policy makers and health service providers.