This paper by PICUM discusses the impact of criminalisation on the human rights and dignity of undocumented migrant sex workers in Europe. It outlines the main legal frameworks affecting sex workers, and highlights how these intersect with other frameworks criminalising migrants in Europe.
Behind the Rescue: How Anti-Trafficking Investigations and Policies Harm Migrant Sex Workers is a report produced by Butterfly (Asian and Migrant Sex Workers Support Network), featuring the testimony of 18 Asian migrant sex workers, who contacted Butterfly when they were arrested, detained, and/or deported between May 2015 and August 2016 in Canada.
This resource is a Community Guide to the Briefing Paper: Migrant Sex Workers. It provides an overview of the full Briefing Paper, and provides key recommendations for policy makers and health service providers.
You can download this 5-page Community Guide above. This resource is available in Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.
This Briefing Paper explores the human rights barriers encountered by migrant sex workers as a result of their type of labour. It highlights their lack of access to services, as well as the increased precariousness and exclusion they face due to legal restrictions on cross-border movement and work in the sex industry. This paper also places migrant sex work in the context of international labour migration, using consultation responses from NSWP member organisations.
One hundred and twenty-five migrants were arrested in raids on New Year's Eve in Indonesia. The raid on Sun City nightclub in West Jakarta saw 76 Chinese women arrested. An additional 49 migrants were also arrested during similar operations, with individuals coming from various countries such as Australia, Hong Kong, India, Papua New Guinea, France and Italy.
The International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe have published the briefing paper Surveilled. Exploited. Deported. Rights Violations Against Migrant Sex Workers in Europe and Central Asia. It explores how criminalisation of migration, criminalisation of sex work and lack of economic and employment opportunities make migrant sex workers vulnerable to exploitation, violence and other human rights violations. It also provides key recommendations to ensure the rights of migrant sex workers are protected.
In this article, founding member of Butterfly Asian and Migrant Sex Workers Network, Elene Lam, argues that migrant sex workers are excluded from the North American sex workers’ rights movement. Abolitionist feminists argue against sex workers’ rights by using the missing voices of migrant sex workers. Lam provides arguments for the inclusion of migrant sex workers in the movement to prevent this from happening.
Asian sex worker Tammy Le was found dead on the 23rd of January in an apparent murder, according to NSWP member organisation Butterfly – Asian and Migrant Sex Workers Support Network. Her death is the latest in a series of murders of Asian sex workers over the past two years in the Hamilton and Mississauga region of Ontario, Canada. The previous two victims were Jiali Zhang in 2013 and Evelyn Bumatay Castillo in 2014.
NSWP member organisation Butterfly – Asian and Migrant Sex Workers Network have called for an end to anti-trafficking campaigns in Canada. Joining the call are No One Is Illegal, Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, STRUT, and NSWP member organisations Migrant Sex Workers Project and Maggie’s: Toronto’s Sex Worker Action Project. The group of organisations are centering the voices of migrant sex workers. Migrant sex workers in Canada face police harassment, arrest, detention, and deportation.
This briefing paper calls for the decriminalisation of sex work and sets out TAMPEP International’s arguments against the abolitionist feminist lobby groups that work to decriminalisation.